For a day when I appeared to do nothing I did well on getting articles into the media.
The Mirror republished my Twitter thread on thirty questions to ask Tory party leadership candidates ahead of the candidate debates this weekend.
I also had my regular National column out, because I had written it on Wednesday evening. It concluded:
I might be an optimist (I have to be to survive in the areas in which I work) but I have the sense that this might be a pivotal moment. Let me go out in a limb. I think that whoever replaces Johnson might be the last Tory prime minister for a long time to come.
There are moments in history when political parties die. It has happened before in the UK as a whole. The Liberals never recovered from the First World War, having been an essential part of the two party system for more than a century before then. It can also be argued that Labour ceased to have relevance in Scotland by 2015, with a very limited chance of revival.
I have a sense that this moment might be not dissimilar for the Tories. Not only are they bereft of ideas, they are ridden by scandal, and most crucially, they have moved so far from the centre ground of politics that they have ceased to have almost any relationship with the political party that once bore their name, or those that supported it. If the voting public realise that I think a collapse in their vote is possible in Scotland and way beyond it.
And, oF course, I may be wrong.
But I need something to look forward to.
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Many traditional tories are critical the party has have lurched too far to the left
That’s just a measure of how radicalised, fanatical and dangerous they’ve become.
… or how brainwashed they are by The Daily Mail or Telegraph (or Sun, Express, Times etc.)
The next prime minister may be the last Conservative in that office for the next two or three or four parliamentary terms, but nothing lasts for ever in politics. After 1997 came 2010; 1979 was followed by 1997; 1951 by 1963. The pendulum swings back, events happen, and it is very hard for a party to remain in office for longer.
We’ve had 12 years and counting of Conservative (and Conservative-led) government since 2010 and the pendulum is swinging back. Having purged many of the more centrist leaders in 2019, they are following their right-wing zealots off into the margins and becoming the “nasty party” again. How different might the Conservatives be today, if Gauke, Grieve, Hammond, Stewart, etc., were still in parliament? Brexit was “done”, but at what cost?
At heart, the Conservative ideology is about winning and keeping power. I fully expect the Conservatives to lose the next election, and spend some time in opposition reinventing themselves to win power back. As usual, since the franchise was extended, that means persuading poor people to vote against their own interests to maintain the economic and social power of the wealthy.
probably true Andrew
The best defence against their return is for the next govt to bring in proportional representation so never again will a party with 40% ish of the vote be able to rule by itself.
This doesn’t benefit us when the Lib Dems and Labour are both lined up ready to carry on in their place with the same policies. MPs who would have been Tories will simply now be in Labour or the Lib Dems, as many already appear to be.
They are not the same policies
Let’s not be silly
Their policies may not be what we want but they are not the same
I fear if either party gets in, those policies will morph. The big money behind the think tanks will see to it.
Well! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-nhs-pledge-privatisation-b2123849.html
He really is trying to make every mistake in the book
I don’t think you can explain his behaviour away like that. Rather, this is the morphing I speak of, happening right in front of us. It begins!
I agree that their policies aren’t the same but the way they barely deviate from establishment approved rhetoric must be a concern. Labour promised to Nationalise the railways and end the internal market in the nhs in 1997 and the majority to implement them. The present front bench are cut from the same none action cloth and are a conservative party in all but name. I would genuinely love to be proved wrong about them.
But the difference between Labour and the Tories is massive
Labour may be horribly neoliberal but the Tories are fascist- and let’s not ignore that
There is still affluence in this country, and that affluence is still pretty comfortable. The Tories I think can bank on that at the next election because many more people will who are not comfortable have just given up on politics. Given the state of the HM opposition, and there being no rallying point that I can see that serves as an alternative for us, then I’m not so sure.
I also go back to my point that should the Tories loose, what will be revealed by any new incumbent about exactly what they have been up to since 2010 will I’m sure render the Tories un-electable for years if not decades. I’m sure that they know this.
However, as you and others have pointed out, there prescriptions for sorting out their mistakes is more of the doing ‘the wrong thing righter’ approach, rather that anything new so you are right to end on an optimistic note which I too hope to see come to fruition despite my darkest fears to the contrary.
Well done getting those excellent questions into the mainstream. It will be interesting to see if they are picked up by the presenters running the TV debates.
I would like to think the Conservative Party has run its course, but I am not convinced. As things are at present UK politics automatically polarises to a two-party system. When the Liberals disappeared, the Labour movement already existed to take its place to the left of the Tories.
At the moment I don’t see an alternative to the Conservatives, whatever the strengths of the LibDems (and they have put thought into their policy positions) they don’t look as if they are placed to take over the right hand side of the see-saw.
What might be interesting in the next few years is that Rupert Murdoch is 91, and his family don’t seem to have the interest in newspapers he does and the surviving Barclay brother owner of the Telegraph is 87.
In addition of course the readership of the print edition of The Mail must be ageing
So how will this affect the media support for The Tories in the short to medium term?
Siince media’s so important an instrument of opinion manipulation, expect to see the surviving Koch brother start taking a keen interest in mediated news delivery. Of course, he might not be surviving too long himself, so after that, I don’t know. We know there are billionaires out there who are genuinely concerned about the prospect of civil disorder so they might band together and take a stand. We face times without precedent – who knows what’s next?
I suspect that much of the influence of newspapers stems from headlines seen either on billboards or news stands. These are often quite clever and get picked up by other news media.
There is also the question of who has stopped buying the papers. A pub near me boasts “a range of newspapers for patrons to peruse at their leisure.” The “range” consists in the Sun, Express and Mail, and the Sunday equivalents. I have not been there recently but I doubt that they have ceased subscribing.
Spending on newspapers has fallen by 25% since 2005 so why is everyone, especially the MSM so obsessed with reporting newspaper headlines every day. Surely this is a dying source of propaganda for the right wing.
Why are the non ring wing factions not taking advantage of this and planning strategies to expose it?
Came across this quote -from the 19th century but…
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1486818-conservatives-are-not-necessarily-stupid-but-most-stupid-people-are
Very good
Here is the original quotation in Hansard for 1866.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1866/may/31/committee-adjourned-debate#column_1592
“there is a dense solid force in sheer stupidity—such, that a few able men, with that force pressing behind them, are assured of victory in many a struggle; and many a victory the Conservative party have owed to that force”
🙂
I love it.
How long will this election of a new party leader take the Tories? Surely they could have used a preferential voting system, and the top two or three candidates could have been decided on the very first vote. But no, they must stick to their first past the post system, no matter how long it takes, with the subsequent paralysis of government.
If other nations can use a preferential voting system in their parliamentary elections (eg Australia), why can’t the Tories trial it to see if it is better?
I am also over the intense interest in this whole process being given by the political commentators. If they stopped talking about who has the better policy of austerity, or who is getting revenge for past deeds, then we would all be better off. Surely they can comment on why the solutions to the very real problems are getting kicked further down the road.
It’s not first past the post, though, is it? It’s a type of PR, where the last is eliminated until there are only two. The winner is the one with more than 50% of the eligible vote in the last round. How is that FPTP?
Watching the C4 event “ask an idiot politico that wants to be PM a question”. Tugenhat is doing OK – the others come across as apologists for Mendacious Fatberg = “the continuity crew”. The level of understanding of gov finances amongst the assembled cretins is not even pathetic – it goes beyond that into comical. Trussed is wittering on about removing the green energy levy – thinking that it going to make a difference. Oh and small modular reactors are the future.
Adding to the above – on the question of high energy bills – they don’t have any understanding whatsoever on why elec costs so much. In fairness to Johnson – he knew that the problem was gas & the market structure – the current bunch – utterly clueless. Bandenoch demonstrated her own imbecility with “magic money tree”. Mair failed to pick this up by pointing out that Sunak deployed it during Covid. Pathetic.
Agreed
Listening to Verdi’s Requiem on BBC2, first night of the Proms. Think I heard and saw it first on a similar occasion in the late 80s – 1988 perhaps.
Much more uplifting than the requiem for the Conservative Party on Channel 4.
Dona eis requiem sempiternam.
I watched it and felt much worse at the end
One thing surprised me : in reply to Truss, Sunak said that there was ‘no such thing as Covid debt’ (according to the BBC news summary on my mobile). Of course he must know that, but he and the rest of them have hitherto been at pains to pretend there is!
Before 2010 Theresa May said “It’s time for people to stop thinking of us as the Nasty Party”…
She didn’t say “It’s time we stopped being the Nasty Party”, and the Tory supporting media fell in line… Disappearing Dave (as he’s since become) was all nice and fluffy. Theresa May was the Dancing Queen (doing 80’s robotics moves) and Johnson was just a bit of a laugh, oh he’s SO funny, you can laugh at him, how bad can he be?
Well, I think we know the answer to that, but how the media are going to sell the less politically astute next Tory PM, I really have no idea…
So, it’s going to be as they did to Corbyn, a hatchet-job on Starmer, who also has no flies on him, so they’ll be invented.
My goof! I meant to say “Well, I think we know the answer to that, but how the media are going to sell to the less politically astute the next Tory PM, I really have no idea…”
And I really don’t… The spinmeisters are gaming this one hard as I type…
Maybe your first version was more to the point!
During the C4 extravaganza last night, one brief reference was made regarding energy standing charges but not expanded upon. This blatant, profiteering gambit, stealthily introduced by the energy companies needs to be set aside immediately and then critically investigated by Ofgem/CMA.
Standing charges are a rip off. My elderly mother did not use gas in her flat but because it was a LA property she could not have the meter removed. She had to pay a monthly charge for housing the meter. When I worked with youngsters in supported housing, they had key meters and if they ran out of money they would not be able to use any electricity. The standing charges still piled up though.
I began watching the so-called ‘debate’ last night – ‘debate?’ – it was just one statement after the other not supported by one iota of common sense or factuality.
Truss – I’ve realised that she does not actually speak – it barks.
Sunak – his talking about inflation and the way he tried to show empathy with those facing CoLC problems was cringeworthy. It was so insincere – you could tell that he actually has no idea.
Mordaunt – robotic – what’s all the fuss about?
Badenoch – ermmmmmm……….no actually – and since I think Michael Gove is in her stable, definitely not!
Twoguntwat – well at least he got some applause for ATFQ about Johnson’s honesty – the highlight of a threadbare evening for which I had to lose half an hour of C4 news. The feature on C4 News though on the mothers who were forced to give up their children out of wedlock though was unmissable and made me cry to be honest. How awful. And this lot of numpties on show in the ‘debate’ all seem to want to take us back to such times.
On the question of whether there will be a “hatchet Job” on Starmer similar to that done on Corbyn, a new book The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton does paint Starmer in an unfavourable light according to my wife who says she could no longer keep reading it because it was quite upsetting as some of his decisions that were counter human rights he made as DPC. I have not started reading it yet but whether a book can do the trick is another matter as Peter Oborne’s book on Johnson was completely destroyed his character with the counttless lies exposed and Johnson got away with it for a time but significant he didnt sue Oborne.
Unfortunately not until zombie, self-centred ‘Labourism’ is excised from the Labour Party and it makes dumping the UK’s TORY Past The Post voting system its number one manifesto priority.
A landslide awaits the first Labour leader brave enough (and decent enough) to do it.
Here’s something to read about covid.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/liz-truss-rishi-sunak-ministerial-diaries-hiding-basic-facts/
They will not tell us what they were doing at the time of covid. Not only that, when questioned by a committee in parliament, Liz Truss could not remember a single human rights issue she has brought up with any gulf states. She said she’d have to look in her diary! The same diary she won’t let Open Democracy see?
Will this be good or bad for her reputation and standing in the Tory party?
For those asking why the Tory Election has to be such a long drawn out affair the answer is simple.
It is a PR exercise and after three outings in six years the Tories have perfected it.
It follows three stages.
First it detaches the candidates from what went before. From the candidates and the media there is little or no mention of the corrupt and incompetent behaviour of what has gone before and the part they played in it.
It is truly amazing how quickly the British public can be brainwashed into forgetting.
Second, a space is created where for weeks all we hear are Tory voices telling us of the wonderful things that the Tories have done for us and all the wonderful things they will do in the future. Unlike a general election all countervailing opposition voices are excluded.
It is truly amazing how quickly the British public can be persuaded to accept ludicrous lies.
Thirdly, the length of the process, the TV “debates”, the respectful air of the media coverage and the effects of points one and two described above creates the illusion that the whole process is somehow legitimate and normal rather than the two fingers-up to democracy and the British public that it so obviously is.
It is truly amazing how quickly voters can be persuade that a boot kicking them repeatedly in the face is the best party to govern this country
Perhaps I just can’t remember it, but I don’t recall televised head to head debates when May and Leadsom were campaigning to replace Cameron in 2016, or indeed when any previous party leadership changed. Did this pantomime start in 2019? I’m deliberately avoiding it again this evening.
I suspect the media demand for this sort of thing became louder after the “I agree with Nick” election debates in 2010. Talking heads parroting simplistic lines to take. A fast-food version of politics.
I disagree.
Zombie Labour is working on keeping Tory Prime Minsters in power for the foreseeable through their worship of ‘TORY Past the Post’ voting…
“Sir Keir Starmer tells LBC it is “not a priority” to overhaul the voting system, instead focusing on growing the economy. ”
– As a result, Labour is virtually extinct in Scotland.
– As a result, Labour has to cling to the flag in a pathetic attempt to win back ‘red wall’ swing voters
– As a result, Labour sucks up to the billionaire press
Labour are an utter joke of an opposition.
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1547640550269997058
Hi Richard,
Just a note re. Standing Charge.
Wessex Water standing charge for water and sewage £14.oopa.
EDF Standing Charge for electricity/standard(variable)£210.93pa.
Corporate theft?
EDF tells me “These are difficult times-but you can depend on us.”
The current Tories originate from BNP then joined UKIP to eventually infiltrate in the Tory party claiming they are true conservatives. I agree with Chris Pattern wo recently stated that we do not currently have a conservative party but English nationalists.