I have posted this on Twitter:
I mentioned the implausibility of any of the Tory leadership candidates managing the messaging that the Tories must now create if they are to take on Labour, the LibDems, Reform, the SNP and the Greens simultaneously. I think it is beyond the wit of either of the remaining candidates to work out the messaging on anything.
Maybe the Tories really are over. Electing a completely ridiculous twice in two years is more than any party can do and hope to survive, however long their history. And to be blunt, these two are batshit crazy. On this occasion, I can think of no better description.
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A batshit crazy white man or a batshit crazy black woman? I wonder who the Tory faithful will choose.
I think that is very unfair
Bad-Enoch isn’t clever enough to be bat-shit crazy – just somewhat unimaginative and with collagen replacing neurons in her skull.
Jenrick is piltdown-tory more to be pitied than anything else – but, again in fairness, the tory party is now Piltdown tory or……..fake & fake.
Not so much a political movement more the twitching of massed zimmer frames – will the last person to leave please switch out the light .
TBH if you put Farage in there, the gammonati that now constitute the Tory membership would give him a landslide win. Tory and Reform are converging, and all that is stopping a merger is egos.
Well think about it…. the probability that one of these steal Farages’s thunder to the point he loses interest is far higher than if Cleverly is leader and at that point the Reform vote transfers over. Ultimately the collective of reform plus conservative is far higher than Labour and that will remain unless Cooper sorts out the immigration issue and Starmer improves his rating in the polls.. the overriding probability is that one of these two forms the next Government.
It’s a view
But not one I share
It really isn’t. It’s far more complicated than just adding the last GE figures. The fair question would be – Would someone as conservative as Theresa May vote for a party led by one of those two? The core Tory vote (not the members) is not far-right ‘populist’. They have more in common with the Greens than Farage.
“They have more in common with the Greens than Farage” Indeed – at least two of my normally tory relatives voted Green at the last election.
“Sorts out immigration”?? That must be for the exisiting Tory and Reform voters (who already vote for them), who say immigration is the top issue.
Other people in this country (i.e. non Tory voters who are the majority) top issues are health and the cost of living.
Tories and Refrom have no answers for the cost of living or health (except privatising the NHS – very popular policy) and only offer more Thatcherism.
I want to reserve my judgement a little. Michael Chessum (who led in the past Another Europe is Possible, the left wing pro-European group (in which I am a member), and now writes for Novara) wrote these two tweets, this afternoon on Twitter:
“Any Labour commentator who thinks a Tory Party run by Badenoch or Jenrick is a gift is deluded. Starmer is on course to implement austerity, reinforce anti-migrant narratives and alienate voters.
These are exactly the conditions required for a proper far right government in 2029”
“Really enjoying the vibe of many clever centrists today: “haha haha silly Tory far right with its extremist candidates, they’re bound to lose against the grown ups.”
Yeah, it’s not like the pro-Brexit Tory right have defied expectations and beaten you in the recent past is it?”
I hope – and he also hopes – he’s wrong, but there is part of me that thinks he may be right?
I don’t think we should celebrate.
Labour coukd let them rise again no problem. Badenoch has been campaigning for two years plus she will now tone it down
The Tories don’t stand a chance with dispossessed millennial voters anyway. It doesn’t matter who the leader is. The Tory’s only hope is the Labour don’t redress the abject pisstake of millennials who work far more for far less than previous generations.
Let’s not forget something here.
Either of the two remaining candidates might be attractive useful idiots for someone with capital who wants to dabble in politics. Their success is ultimately down to money and how successful they are dealing with the small majority who vote, who seem to be nothing but swing voters with short memories.
The easiest way for Starmer to close them down is to copy them. And he is because the Blue Labour Project is alive and well.
And I think that because this is all about who is king of the castle and nothing to do with helping people, cowardly Starmer/McSweeney will go for that option. I think the evidence supports this.
Remember that one of the things with FPTP is that it is trap waiting to be sprung for any government that gets in a difficult situation either brought upon itself (usually for the Tories by their own boorish behaviour) or by events (economic strife for Labour).
Sorry something poignant has just occurred to me.
This result is not the end of the Tories.
This is the end of serious politics in this country as I see it.
And this is going to have huge consequences.
Politics has become a circus and the rich have all the bread.
“Panis et circenses”—bread and circuses eh, Colonel?