Theresa May once described the Conservative Party as the Nasty Party. As Home Secretary and Prime Minister, she went out of her way to prove her point. However, things have become much worse since then. The Tories have now become the Very Nasty Party (VNP), or maybe something a little worse than that.
Under Kemi Badenoch, aided and abetted by the utterly gormless Chris Philp, the Tories are rudderless and grasping for anything that they might find that might gain them a shred of support from those of their one-time supporters who have not yet left to support Reform.
So, Badenoch has failed to speak out about Musk's shameless attacks on Jess Phillips, who, whatever you think of her politics, is not the person he has described.
She has not condemned Musk's claim that Starmer should be in prison, which is obvious interference by one state in another, given that he is now part of the incoming US government.
Nor has she condemned Musk's support for the so-called Tommy Robinson and his ugly racism.
Come to that, she has ignored Musk running a poll to ask if the US should liberate the UK from Labour rule.
Nothing, it seems, makes her think she needs to do more than echo Musk's comments, either by her indifference to them or by suggesting that she does not know if they are true or not.
She is even in denial about her own party's past governments and their utter failure to address the grooming issue, despite funding Commissions that looked into the issue, about whose findings they then did nothing.
The Tories have been playing in the political gutter for some time. Now they're in the sewers. It would seem that there is nothing that they will not now say to out-Farage Reform.
I doubt this will work for Badenoch. She lacks charisma, ideas, style, and voter appeal. She has nothing to offer in the House of Commons or outside it. Few, except Liz Truss, of such incompetence have been promoted as high as she has been. And she has no way back on her left flank: Starmer is firmly placed where May, Johnson and Sunak once were, ranking with them amongst the recent pantheon of useless UK prime ministers on the centre-right, whilst heading rightward whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Is there really any chance that the Tories will survive this failure? I am not convinced that there is. That leaves space open for Farage. Badenoch's problem is that most in her party rather like that idea. The days of the Very Nasty Party might be short-lived.
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Nor has she condemned Robert Jenrick for his Nick Griffinesque Tweet last Saturday.
Agreed
The BBC platformed him this morning
Many are comparing Jenrick’s tweet over the weekend to Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968. On that occasion (Tory opposition leader) Ted Heath sacked Powell on the spot. Today (Tory opposition leader) Badenoch: “we must be free to have difficult conversations…” – in other words ‘this is all fine (because I agree)’.
It’s appalling and disgusting.
Very Nasty Party (VNP) – perhaps even the Extremely Nasty Party (ENP)!
Maybe
Nick Robinson tried his best to make him answer for the last government’s inaction, but of course, he refused to deal directly with the question. He kept saying the Conservatives “took forward” Alexis Jay’s recommendations which means he knows they did nothing. Try as Robinson did to get him to explain what that meant, he failed.
“Badenoch has failed to speak out in support of Musk’s attacks on Jess Phillips” – are you sure you don’t mean she has failed to comment his attacks?
Corrected
Euuuurgh . . .
Intended as a reply to the BBC’s platforming Jenrick.
On C4 News last night there was another Tory emigre on – Tim Montgomerie – who has joined Reform. How a man who has openly talked about his mental health will bed in in an ‘anti-woke’ party like Reform I don’t really know. Also, a blogger with mental health issues? Should people with mental health issues be blogging at all? How do we know or not if his mental health issues colour his output to his rather large readership?
I watched Montgomerie and I found him to be really scary. He wears a thin patina of reason over more darker intent. There is a zeal in his eyes that is rather discomforting.
Many of the Nazi’s were truly ideological but also people who had doctorates etc., so could be seen as really intelligent people sucked into an evil enterprise. This is what gave the Nazis a really nasty edge – the intelligence behind the ideology, intelligence put to bad use. Every evil thing they did was on purpose. The evils perpetrated by the the Tory party emulate some of that (just look at housing policy in this country) but a lot of it is also based on ignorance.
When you look at the Tories – people like Chis Phelps – and even Tim Montgomerie all I see are opportunitsts – not people of ability at all. They are tools for nastier people. We all know that Reform is a single issue party and beyond its main policy issues has little to offer as potential governors of the country. But then again the Tories are a single issue party – power for power’s sake, nothing more.
Badenoch is also an opportunist, using a borrowed name – reckless, just like all the others like Aeron Davis has pointed out in 2018.
But that is the the Neo-liberal world where you can open your trap and say and assert outrageous things or agree with others just by your silence.
Labour is also a single issue party – its job is to destroy the Left. Ruling comes second – they seem to put more effort into the former.
We are in an inchoate period in politics now, on the way quite possibly to a very market fundamentalist society endorsed and protected by the government we vote for. The ‘benign’ dictatorship of the old rich is nearly gone, and we are going to be in the hands of Thatchers barrow boys now where it is dog eat dog.
“Should people with mental health issues be blogging at all?” I’d say that’s a dangerous comment to be making. I want to add that I really like a lot of what you say, but to question whether an identified group (people with mental health diagnosed) should be blogging, that’s scary stuff. People with MHPs are discredited and undermined by diagnosis, (who trusts the view of someone who’s view has been called into question?) This has historically led (and still leads) to people with MHPs being disregarded, in some cases leading to death (see the Lampard enquiry). In my own line of work, the failure of mental health services is a matter of routine not exception, and there is little redress since the views of people with MHPs are seen as untrustworthy, unworthy of due regard. The stigma and exclusion people face is horrendous. Please consider your comment, I really don’t think you intended it in the way that it reads.
I do not think the commwnt was right – and should have said so
Tim Montgomerie does not seem well to me, but I thought he might be suffering a physical condition, but that’s not the point. Mental ill-health is far too common to be stigmatised and when neuro-divergence is too often called mental ill health I cannot agree that people with any such condition should not blog. This blog might not exist if that was a condition…
Ah, right, Okay, I thought it was a bit risque but I thought that I’d seen something interesting that required unpicking, albeit clumsily.
My comment is about the general lack of policing of comments generally in the blog-o-sphere or whatever we want to call it. And that includes some thinking about my own motivations and mental health. Is my input here the product of mental health issues or ideology? Is it me that is the problem, rather than the likes of Musk, Trump, austerity and Tim Montgomerie. Am I at odds with reality? It is getting to the point where I am not so sure or am I sure? Montgomerie made me consider something because of what he says and why he has done it, why he has thrown his lot in with Reform. Reading his record and his past blogs………well I am diametrically opposed to someone who has made a good living and been at the heart of governments that have hurt people as well the many negative things he has said – just by opening his mouth.
I don’t think the rules and suitability of what is said for consumption online or the media is always considered.
I don’t think that there are any clear rules. And I think any of us can fall of foul of this, such has been the weakness of patrolling what is said and its affects. And there are extremes that we are living with now which are the product of this lack of – I don’t know – standards(?) in which this blog has to operate and is responding to even today even though ‘here’ is one of the more thoughtful and detailed blogs out here for sure, in my opinion anyway.
There is anger and frustration aplenty and having somewhere to let steam off or just say what you think is a contribution to one’s mental health in itself and is one thing – I’ve done it myself and given my work in the public sector, it has been useful to me to come here and let off steam by sharing experiences at the sharp end and contributing to analysis.
But another thing is to give opinions like Montgomerie has – to support a government of the nature we have seen and then to pop up on TV representing a far Right group to suggest that the role and impact of racially motivated rape gangs have been downplayed – I don’t know? ! Watching and listening I was discomfited not by just him, but by the very notion of contributing to blogs (of which I only contribute to one – this one) being on TV and everything else. Am I part of a wider problem?
I think my question still might stand. And I should be able to ask it of others and our selves. Okay, so I have mentioned an individual who has confessed to one and all about his MHP. Is there a relationship or not? I don’t know. Is it relevant or not? Is Musk normal? Trump? What is normal these days?
Is Montgomerie playing the sympathy card? A sympathy he has not extended to immigrants, Muslims and at one time gay people? Does his MHP make him ‘innocent’. Is he a lost soul looking for a cause? Harmless?
He might be all of these things but look where he has been operating – not some blog like this one that has had to work bloody hard to be heard. He has been at the centre of power and funding and platforms to say what he wants and contributed to what can only described as bad things.
So, some of you may think that I am taking the ball and not the man. Fair enough. I thought I was asking a bona fide serious question though, in a world where the personal and the individual has been comodified and shared like never before. Some of us will bear our afflictions privately, having self awareness of its impact on others; others will not because they lack such awareness or maybe because it pays?
Richard – I am sorry to have compromised you – sincere apologies and my apologies to others for maybe going a step too far.
I think to ask questions is fair
Come to that, she has ignored Musk running a pool
a poll?
Corrected!
Imagine Philp was your MP – sadly I don’t have to. His election leaflet claimed many achievements none of which were justified. Lack of PR means he will forever have his safe seat (an abomination in themselves)
Very obviously the news today that right-wing policians like Nigel Farage get paid by social media like X for posting controversial opinions and Facebook will no longer use fact checkers reveals that we are increasingly being groomed by the rich to move towards fascism and away from democracy such as we have. The Conservative and Labour parties should be viewed in this light as groomers for the rich. There is after all money to be made either directly or as “perks”!
I don’t think the rich want to move towards fascism, except those (Musk) embedded with its unwitting champions (Trump). For the vast majority there’s too much risk. Better to manipulate democracy and all its institutions that protect them, as has happened for ever, but especially since the 1950’s when the Democrats became Republicans and, in the UK, the 1970’s, when Labour became Tory-lite.
‘I don’t think the rich want to move towards fascism,’
If you read your history clearly, you’ll find that the rich do really well out of fascism – they really do.
As a related question and comment, isn’t is unlikely that any political Party would willingly let anybody have access to their membership lists? So isn’t it possible,even likely, that many “Daily Mail” voters belong to both the Tories AND Reform? Who would monitor this? Both Parties share the same attitudes and prejudices, so it wouldn’t be possible for loyal members to detect any adherence to unnacceptable views that might suggest an infiltrator. They must all say much the same.
On the Centre and Left,on the other hand , Labour has been very active in expelling members because of what they have said or believed.
Either way, I have long suspected a great overlap in membership between the Tories and Reform , such that they constitute a very nasty ” Single Transferable Party” within the greater “Single Transferable Party”.