The Tory party has become ‘culturally inbred’ and starts to resemble the deranged Hillbillies of Hollywood myth, just with shirts from Jermyn Street and a better wine list. People like Crispin Blunt et al seem to believe they have a natural right to be in charge because… well, just because. Even marginally democratic input like the Conservative Party members choosing Liz Truss is intolerable as they wanted Rishi Sunak. This of course also explains why Brexit drove them into the florid stage of insanity, given the oiks simply refused to do what their betters had told them to do.
So, Liz Truss is now a sock-puppet for her political rival, a PM in office but not in power. Perhaps a stronger woman would have resisted the pressure and turned things around even at this late stage, but we now know Liz Truss is not such a woman. She seems to have naively assumed that having forced out Boris (who to be fair set the stage of this entire shitshow), the same people would then abide by the Party membership’s wishes and allow her to actual govern.
The absurdly named Conservative Party is in the midst of a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) due to its internal ideological contradictions. Far from being a broad church, the Wets, better described as Blue Blairites, people with more in common with LibDems or pre-Corbyn Labour Party than the free-market low tax wing of the party, have decided only they are fit to be in power.
That’s it, one hundred years on from 1922 the Tories as currently understood are doomed. They need to crash and burn and indeed they will. The Labour government that will follow is going to be economically and culturally even worse (which given how crap the Tories have been will a remarkable achievement, but I believe Labour is absolutely up to the task). But the destruction of the Conservative Party we know has to happen. We have just arrived at the end point of where 30 years of “lesser evil” voting has led us.
Right then, what eventually comes next 5 to 10 years from now after Labour take their turn to trash the nation? Hard to say but at least we can’t blame the EU now. Perhaps something that calls itself the Conservative Party under Kemi Badanoch will arise from the ashes? A Conservative Party that is actually is a conservative party? Or maybe Reform UK? Perhaps something else entirely? I really don’t know.
Addendum: And Truss is gone. She had some of the right ideas but proved to be as useful as a chocolate teapot politically. Perhaps that is unkind, and given the now toxic internal contradictions in the Party have fully manifested. It was a poison chalice no matter who was the leader. The enforcers of Blue Blairite orthodoxy are determined to destroy the party and that is that, all we can do it watch the unedifying spectacle unfold.
I am not a ‘hastener’, thinking worse will lead to better, but Truss should dissolve Parliament and deselect every Wet and take the miserable Twitter-obsessed fools who comprise the bulk of her MPs with her, and let’s have Ragnarök, after which a better world rose.
That would at least give liberty a chance, whereas now there is none.
Having spent a bit of time as a journalist around Tory MPs, on the whole I have come to loathe these people as the supercilious fools they are. There are honorable exceptions, but the numbers are few and far between.
I think much of the modern Conservative Party, and indeed parts of the other parties, has fallen for a political version of the Precautionary Principle. All risk as much as possible must be avoided. In economics, that means clinging to money printing and very low interest rates, tax-and-spend, no real cuts to tax, no serious deregulation, or building of anything that upset the Greens, or the NIMBYs, etc.
The question is whether, after a decade of more of this, with all the stagnation, bossiness and intrusiveness it brings, will there be a sufficiently large number of voters who are angered enough to vote for a genuinely small-government brand of conservativism, or whatever other label there is.
As a sign of how the financial “establishment” operates, Lloyds Banking Group has just pledged to cease all investment in new coal, gas, oil and forms of nuclear energy. One of the UK’s largest banks, bailed out by the taxpayer a decade ago, is deliberately choosing to invest in energy that is more expensive, and will probably damage returns for its shareholders. And everyone (well, almost everyone), applauds. Few journalists ask the hard questions.
Part of the current problem also is that the media, with the odd eccentric exception, think that the Tories’ reversion to Cameroonian stagnation and LibDem tribute band act is fine, and welcome it. Many of the reporters and editors who cover this stuff hold the same, broadly accepted set of views on what is “sensible” about this or that. It is a huge echo chamber. One of my disappointments is that while the internet, and blogs, have fragmented this a bit, it hasn’t done so as much as I would have hoped.
Niall ever-the-optimist Kilmartin see dramatic and happier possibilities as also possible – but sadly notes the requirement for the word ‘also’.
Dramatic contradictions are also possible. Liz narrowly got her start-fracking vote (I think – of course, I could be an eon out of data, a.k.a 12 hours in current UK politics). Is this
versus the rival strategy
The silly lockdowns had to be paid for at some point. The costs of the silly AGW rubbish was always going to mount up too. And the woke power agenda is a cost all in itself. It is unfortunate that Putin is bringing another costly power agenda to the table at the same time.
Hill Billies (“Scots Irish”, Protestant Irish, Americans) would not allow officials and “international agreements” to determine.
“Sorry minister – you cannot stop illegal immigration, because the ECHR will not allow it, and we can not get out of the ECHR because of the Belfast Agreement and the Scotland and Wales Devolution Acts and ….”
“Hill Billies” would tell the officials to go-to-Hell and do it anyway.
Sadly, the party is NOT made up of “in bred hill billies” – if only it were.
As for “the markets” – well we now know what that term now means, a handful of corporations backed by the Central Banks (a Cantillon Effect Western World economy).
That system is going to come to an end soon – the end of the Cantillon Effect economy will be terrible, but at least it will be the end.
Does the party leader have absolute power to select or deselect candidates? (And if so, why did Boris do such a bad job of it?)
…and she’s gone.
Even as a sock puppet she wasn’t much cop. Looks like the Tories are going to have to be cast back into the political wasteland for another decade or more to learn what it means to be Conservative again.
They keep trying to force use the usual suspects of the WEF on us, but we’ve been pretty resistant to the charms of idiots like Rishi Sunak and his tax avoiding wife, Jeremy Hunt-the-Cunt, Matt Hancock and the rest of the blob. No doubt they’re going to try for a leadership appointment by acclamation rather than a leadership election.
Utterly worthless shower of bastards.
No doubt another coalition rollercoaster beckons cum the next election. I don’t know about a Vote of No Confidence, but I have no confidence in this bunch of parliamentary swamp creatures.
Truss started wanting to be Thatcher and ended up as Ted Heath. Starmer will be Harold Wilson, and it will be fun watching him cut public spending anyway. Whether the UK can take another Thatcher is a tricky one. I don’t think press or public are ready to go through all that again. Yet.
I cannot see Rishi Sunak being acceptable. However unfair, the attacks on his wife, his wealth, etc, are only going to come back if he returns.
The “sensibles” who want higher taxes, a Big State, Net Zero, and all the rest of this, can damn well be in power, and they can own the consequences.
Emigration has to be an option I recommend for people in a position to embrace it.
From the outside, the appearance is that much of the problem in the UK is the same as the one in the US–The supposed “conservatives” are merely the opposition party wearing a different outfit in order to fool the rubes. Neither the Tories nor the Republicans really believe in the dog food they’re selling the public, and they won’t eat it themselves, either.
This creates a certain element of public cognitive dissonance, because what they say isn’t what they do, in power. So, you have this constant cycle of the two parties ineffectively opposing their supposed “enemies”, then blundering into power, where they then do… Exactly what they railed against. Which then leads to them being thrown out of power, empowering the left yet again, who screws things up by the numbers, and the cycle continues… It will go on until it doesn’t, and then it’ll be the whole sorry edifice that crashes.
I venture to predict that the US is going to see a “sea change that isn’t, really” with the voting in November. They’ll get a Republican-majority Congress, which will then proceed to do nothing at all about any of the Democratic Party-created issues, and we’ll have more of the same until the public grows disgusted with them and throws them out of power, where they’ll go back to their most comfortable position, being “opposition that really… Isn’t.”
Eventually, enough people will see through the charade, and they’ll all be thrown out. Likely, well after they blow everything up.
Nigel Farage was on the Dan Wootton show last night. Asked if he would re-enter politics he said only if “others” joined him. I presume he means the Kemis and Suellas of this world. This seems odd because Farage does not strike me as much of a team player.
If Sunak becomes PM he will never overcome the fact that he held a US Green Card while serving as a member of the UK parliament.
And he would deserve all the attacks that would come his way about that. The Conservatives would be mad to choose him.
But now,at 4.07pm UK time there is serious talk that Boris Johnson might come back.
Remarkable.
The Conservative Party deserves to be wiped out. Ideally a party based on policies advocated by the Reform Party, put forward by some sort of coalition involving Farage, Fox, Braverman and more will win the next election.
Unfortunately that is exteremely unlikely.
There can only be one choice – a leader currently in exile, scorned by many, but who has already proven his ability to win elections by appealing to the people other politicians cannot reach…
DONALD TRUMP FOR PRIME MINISTER!
” Liz narrowly got her start-fracking vote”
Wasn’t it a ‘Labour trying to ban fracking entirely’ vote, not a ‘Lets start fracking tomorrow’ one? Winning the former does not mean any actual fracking will ever take place.
Very true.
To say the least. And frankly not convinced Nigel would be very useful to Kemi, he comes with too much baggage, but I could be wrong.
The latest Graham Brady rules requiring candidates to have the support of at least 100 MPs would appear to be cynically designed to stymie the likes of Braverman and Badenoch and present the members with Sunak/Mordaunt following which the dutiful Penny will do a Leadsom thereby ensuring the “right result”.
How possible is it that Boris can also scrape together 100 supporters? If it goes to the members he will surely beat either of the aforementioned.
Perhaps Kemi, Suella, and like-minded people should defect, start their own party, and hold primaries for all seats in which they and their comrades are not incumbents.
Eventually, they should hold primaries for ALL seats.
As I have tried to say previously the latest variant on the rules seems to be designed for a Sunak/Mordaunt matchup followed by the dutiful Penny pulling a Leadsom giving the membership no say at all.
Unless Boris can pull together 100 MPs, in which case he will surely be the preferred choice of the party membership, the “correct” result will be achieved at the second attempt. The anti-Johnson plots and leaks will therefore begin shortly.
Nah @Snorri. If there’s to be any new party it needs to have a strong base in the country first and get rid of all the useless wonks that haven’t done a proper days work in their lives, just followed the political route.
“Professional” politicians are one of the problems with modern parliaments because they’ve never done anything else and can only posture about “Speaking to the people”.
Even old Labour understood this.
Kirk said: From the outside, the appearance is that much of the problem in the UK is the same as the one in the US–The supposed “conservatives” are merely the opposition party wearing a different outfit in order to fool the rubes. Neither the Tories nor the Republicans really believe in the dog food they’re selling the public, and they won’t eat it themselves, either.
Indeed, this is a similar problem throughout much of the western world. Even when we elect supposedly Conservative governments they’ve either been lying entirely or simply lack the stomach for the inevitable fight with the permanent governing class that immediately goes to war against them. I have no opinion on Liz Truss myself – maybe she had good ideas, maybe there are good reasons to oppose her. Not really my area of interest.
But at some point we need to figure out how to defeat the permanent government resistance. The UK succeeded with Brexit, demonstrating that it is at least theoretically possible on certain issues. In any case, best of luck to whoever succeeds Liz.
Really? Not so sure about that. We’ll be back in before long, I fear. The Tories are still wracked with infighting over this which is an underlying current in the present unpleasantness, the other parties are basically just biding their time. As soon as a Labour government is elected, possibly in as little as 5 weeks time from now, I would not be surprised if the new Government quickly submits an application for membership to the EU. The pretext will be the economy.
I dunno about Britain going back into the EU, TBH. My read on the EU is that it’s going to be moribund and on the way out, once the Germans finish wrecking their economy. How long can they afford to prop it all up, once the money’s gone? How long will the Germans subsidize the whole thing?
The EU was a catastrophe from the beginning, and never something that the mass of the people inside it signed up for. All of the votes were based on false pretenses and representations from the great and the good, nearly all of which are turning out to be a mess of pottage. You have the EU bureaucratic numpties decrying Meloni as some sort of crypto-Fascist, while at the same time offering the Italians… What?
I think that if Britain goes into the EU again, it’ll likely be just in time for the whole sorry charade to cave in around them. Which would be totally on-brand, now, wouldn’t it?
I would not be surprised if the new Government quickly submits an application for membership to the EU
…………..and agrees to pay an 11 digit joining fee.
I think it has to be Suella Braverman or Kemi Badenoch.
Only these two are making a real stand against Frankfurt School “Woke” Marxism – I “bang on about” this because it is important.
And only these two will make a stand against mass illegal (welfare) immigration, and out of control government spending.
Yeah, exactly.
If either of them are actually likely to make a stand (on any subject) then we’ll just be treated to a repeat performance of Truss’s fifteen minutes of premiership. It’ll be a company man one way or another. That’s assuming Charlie boy doesn’t just straight out invite Kier Starmer to form a government, which is a distinct possibility if somewhat unlikely.
Alex, I think you overestimate the Labour backing for EU.
BTW I really don’t want Badenoch to end up running the party until after the next General Election (i.e. The Wipe-Out). If by some evil miracle she took over now, same thing would happen to her as happened to Truss. The party is quite literally not worth leading right now, a poison chalice.
Perry is quite right in his latest comment. I myself would reject the leadership of the “Conservatives”, if offered.
Still, one must remember that there is a need to vote tactically in the general election, to enable Kemi or like-minded candidates to rise to leadership.
You’re probably right. The party members on the far left aren’t necessarily pro-EU but the parliamentary party is at least split on the issue. But it isn’t so much that I think that Labour themselves have a great urge to “correct the anomaly” of “Brexit”, rather I think the civil service is vehemently opposed to Brexit and has been sabotaging this government. A new government, any new government, that lacks a strong policy on the issue will quickly find itself guided towards rejoining, I think. Kier Starmer and his circle are decidedly untrustworthy on such matters. I hope I am wrong.
I absolutely agree with you regarding KB and not wanting her to inherit the poison chalice. This government is definitely over one way or the other, even if they limp on to a 2025 General Election they simply cannot do anything worthwhile and what little credibility was left has truly gone. The old adage about incumbents losing elections rather than oppositions winning them seems truer than ever, and frankly that’s the only way Labour could win at present but they are on course to do so. KB would be well advised to stay out of it and prepare for leadership in opposition.
Paul Marks wrote: I think it has to be Suella Braverman or Kemi Badenoch.
Only these two are making a real stand against Frankfurt School “Woke” Marxism – I “bang on about” this because it is important.
And only these two will make a stand against mass illegal (welfare) immigration, and out of control government spending.
Forgive me, but if one of the Conservative Party planks is lower taxes and reduced spending, and the party just ran their own PM out of town on a rail for suggesting that Parliament needs to lower taxes and reduce spending, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing when whoever ends up as the new PM mentions opposing mass illegal immigration (another one the Conservative Party planks)?
Britain will not rejoin the EU because it will not meet the preconditions, dumping the pound for the euro etc. Most likely Britain will join Macron’s EU lite group.
[…] Mr De Havilland said: […]
Stupid question, sorry: Does the UK PM leave the legislative branch upon selection and become the head of the executive branch of the UK government, but serving only at the pleasure of that same legislative branch?
bobby b
No, the Prime Minister remains an MP during and after holding that executive office, so Johnson and May remain MPs. May even stood again in 2019 at the General Election. It used to be the case that Government Ministers ceased to be MPs as they had taken an office of profit under the Crown, but that rule was scrapped in the interests of Pork.
MPs cannot resign from the House of Commons but they can be disqualified by asking to be appointed by the Chancellor to a nominal office of profit under the Crown, either the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or of the Manor of Northstead. Both offices are unpaid sinecures with no duties, but useful legal fictions.
The idea presumably being that to protect MPs from outside pressure they cannot resign.
What is up with the West? The Tories are destroying their own party. Our leaders, of any party, are destroying their countries and leading their people into the desert from air conditioning and high availability power, food and health care.
it’s almost as if every politician has decided to commit suicide and take as with them. Including their own families. No sane person does this. Nobody in history has done what we are seeing here,
What is going on?
Exactly so. The Party’s internal contradictions can no longer be papered over; the Tories no longer serve any purpose.
@Lord T,
The gramscian march through the institutions has been so successful that even people who thought themselves as not leftoids, actually are. Ditto for much of the populace.
There’s no popular support for Truss’ policies – 30 plus years of additional indoctrination made sure of that. Even Thatcher couldn’t have overcome these odds.
It’s truly remarkable.
The ray of hope comes from reality, the Gods of the Copybook Headings. It’s not just the tories, the whole rotten edifice has to crash and weed out the chaff so the survivors can look back and wonder – why were we so blind?
Mr Ed wrote:
A follow-up question: when did this change occur?
And since we are at it: Before the rule change, were Government Ministers invariably picked from the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or could the PM pick anybody he (not she, at the time) thought suitable for a given ministry?
Steven R and Perry.
Liz Truss never suggested reducing government spending – I wish she had, but she did not.
However, I supported her tax proposals anyway – as they were just a matter of rolling back recent tax increases (even the 45% to 40% was a matter of rolling back a tax increase of the last Labour government).
It was Mrs Truss who gave way on her tax proposals – not me. Now we know what “the markets” now are, a handful of vast corporations supported by the Central Banks, so “the markets condemn the tax cuts” is not an argument I respect – I could not give a Tinker’s curse what “the markets” want. Especially as “the markets” did not utter a peep about the wild government spending of the last few years – including in 2022 (the blank cheque to Ukraine and the blank cheque to many other matters as well). “The Markets” are political – they have a political agenda. That is out in the open now.
Politically the collapse on the rolling back of tax increases was taken as a sign of weakness – because it was a sign of weakness. Liz Truss might as well have cut herself, leaving a blood trail in the water, and then gone swimming with sharks. Once the lady started to give way on the tax reductions – she was finished.
The same is true of immigration – giving in to the “international community” (much the same people who sometimes call themselves “the markets”, a handful of vast corporate and government entities who meet in Davos and other such places) on mass illegal immigration is also a sign of weakness – we should rip up the European Convention on Human Rights and all these other “international agreements” (“Belfast Agreement” or not) – including the “legally nonbinding” ones.
The Civil Service and local government officials (and corporate managers) and (increasingly) the JUDGES do not consider Agenda 2030 and the rest to be “legally nonbinding” – so it is time these agreements were formally destroyed.
“The Tories serve no purpose – time for a Labour Government”. The latter words “time for a Labour Government” are not spoken – but it is what the line means.
The Tories serve no purpose only if they choose to go along with all this – sadly, since John Major, the Conservative Party has gone along with this agenda.
If it continues to do so – then Steven R and Perry you are CORRECT – but do not expect some wonderful new party to emerge.
You will just get Labour governments – for ever. Well till the country collapses – really collapses.
I have been involved in party work for 43 years – unpaid. Political parties at a local level are a lot of work – they are essentially tribes, who work over generations. Generations of families – father to son, mother to daughter.
You cannot just pull something like that out of a top hat.
Snorri – you asked a question, and I will try an answer it.
In the past the King or Queen choose the ministers and sat in on their meetings (what we now call “the Cabinet”), even Queen Anne did this – and vetoes legislation she disliked (Scots Militia Bill) as well.
But George the First could not speak English – he could not really choose ministers (he had to act “on advice”) and he could not sit in on their meetings, because he could not understand what they were saying.
So, Sir Robert Walpole exercised such powers – from the House of Commons, he was he first “Prime Minister”.
Essentially the present system is an historical accident – based on George the First not being able to speak English when he became King.
Once politicians got this power – they did not let it go.
Some people ask me why I look at the Economist magazine when I hate it so much. I look at it to know what the “international community”, “the markets”, or whatever one is supposed to call this small group of corporate types, are thinking. The Economist magazine did not print a word opposing the wild government spending, not on Covid, not on Ukraine, not on anything – but it went totally insane over rolling back some tax increases.
Anyone who thinks this was concern over the fiscal deficit is a fool – the support for the wild government spending shows “the markets”, or the “international community” (i.e. the small group of corporate and government entities, backed by the Central Banks, who are working for world “governance”) could not care less about the deficit – what they care about is preventing any tax competition, just as they want to prevent any regulation competition.
All the major countries must have much the same high taxes and much the same endless regulations.
That is what getting rid of Liz Truss was about.
And it is time to tell “the markets” or “the international community” to burn in Hell. On government spending, taxation, regulations, the flood of illegal WELFARE immigration, and everything else.
“You cannot fight BlackRock and the others”
Oh yes? Are the Board of Directors bullet proof? I must stress I ask simply out of scientific curiosity – I am most certainly NOT suggesting any illegal course of action.
By the way, I believe the top rate of income tax in the United States is 39% – I wonder (again simply as a matter of scientific curiosity) how long BlackRock and the others (including the “Woke” banks) would last if Corporation Tax was at the same level as the top rate of income tax (45% in Britain) and if, at the same time, the flow of funny money subsidies (the Cantillon Effect) from the Central Banks was cut off.
I am told that the officials of the IMF (and other world “governance” bodies) pay no income tax at all – how about if they paid 100% or 200% income tax.
After all these people keep saying how committed to “Social Justice” they are – and how they hate (really) hate “the rich”.
Like the Duke of Orleans during the French Revolution – it would be interesting, from a scientific point of view, to take them at their word – and apply their doctrines to them personally.
“I was the richest man in France and you have taken everything from me – there is nothing left to take” – oh but there is one more thing to take, “Citizen Equality” and we are going to take it right now.
The Board of “BlackRock” (and so on) is made up of people much like “Citizen Equality” the richest man in France.
“so the survivors can look back and wonder – why were we so blind?”
All the records will show that it was the fault of the Brexiteers and Trumpists….
Thank you Paul — not for answering my questions, because you didn’t; but for giving me interesting information anyway.
I thought that the decrease of power of the monarchy was a gradual process starting with the Glorious Revolution, now you tell me that the decisive moment was the coronation of George I.
Popular support or lack thereof was not what stopped Truss from actually implementing any policies & then got her defenestrated, it was Wet Tory MPs & the supporting apparatchiks.
Precisely.
This sounds familiar to a New Zealander:
any future “Right Wing” government that claims it’s a “Big Tent” for conservative, classical liberal and perhaps even a slight tint of libertarian thinking, owes its voters to not just slowly reduce government employee numbers but reduce the number, size and regulatory power of the state institutions they inhabit.
If they don’t then they’ll just be weaponised further with vast sums of money and bodies by a future Labour-Green government. Incidentally – for those National people who only care about government spending as a % of GDP and taxes – that will also put paid to any future tax cuts. Actually that’s almost the case now: the giant spend-fest of lockdowns means you can probably look forward to new taxes and tax increases from a future National-ACT government. They’ll have no choice because they’ll have allowed Labour-Green to make the big choices for them.
Snorri I did answer your question – at least I tried to. I told you when the change occurred – it occurred when George the First became King, that is when ministers started to be appointed by a Prime Minister (an unofficial title) and the monarch stopped attending Cabinet meetings (because he could not understand what was being said).
If you want to know when M.Ps. started to be paid, whether they were ministers or not – that was in 1911. As far as I know there has never been a time when ministers were not paid – or when Members of Parliament were barred from being ministers. After all the House of Lords is also part of Parliament – so even when ministers were lords, they were still part of Parliament. Although ministers may not be part of the American Congress – due to the Constitution (Britain has an “unwritten constitution” which is a nice way of saying Britain does not have a Constitution).
Perhaps Ministers of the Crown should not be paid – there are arguments on both sides of this debate.
The recent United Kingdom budget had two main features.
A big increase in government spending on an “energy price cap”.
And…..
The rolling back of the tax increases of Mr Sunak.
“The Markets” did not care about the government spending increase – but passionately hated the roll back of Mr Sunak’s tax increases.
This is because “The Markets” are under the influence of Corporations backed by the Central Bans. “The Markets” have a political agenda – and not a good one.