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October 8, 2024 - 10:00am
“Never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake.” These wise words — or something like them — are attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. From the Conservative Party’s perspective, the best thing that can be said for the current leadership contest is that it’s provided scant distraction from the ongoing self-sabotage of the Labour government.
With his first 100 days not even up yet, Keir Starmer has suffered the fastest loss of popularity of any British prime minister this century apart from Liz Truss. Amid a donor scandal, a cronyism scandal and a huge backlash to scrapping the winter fuel allowance, Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray resigned on Sunday, calling her role in the government “a distraction”. It’s therefore smart of the Tory leadership candidates to say so little for so long.
Or at least it would be, if tactical silence were the true motivation. But it’s not. From the outset, the contestants have sought to suppress debate within the Conservative Party by emphasising unity. That continues to be the case. Even during the political hothouse of party conference, tempers were artificially cooled. For example, when Robert Jenrick made unwise comments about UK special forces killing instead of capturing terrorists, his rival Tom Tugendhat expressed firm disagreement. What the other campaigns didn’t do, however, was go in for the (metaphorical) kill. If there was any judgement about Jenrick’s fitness to lead, it was distinctly implicit.
Similarly, when Kemi Badenoch got into a tangle over her remarks on maternity pay, the obvious conclusion — that she doesn’t watch her words sufficiently carefully — was not driven home by the other candidates. It happened again when James Cleverly condemned Starmer’s handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius last week. Cleverly could have been ripped apart for being the foreign secretary who had entered into these negotiations, but there was no Tory bloodletting. Rather, he’s become the bookies’ favourite and has gained key endorsements, while his rivals let it happen. They even let him get away with his statement that Tories should be “more normal”. He’s not wrong, of course, but it’s a bit rich coming from an old ally of Liz Truss.
The unity mantra, which proved impossible in power, has been reinforced by Conservative Party chairman Richard Fuller, who told GB News several days ago that removing Boris Johnson was a “mistake”. The implication is that infighting was the root cause of Johnson’s resignation. The truth is that Tory MPs tolerated month after month of mounting scandals — by no means limited to Partygate — until they were belatedly pushed over the edge. On an accelerated time scale, the same happened with Truss: party upheaval followed her downfall, not the other way round.
Disunity was never the core problem. Rather, it was a catastrophic failure of good governance and political vision. Whether made in the present or the past, the Conservative Party must face up to its actual mistakes before it can move on.
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Subscribe“a fixation with a non-issue in order to avoid the real problem” – sums up politics for a decade (at least).
What? Like they should have a go at fixing the housing crisis or falling birth rate or improving productivity?
Good God man, they have to focus on hate crimes and how we should be nicer to all our recent co-citizens.
‘the prime beneficiary is the Reform party’. This also applies to labour’s woes
Both major parties have shown themselves to be undeserving of the electorate’s trust and support. So far this century they have both behaved like social, cultural and economic vandals who are only obsessed with the approval of their peers and the promotion of questionable (and often discredited) ideologies regardless of the impact this has on those who elected them.
If you are happy with more of the same then fine – continue to vote lib/lab/con. On the other hand, if you believe that genuine change in our government’s priorities and aims are necessary then, l’m afraid, there’s only one game in town at the moment – Reform.
Seems an increasing number of people are coming to share that view and I expect that number to grow as the party matures into a viable alternative.
It seems to me that this malaise applies across all parts of western society including the private sector.
The wrong people get promoted for the wrong reasons. They have no values or vision. The only qualifications that count is to fit the identikit, say the right things, not hold the wrong views, be prepared to spout any nonsense that may constitute the company line from time to time and stands ready to crush dissent.
They are not prepared to make any innovative decisions and hand over responsibility for corporate strategy to consultants expecting this to absolve them of responsibility. The consultants produce some variation of the current management BS which they adopt like a new a new religion but which deep down they know is BS which is why the block out all doubt. And when it fails they find a new religion
Quite right. It’s officially referred to as an Idiocracy.
Spot on for large companies. Smaller companies are generally not so dumb.
Agree about small companies. They can’t afford to live in a wokie wonderland
Right, I think truss tried but she didnt have an election mandate.
Good post. It results in the crisis of competence we are all living through.
The post modernists have carried out their indoctrination well though, reversing out of it all will require some form of economic/societal collapse. And I fear that’s coming down the tracks towards us.
All they need is a leader who will lead.
I’m convinced the Conservatives don’t want to be re-elected. They know it’s a sh*t show behind the curtain of government.
Much better to late Labour flounder and stumble their way through the next decade of disastrous net zero and brinkmanship geo politics.
The now more openly competing paradigms will have probably made Tories and Labour irrelevant before the end of 10 years. The nam of one or both may remain but the current feckless, circular, tweedle dee – tweedle dum “leadership” will be gone.
there’s no way they will manage 2 terms-they will be lucky to see out the current one.
We could do with that nice man with chainsaw from Argentina
All the better for the only party that actually supports Britain.
Having just read about the ‘uproar’ when an advert for Heinz Baked Beans didn’t show a picture of the black bride’s father, I am starting to see things differently. The Conservatives need a leader to set things right but none of the candidates could do anything for a day without upsetting a few minority groups and then they would have to spend the next 5 days apologising for every word. What is needed is someone who speaks so precisely that every word is understood correctly and without upset but, at the same time, follows an agreed plan of action. A barrister, in fact.
I am starting to have a lot of respect for Two-Tier. If he does makes mistakes, they become forgivable mistakes, never to be repeated. As a barrister, a wrong word or syllable can change the verdict and he doesn’t make mistakes like that. To be so precise, you have to be very, very boring and totally lacking in character. Two-Tier is perfect. You might not like his politics but he is a safe pair of hands.
Which brings us back to the Tories. How to fight an automaton? Clearly, the only possibility if you can’t fight like with like, is a big character who pushes everything forward with great energy, somebody who inspires followers to get out of the trenches and charge the enemy. Not much hope then.
Sounds like you are describing a Trump at the end.
The first step is to stop apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong. Politicians are drowning in meaningless euphemisms that undermine their credibility, relatability, and likeability. If you don’t think you did anything wrong, don’t come up with some mealy-mouthed non-apology to try to ‘satisfy everyone.’ Explain why you don’t think you did anything wrong. Have a conversation. Be real.
I personally think it is wise for the Tory leadership rivals to see where Labour is going with its self-immolation.
My impression was that Sue Grey was trying to lead the party towards the Blue Wall with Morgan McSweeney to the Red Wall but the decimation of the Red Wall following Starmer’s woke two tier approach to the ethnic riots and the Winter Fuel Payment fiasco has left his Red Wall flank wide open to the benefit of Reform whilst any Blue Wall takeover is dead in the water following doom and gloom pre-budget warnings.
This creates a dilemma for the Tories. Do they primarily focus on the Blue Wall or the Red Wall which I think is why the Tories internally fell apart following Johnson’s win. Not only because of his attempt to follow through with the Great Realignment but more importantly because the Blue Wall was trying to reassert power once it was revealed that the Red Wall held the balance of power.
As such, the Red Wall still do hold the balance of power, its just that the Blue Wall wasn’t willing to cooperate and compromise with higher taxation and planning reforms to help with Levelling Up and social care.
Ostensibly this is what Labour is forcing the Blue Wall to do now which will either bring the Blue Wall back into the Tory fold or strengthen the LibDems. This means Labour has to pivot back to the Red Wall hence the backgrounding of Grey and the foregrounding of McS who now has to take on Farage. So expect things to get dirty there.
Meanwhile the Tories only need to watch from the sidelines and keep their leadership battle cool with a view of doing a deal with Reform depending on the outcome of the fight between McS and Reform. This will probably see Cleverly selected.
I worry when political tactics matter more than figuring out what you believe and then trying to convince people to give you a chance.
“Disunity was never the core problem. Rather, it was a catastrophic failure of good governance and political vision.”
Or rather the problem related to lies, more lies, and even more lies, so blatantly of barn-door proportions and repeated with not even a hint of shame or, apparently, recognition that even the most gullible and cognitively challenged of the electorate could any longer be persuaded to believe in them.
Articles like this don’t make any sense. If “disunity was never the problem,” then presumably there’s an agreement on the “political vision” – it just needs to be more clearly articulated? Can this writer – or anyone – articulate what that widely-supported political vision is?
No. He cannot. Because the problem is absolutely disunity. But the solution is not hectoring, pretending, papering over, etc. It is persuasion. That is the only solution to anything in a democracy. You must persuade people that are wrong, why they are wrong. This requires facts, arguments, analysis – but also charisma, charm, rhetoric.
Therein lies the Conservatives real problem… they need better natural politicians. Where are those sold?
Unfortunately many millions of people still voted for Tories.
Some, like me, because they thought that Labour would be disaster for the country, Reform are not ready yet and, like in my London constituency, vote for Reform just let Labour in.
Till white majority in uk decides that committing ethnic and cultural suicide by allowing mass immigration and multiculti is bad for them, situation can only get much worse.
It’s clear that the tories have not learnt their lesson listening to the candidates speeches.
The challenge they face is that really very few of them are genuinely conservative, with the possible exception of Badenoch. Also the rump of what remains for the party post the election are primarily “one nation” wet types, many of whom would find a comfortable home in the Liberal Democrat’s if they wanted it.
You can’t make chicken salad from chicken sh*t, as the old saying goes, which means that whatever consensus is ultimately arrived at by MPs it will almost certainly be out of kilter with what the membership and, more importantly, what the disenchanted and disenfranchised conservative voters are looking for.
They might have a chance if they elect Badenoch, but even then she’ll face an uphill task dragging the wet/left rearguard into line, which will either dilute the vision or result in numerous defections.
Still in two minds as to whether the party will ultimately survive.
The first new leader after a defeat like that is a caretaker.
Kemi needs time to build a more substantive platform (no doubt in partnership with others). She will also benefit from the experience by waiting.
She shows promise, but not yet the finished article.
It will survive. What is more, there is a fair chance it will win the next election.
Why does anyone think the Tory leadership contest was going to be the place and time for the real introspection? The candidates are trying to court votes, and votes from folks who don’t really want to hear the truth (although they aren’t all dim and many will know they need to hear it, but perhaps not yet)
The more important question is are they likely to pick someone who then knows they must open up a much greater dissection of what went wrong and what real practical policies, and honest trade-offs, are needed to effect the desires they hold. I suspect all three candidates know that will be a leadership task but too afraid for the moment to give any substantive details. They’ll keep largely to impressionistic twaddle.
They shouldn’t worry too much about Reform though. Farage doesn’t have any practical policies. It’s just a rage amplifier pressure group. Vast majority of folks already know that and the more policy scrutiny they receive the more self-evident that’ll become. Tories are at least a serious Party that expects to govern again.
They should just elect whichever candidate the BBC least wants. That would be Badenoch.
Looking forward, I doubt Mr Starmer et al will have any radically more successful ideas than the Conservatives did. But most voters believed he would. The voters have been making bad decisions lately, and that makes them irritable. They will retire to their pubs and criticise.
Well, they had a choice between Labour and the Conservatives. They chose the former, because the latter were on the nose. There were no other viable alternatives. Although the Lib Dems have a lot of seats, they will fall backwards at the next election. Although Reform got a big percentage of the vote, it didn’t translate into seats, and it won’t next time.
Good article … we won’t forgive or forget. We don’t trust Liebor or the Consocialists anymore. The Uniparty! …. State controlled halfwIt’s basically. It’s Reform all the way from now to ‘29.