TIME TO CALL 'EM AS WE SEE 'EM

Chris Mason, Political Editor of BBC News begins an item with the following:

"One is the continuity candidate who stabbed Boris in the back. The other is the change candidate who stayed loyal." A senior Conservative MP recounts the words of a local party member, when I ask why so many polls and surveys of Tory party members suggest Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is comfortably more popular than the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, right now at least.

What is bizarre about this comment is that the candidate who allegedly stabbed Boris in the back is actually the change candidate and the so called loyal candidate is the continuity candidate. Think about it. Mr Sunak resigned for two reasons; one, he could not continue to support the lies and two, he could not bring himself to agree to reduce or discard his economic measures which were at odds with Mr Johnson. On the other hand, Ms Truss seeks to promote the tax changes that Mr Johnson was so hot to pursue and which she takes up with great relish.  She is clearly just more of the same.  Her continuity consists not only in policy but in being completely inept and incapable of leading a government. She will no doubt keep many of the current cabinet in place, whereas Mr Sunak will not. Mr Sunak will, in any event, have to find other people to form his cabinet, as the current members are unlikely to want to serve in a cabinet with him as leader.

If indeed local conservative party members view the two candidates as indicated by Chris Mason’s senior Conservative MP, then the country is in for yet more degradation and depression, possibly for the next two years. This will prove to be a disaster.

I read that the current conservative party membership is, on average, 50 years of age, and possibly more, reasonably well-heeled and in higher paid employment. One assumes that their level of education is also, possibly, of a higher calibre. That being the case, how they can possibly take the view expressed above? 

My own view is that Ms Truss’s popularity with the majority of the local conservative party membership is because they are mostly white. To pretend there is no racial element in this selection of Conservative Party Leader is to pretend that racism has no bearing whatsoever in British life. The question has been pointedly avoided by everyone concerned. The mere fact that a mixed variety of MP’s are elected to Parliament is a reflection of the makeup of the population of their constituencies, not because there is no racism in the United Kingdom. That some are chosen for ministerial positions, is one thing, but to actually be made Prime Minister is another matter altogether; particularly for the makeup of the average current local Conservative party member, who have the thoroughly undemocratic right to make that choice.

I may be painting a stereotypical image of this local Conservative party member, but given the comments one reads in most journals and magazines, it is not far off the mark. Were I to exclude the proposition that they are mostly racist, I would be in complete denial, as it would seem most of the media appear to be. They do not want the contest to appear to be racially problematic, so it is not mentioned and the pretence that this is a just and proper method of choosing the next Prime Minster of this country is played out to the full. No one dares to mention it or broach the subject.

To pretend that racism plays no part in this charade of choice of Conservative Party leader is beyond the height of hypocrisy. As a result we will have an even more incompetent and unsuitable person as the Queen’s First Minister, who is not above lying to, or misleading, the public with the same facility as her predecessor. She claimed that there was more room for borrowing because the amount currently being borrowed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product was less than the United States. What has that got to do with anything? The United States has four times the population, and the current GDP is over $25 trillion whereas the UK’s is just over $3 trillion, or about one eighth of the United States. To suggest the UK is in the same league economically is vastly misleading as well as making no sense whatever. No wonder Mr Sunak suggests she’s in a fantasy world.

Europe combined, including the United Kingdom would be in the region of $18 to $19 trillion which is just about equivalent to China, the second largest economy. This would indeed be a powerful position to have. At present, the State of California alone has a GDP as great as the United Kingdom. So for the UK to presume to be comfortable with increased borrowing on the scale of the United States as a whole is indeed a fantasy world. Yet Liz Truss makes the case in that fashion. If this is not misleading, what is?

That is just one aspect of her delusion. Her headlong confrontation with the EU generally and, currently, France in particular, breaches international law and serves no purpose other than to make her popular in the minds of those local Conservative party members. Her so called deal making is a joke, and her claim of managing to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has nothing to do with her, save that she happened to be Foreign Secretary and Britain paid a large debt owing to Iran. Claiming credit for other people’s work is continuing in the line of Boris Johnson, which is, no doubt why the local Conservative Party members support her. To emulate a blowhard seems to be de rigueur with the party.

Somehow, despite their economic and educational standing, these local members seem to have very poor analytic capabilities, but that is reflected in their choice of leader Ms Truss, a woman with very poor capabilities of any kind. If an election is not called from the 5^th of September next, this country is in for a very sorry couple of years. 

On the other hand, whether Mr Sunak will prove to be any better in the long run is debateable, clearly. He certainly gives the impression of being good with money, and he has a lot of it. Is that enough? Is it likely we will ever find out? Enjoy what summer we have left.

 

 

NB: Some might suggest that Ms Kemi Badenoch received considerable support from her colleagues which demonstrates that racism had no bearing in the matter. I would love to think so, but underneath the façade of political correctness, she didn’t stand a chance. Grow up.