In July and September of 2022 I commented on the then leadership election by the Tory Party. The candidates at the time included Suella Braverman, Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss. We all know the unfortunate and catastrophic effect of Truss's accession to the office. For 54 days she attempted to push through some fantasy agenda that she was certain would lift the British Economy to stratospheric heights.
She had an extraordinary rise over ten years, from new MP in May of 2010 to Prime Minister in September 2022. Her premiership did not last long, but then her political affiliations were just as transient. Growing up in, what she describes as, a left wing household, she was a liberal democrat in her University days and in 1996 joined the Conservative Party. She was very pro Europe in those days and indeed was so up until the referendum. At the time she was quoted as saying:
"I don't want my daughters to grow up in a world where they need a visa or permit to work in Europe, or where they are hampered from growing a business because of extortionate call costs and barriers to trade. Every parent wants their children to grow up in a healthy environment with clean water, fresh air and thriving natural wonders. Being part of the EU helps protect these precious resources and spaces.”
Difficult to understand how she moved away from inclusive and cooperative thinking about relationships between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Was it purely political ambition that drove her into the arms of Brexit? Certainly her ambition to lead the Conservative Party was real enough. She read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton College Oxford, yet somehow any knowledge she may have gained at University was slowly ebbing away. She had a four year stint working for Royal Dutch Shell qualifying as a chartered management accountant, followed by five years at Cable & Wireless rising to the post of economic director.
I suppose her working life gave her the impression that she understood numbers and what drives productivity and competitiveness. As it turned out the knew very little about any of it and, convinced of her fantasy, push ahead despite the warnings and realities of the situation. When did she give up on protecting the precious resources and spaces she felt the EU was empowered to protect? A minority of conservative party members put her in office and the entire country suffered for it. It fell to Rishi Sunak, who lost out to her with those members, to attempt to repair the damage. It was clearly a lost cause.
The experience of that last chaotic Conservative Party’s attempt to rescue itself should be a lesson to the current tumult in the Labour Party. For some obscure reason it always finds a way to shoot itself in the foot. Having obtained a massive majority in Parliament, if somehow finds excuses for pulling away from cohesion and cooperation toward division and disharmony. The overreaction to a disgruntled populace being preached to by a right wing rabble of discontents and ignorant bigoted political amateurs, is unbelievable. Have the gumption to stand up for the Labour Party and get to work. What we have now is confusion and puzzlement, as if no one knows which was to turn.
The cloud of what happened to the Tory party in 2022 is hovering over the Labour Party. This coming by-election, allegedly proffering a great Aintree hope (rather like betting on the Grand National itself) into returning to Parliament and possibly into number 10, is yet another fantasy. There is no white horse on the horizon. His pronouncements on taxation, investment, nationalisations, rejoining the EU seem to me to be all over the shop. He has yet to give any idea of how these ambitions will be funded, whilst safeguarding a welfare state so essential to the ordinary citizens, save to indicate that “They will pay for themselves”. He clearly has been a very fine mayor and is beloved by his constituent, but that does not make him the saviour of the nation. If the Labour Party is to save the nation collectively it had better get to work on working together.
The labour party is a big beast. What was once very clearly a working class political enterprise has very much expanded due to the rise in education, qualifications, employment and economic situation of the children of that 1940’s working class population. They are now the middle classes and those that did not change their points of view towards the conservatives have remained within the party, but from a very different perspective. The spectrum from Blair to Corbyn has already come under fire. It needs to come together or form into separate groups that can find a way to work together. It cannot continue the way it is currently constituted. Decisions must be taken. You are either together or you go your own way. Floating around in a cloud is no longer possible. There is so much indecision in the air, it is crippling. Rally behind the Prime Minister and help show him a way forward or create another party of the left. Just choosing a new leader of a mishmash group without any centre is not going to work so long as discontent and indecision hover over Westminster. A new leader will not stop the discontent. Get to work putting it together by the next election, or you will all be voted out of office and replaced by yet more discontent and indecision or possibly even worse. The right wing is indeed just that, waiting in the wings. Do not let that happen.
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