In the past week, I have spoken to several Tory MPs who are at the end of their tether. And before you bristle, a Labour supporter can still have good relations and friendships with people across the political divide. Some of them are standing down, others are questioning their decision to stay on.
All reluctantly believe that the Tories will lose the next election and they describe a deep anxiety about the future of their party, which I know all about as I’ve lived through it with my own party. They fear they’re on the brink of their very own Corbyn years, but without the young people.
The party is already in the foothills of the bloody ideological civil war that engulfed Labour after it lost power. The signs were there from 2010, but things really let rip after Ed Miliband lost in 2015. The rise of Momentum meant that there were effectively two parties at war with each other, with competing values and views of the world.
Many Tory MPs feel that’s exactly where things are now. There’s the “grown-up” sensible party of Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt. I interviewed the Chancellor recently for the British Chambers of Commerce and found him to be a calm, reassuring presence for many business leaders and MPs compared to the raging bull mayhem of what preceded him with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. But those qualities are what others in his own party hate. They want political anarchy, thrills and spills. They want Boris Johnson back — as Take That once said — for good.
The parallels between Corbyn and Johnson are remarkable, apart from that 80-seat majority, but they are twinned in their ability to self-sabotage. Like Corbyn, Johnson is guarded by a loyal band of Praetorian guards who claim he’s a heavenly creature sent to us as a precious political gift but who was persecuted, vilified and betrayed. Both men are held up like biblical figures but who need lots of cash and go fund me pages to clear their names. Johnson’s supporters also share key characteristics with the Corbynites — a love of taking lumps out their own side and blaming the media for doing actual journalism, branding it a “witch hunt”.
Many Tories I speak to are scared about what lies ahead. If the party loses — which the polls suggest — which way will the party go? Will it move away from the public like the Labour Party did and indulge views within the party which are more extreme and out of step with modern Britain? A report by think-tank Onward found that young people are abandoning the Tories because they offer them none of the things they once did — like the ability to earn a good wage, own a home and have financial security. Stirring up endless culture wars is not cutting it.
I sincerely hope the Tories don’t go the way Labour did because it would be bad for democracy. If Labour wins, it will be a better government if it has a decent opposition. While it may be a laugh to watch the Tories fall apart, we’ve all had enough of the political clown show.
Shiv was the star of Succession
If you haven’t watched the final episode of Succession, I can’t help you and your life choices. Like so many, I’m bereft that this piece of art has come to an end.
And what a conclusion it was. Gut-wrenching, unpredictable, bleak and perfect.
It’s rare to have a series where everything is flawless — the direction, score, performance and the writing. Led by Jesse Armstrong, the team crafted such relentlessly complex, vile characters and we couldn’t get enough of them.
They were all grotesquely superb, but for me Sarah Snook, left, who played Shiv, stole the show. She was the smart, tough, cool girl in this misogynistic world, and in the end all the men in her life shafted her.
Shiv’s face at the end will haunt me forever. There’s a happier ending in real life as Snook just welcomed her first child. But please, can we have a Shiv spin-off?
