The Burning of  Parliament in 1834 – a suitable metaphor for the current Tory Government: “sauve qui peut” …

 

This government is in its final death throes. There’s no way out for the Tories except to admit defeat and go for a snap GE, the sooner the better. Their downfall is entirely self-inflicted as yesterday’s events in the HoC have shown. If this government were an animal there’d be demands to put it out of its’s misery. Prolonging this agony would be inhumane.

The resignation of the Home Office Minister, Suella Braverman, is like a death knell. In their evening news email, the Speccie wrote that she was sacked. The Times went with this description in their lead article this morning (link, paywalled). Actually, Ms Braverman resigned, as the DT reported (paywalled link). The DM has a long article on the whole shambles where you can find Ms Braverman’s resignation letter when you scroll way down (link). The BBC thankfully published just her and the PM’s reply ‘as is’, no scrolling needed (link).

Last evening when her letter was not yet available, the Speccie, out first, wrote that she’d been sacked because she’d written some scathing criticism of Truss government’s immigration policy in a private email to a colleague. This lead me to wonder: was that colleague grassing her up or was someone ‘watching’ her private emails? I committed the grave error of speculating without proper data. Ms Braverman’s actual words are for the history books:

“Earlier today, I sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague as part of policy engagement, and with the aim of garnering support for government policy on migration. This constitutes a technical infringement of the rules. As you know, the document was a draft Written Ministerial Statement about migration, due for publication imminently. Much of it had already been briefed to MPs. Nevertheless it is right for me to go.

As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary. As Home Secretary I hold myself to the highest standards and my resignation is the right thing to do. The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious polities. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility: I resign.” (link)

Blimey. No shilly-shallying, no dithering, no attempts at spinning like a certain previous PM who is ‘on holidays’ now, with wifey and kids. However, I don’t think she needs ‘friends and allies’ who were trying to provide ‘background’ to this scandal. Firstly, see what they were telling to the DT before the letter had been made public:

“The fuse for Suella Braverman’s resignation was lit on Tuesday night when she had a heated face-to-face row with Liz Truss and Jeremy Hunt, her new Chancellor, over their demands to soften her stance on bringing down immigration. Friends said the Home Secretary was appalled that they wanted her to announce a liberalisation of immigration to make it easier for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to say the Government would hit its growth targets – a key plank in Mr Hunt’s strategy to restore market confidence.” (paywalled link)

This row must certainly have happened. The report was published shortly after 9pm yesterday, when the Westminster rumour had it that Ms Braverman was sacked, which further gossip seemed to confirm:

“Within 24 hours of her “fiery” 90-minute meeting with the Prime Minister and Mr Hunt, Ms Braverman had been forced to resign after being accused of breaching the ministerial code on two counts for sending official documents to another MP from her personal email.” (paywalled link)

Compare and contrast with the actual resignation letter, according to which Ms Braverman herself recognised that she had ‘broken rules’, reported herself to the Cabinet secretary and resigned. Until she and others write their memoirs about “The Last Day of the Tories – I wuz there”, we’ll never know the true ins and outs.

Given the letter I refuse to believe that she was ‘forced’ to go. I think Ms Braverman recognised that there was no way she could support the de-facto Hunt government. She left, honour intact, before the whole Tory house of cards comes crashing down. Did she jab a knife into Truss’ back on leaving? She certainly did. 

The utter desperation of this government could not be clearer when the incredulous nation learned immediately that her replacement was Grant Shapps who at the Tory AGM had conspired with Gove to make life impossible for Truss. He has sold his ‘convictions’ and his honour for the sake of a post.

I’m sure he’ll become the shortest-serving Home Secretary because, as I said above, a snap GE must now surely follow if the Tory Party wants to keep a few tatters of respectability. According to the DM (link), Sir Graham Brady will convene the 1922 Committee to ponder rule changes allowing them to remove Truss. If the Tories believe another spell of ‘change the PM’ will save them then they are woefully delusional.

Then there were last evening’s chaotic scenes in the Lobby, in the wake of the Fracking Vote. These were gleefully described by Labour as ‘bullying’ (link), leading to rumours that the Tory chief whip and her deputy had resigned. Well, she’s staying (paywalled link). Far more important is the outcry of a Tory backbencher. The DM has it in a nutshell in their summary headline:

“Tory MP Sir Charles Walker goes on extraordinary rant in which he lashes out at ‘inexcusable’ behaviour around ‘chaotic’ fracking vote, attacks Liz Truss’ backers and warns party could lose 200 seats at the next election ‘unless we get our act together’. “ (link)

They show a short video clip of this ‘outcry’. You can watch the full thing here at the BBC site. This ‘outcry is noteworthy because he is another MP blaming the Tory grassroots for ‘giving them’ Truss. So did a very much former Tory ‘Big Beast’, David Mellor, who told GB news that ’Liz Truss was voted in by ‘160,000 elderly, backwards people’ – watch it here, if you must.

These outbursts, blaming their own grassroots while dissing them as ‘elderly and backwards’,grassroots, are important because the underlying message is that the national finances are in a shambles because ‘only’ the old are Tory voters and voted for Truss because they want yon pensions triple lock. Apparently Labour, ever so mindful of ‘teh poor’, is not committing to that triple lock. And why would they – they court the ‘yoof vote’.

Still, the DT’s parliamentary sketch writer did not hold back, pointing his finger at those actually responsible for the Truss shambles. The headline of his column says it in a nutshell:

“Don’t blame Tory party members for this mess – blame the MPs. Presented with just two options from the initial 11, grass-roots Conservatives only voted for Liz Truss because they didn’t want Rishi Sunak” (paywalled link)

Just so. I’m feeling a bit strange though upon finding that my arguments, written well before this latest shambles, are now repeated in the MSM. Deacon points out that actually, the current crop of Tory MPs simply don’t trust their own members, fearing that, “if presented with a wide-open field, party members will choose the “wrong” candidate. Funny how things turn out.” (paywalled link). 

‘Tis also funny how things turned out when grassroots, given a choice, will vote ‘for the wrong thing’, as has been the continuous complaint by Remain, ever since ‘that’ vote six years ago. This attitude towards us peasants, that we cannot be trusted, will become the underlying theme in these final days of the Tory government. It will also become the underlying theme of a Labour government. The Westminster MSM will reinforce this at every turn.

If you have the time you might like to read the coruscating analysis by Matt Goodwin, written very late yesterday evening. He observes that “the Conservative Party […] has simply become disconnected from the very people who put the party into power three years ago.” (link). This applies equally to Labour whose middle-class governing body is as disconnected from their core voters as the Tories are from theirs.

No apologies for this lengthy column! Thanks to the various paywalls it is difficult for ordinary peasants like us to get a grip on what the Westminster swamp dwellers are up to. Being kept in ignorance is dangerous. It is especially dangerous because the current theme is the lack of trust in us, the voters. It’s displayed by the Tories right now and will be displayed by Labour once they’re in.

Unless something dramatic happens today or tonight – like Truss resigning – tomorrow I’ll look at what will be in store when Starmer is in No 10. It won’t be pretty.



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