Politics: the pygmies prattle

By Richard North - July 26, 2022

I did watch the BBC shout-up between the wannabe Tory leaders last night, and I have to admit that I was distinctly underwhelmed. Despite the BBC’s lame attempt to inject some life into the aftermath, there was not a single standout moment that remains etched in my memory. The lasting impression is one of incoherent noise.

But then this type of format is not really designed to elicit information – it is politics as entertainment, designed primarily to massage the egos of the media luvvies who do so relish the opportunities to parade their self-importance under the guise of informing the public.

Even the august Times tabled a lament, observing that the descent of the Conservative leadership election into invective and animosity was exemplified in last night’s debate. “Voters”, it said, “deserve better answers to the nation’s crisis”, notwithstanding that most of us don’t have a vote anyway. We’re not voters – we’re spectators.

Nevertheless, if one wanted to get to the heart of the policy intentions of the candidates, arguably one would invite them to write explanatory pieces in national newspapers, setting out their ideas without constraints and freed from the theatrical demands of a television appearance.

But that is precisely what Sushi was able to do in the Sunday Telegraph, where he was allowed the freedom to explain in his own terms exactly what he intended to do about the “broken” asylum system. And while you might expect this writer to be a little jaundiced both he and his partner-in-crime, Miss Trussed, failed to impress The Times.

In an article headed “Are Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss’s migration plans realistic?”, political editor Steven Swinford managed to convey is a slightly gentler way the utter fatuity of the pair’s policies. And, if they can’t even step up to the plate when they are bidding for high office, what are the chances of them delivering once they have the keys to No.10?

To put it bluntly, this whole leadership selection process is a charade, but then that is something that scarcely, if at all, needs saying. Anyone who seriously expected anything different has either never left the nursery or needs to return to it. That includes The Times which complained that, in the televised debate, “bad blood was more conspicuous than detailed policy discussion”. Did the paper really expect anything different?

As to “detailed policy”, the candidates will say what they think they need to say to realise their ambitions and then, once in office, will do whatever they need to do to stay there. Any relationship between the former and the latter will be entirely coincidental.

One can hardly be surprised, therefore, that the Oaf, on watching the posturing of the pygmies, believes he can make a comeback, having told one of his cronies, Lord Cruddas, that he “does not want to resign” and wants to fight the next general election as leader of the Conservative Party.

The Oaf is emboldened by the “bring back Boris” campaign run by Cruddas, calling for a second vote among Tory grassroots to confirm whether they accept his resignation. In just seven days, more than 10,000 party members have signed a petition calling for a poll “to confirm the decision by Tory MPs’ (sic) to force him out”.

That, at least, is the Telegraph’s semi-literate rendition, the paper apparently failing to recall that it was not the MPs who forced the issue but ministers and other office holders, whose resignations destroyed the Oaf’s ability to form a government.

And while he has yet to resign as either party leader or prime minister, it is not up to the members to decide whether he stays on as prime minister – even if the rules on the party leadership contest could be changed. In what remains of our tattered constitution, it is up to the Oaf to convince the Queen that he is capable of forming a government which, based on recent events, he would be hard-pressed to do.

Bizarrely, the apparent aspirations of this degenerate man raise the spectre of his rejecting the verdict of the party membership and refusing to relinquish the office of prime minister – an office which he still holds. This might force the Queen to dismiss her first minister, with the prospect of the bailiffs being sent in to evict the Johnson brood.

Much as I would enjoy the spectacle of the ex-prime minister’s goods and chattels being dumped on the pavement outside No.10, with him being escorted off the premises, this would probably not greatly enhance the international reputation of the United Kingdom.

It strikes me, though, that, with or without Johnson’s shenanigans, that reputation could hardly decline any further. Just scanning the website of today’s Times, without delving into the detail of any of the reports, we see conveyed a dismal picture of incompetence and decay.

In that paper, as elsewhere, for instance, we see sombre predictions that water restrictions are imminent. Here in Yorkshire, where it has been raining solidly for three days, any such imposition will be blamed on the “drought”, despite the water company’s insistence on wasting nearly a quarter of its product.

It is certainly the case that UK water companies are not alone in their dereliction but, after my recent piece on the subject, it emerged that Tokyo had been able to slash its leakage rate from 15.4 to 2.2 percent. And while the overall Japanese rate is 7.3 percent, the target for the larger utilities has been set at 2 percent.

But, if the collective failures of the water industry provide one example, another offered by the Times is the unedifying tale of Sir Simon Bollom, chief executive of Defence Equipment & Support (DES).

Despite heading the government quango responsible for wasting billions of pounds on Britain’s “broken” defence procurement system, last year he received a bonus of up to £100,000 on top of his salary which is set at a range of between £275,000 and £280,000.

This habit of rewarding failure must surely be responsible for some of the more egregious public sector disasters we have experienced, although some of the institutions seem quite content to deliver failure without any special payments being made.

Hence we see the headline: “Two million unsolved cases closed by police”, marking yet another step in the progressive deterioration of our police forces. This represents 40 percent of all crimes that were assigned an outcome by police forces in England and Wales between April 2021 and March 2022.

Add to this inflation, the rash of strikes, the cost of living crisis, the chaos at Dover, the shambles at Britain’s airports, the burgeoning energy crisis, and even the state of our recycling policy, where most of the plastic collected is either dumped in landfill at home or abroad or incinerated – to say nothing of the perpetual NHS crises – and you begin to wonder whether anything works as it should.

Matched by the shambolic state of the government, it is germane to speculate whether we are experiencing a chicken and egg situation, where the dysfunctional government is simply a reflection of the state of the rest of the nation, or the cause of it.

Either way, the performance of the political pygmies yesterday did little to foster any confidence that things are going to improve any time soon. The more likely outcome is that they get immeasurably worse, more or less in direct proportion to the political claims of continued success.