I can already feel that the Tory leadership race is gonna give me an ulcer, because of the number of people on the centre and left who have neither read a history book nor the news saying things like “hopefully the Tory party will move to the right”.
Occasional reminder that a retiring senior civil servant of my acquaintance called Jenrick “the worst minister I have had directly to deal with in 45 years” prompting a scramble to work out who in the Heath government was worse.
Which other ministers of the last mob had he directly worked with? Would be interesting to know if he’s worse than Grayling, Truss, Braverman etc. ad nauseum
I don’t (think) I know the official Jim is referring to, but comfortably worse than all of those. Two of those I think it’s a category error to confuse “bad” with “crap”.
Grayling was crap in that at transport he had no vision and at MoJ he was dreadful at holding his own in spending round negotiations, which is a big part of why the criminal justice system is in crisis now.
He was bad in that on top of being forced into cuts and the privatisation of the probation system (consequences of being crap), he did pointlessly draconian things like banning books from prisons.
But he is a perfectly pleasant individual to every official I’ve spoken to and was capable of giving political direction to the civil servants (“urk! My department has been completely fucked in this spending round, please find ways to ameliorate this, while getting me good write ups”)
Truss was bad in that her stated aim at Trade was to get loads of deals signed as quickly as possible to bolster her standing and she didn’t really care at all about their impact or quality. But she wasn’t “crap”, in that she was able to have a bad aim and actually get it done.
Braverman, on returning from maternity leave, was asked “What are your priorities, minister?” and replied, in front of half of the department, “Firstly we need to raise my profile.”
I think it’s unlikely, but I am intrigued as to how “Rishi Sunak’s talents as an administrator, without Sunak’s ability to inspire devotion in his inner circle” would resolve itself in a Jenrick leadership.
If the Tories want to get back on their feet they need to ditch anyone associated with the previous government(s). Go for someone younger and less tainted by association. Fresh start.
Problem is there is no one like that and maybe the next pm was elected this week but they have to decide all in or all out on Farage first and if that means a split so be it .. Keir made a choice and in the end most stayed with him
Sunak won't admit Farage to the party, even if he wants in. So it will be up to the next leader to decide whether or not to admit him. Why would they admit him when they know he wants their job? It might be different if he had 100 MPs but adding 5 to their desultory total scarcely seems worth it.
Not least because there must be five current Tory MPs who would take the Chilterns or defect to the LibDems if Farage were to be admitted. Better to let Reform self-immolate, which it's likely to do now it's subject to the scrutiny of the commons and e.g. members' register of interests.
Only through the process as James said in parliament and let’s remeber Labour will clean up stuff in there like proper investigations, a corruption advisor again and ban second jobs .. GBN is fucked !!
I'm trying to think back to the big split in the Liberals in the 1920s, when a bunch of them moved to the Tories. Wonder if there will be a move back?!!
Reform came second in a bunch of seats, so maybe they reckon merging would be worth it to maybe win those seats in five years' time? Given that the various incarnations of ukip tend to implode in due course, they might not even have anyone to merge with if they just wait three years.
There was talk they hq parachuted a lot of more moderate candidates into the safer seats to stop them going Farage …however the lesson from Labour is you have to take on the extreme … doubt it will happen this time
