Theresa May's government is finished. It is no more, it has
ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker.
It has, in the immortal words of the Monty Python dead parrot
sketch, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain
and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. It is, in other words, an
ex-government. (If you haven't seen the Monty Python sketch, or want to see it
again, click here. You won't regret it.)
The government is a total shambles. Cabinet discipline has
broken down, ministers make up policy as they go along, and Mrs May, described
by George Osborne after her election debâcle
as 'a dead woman walking', is now barely even walking.
Later this month, the chancellor of the exchequer will deliver
his budget. If he gets it even slightly wrong -- which must be a pretty safe
bet, given his record -- the government will be back on the canvas yet again.
And so it goes on.
Politics-watching these days has become a truly gruesome spectacle
-- the Westminster jungle is now at the mercy of sexual predators, lying
ministers (sorry, ministers who 'may inadvertently have given a misleading
impression'), and an incompetent prime minister paralysed by political
weakness.
No wonder that, according to The Times, EU leaders are now actively preparing for the fall of Theresa May
before the end of the year. After all, what's the point of continuing with the
Brexit negotiations if she and her motley band of Brexiteers may be gone by
Christmas?
The political paralysis risks doing serious damage to the UK
economy, and by extension, to the lives of every one of us. The economic alarm
bells are already ringing -- and there is no reason to disbelieve business
leaders who say they will soon have to start implementing their Brexit
contingency plans unless there is a breakthrough. If we are hurtling towards a
cliff edge, the last thing we need is a government paralysed by deep internal
divisions.
In one sense, none of this should surprise us. Even politicians,
who like Lewis Carroll's Red Queen, are perfectly capable of believing six
impossible things before breakfast, are bound to run into trouble eventually if
they persist with implementing a policy that they believe to be fundamentally
misconceived. Never forget: Theresa May voted Remain, and refuses to say how
she would vote if there were another referendum.
Mrs May should resign. Her successor should call an election,
which Labour may well win. Let Jeremy Corbyn have a go. He is at last showing
some signs of understanding what a catastrophe Brexit is turning into -- so let
the clever Keir Starmer chart a path to a so-called 'soft Brexit', in which the
UK leaves the EU but remains part of the single market and the customs union.
Put the deal to a referendum, and get it approved.
The NHS is heading for a winter of crisis. Homelessness is now
once again a major issue in our biggest cities. (Last night, there were eight
homeless people shivering beneath a railway bridge close to where I live in
north London. A year ago, there were none.)
The introduction of the new 'universal credit' system of welfare
payments is responsible for real human misery. Food banks are reporting huge
increases in the number of people in need of help. The collapse in the number
of EU workers taking up jobs in the UK (farmers and the NHS are already feeling
the pinch) will soon translate into higher food prices and longer NHS waiting
lists.
But none of this is on the political radar. The Tories' civil
war is sucking all the air out of the body politic -- while the Labour party
try to say as little as possible in the hope that the fruits of political power
will soon fall into their laps.
Useless ministers like Jeremy Hunt, Andrea Leadsom and Chris
Grayling should have been sacked months ago -- as should Boris Johnson, whose
skin has only been saved this time by the reckless foreign policy freelancing
of his over-ambitious ex-Cabinet colleague Priti Patel. (If a foreign secretary
can keep his job even after he has carelessly buttressed a fraudulent
prosecution case against a British citizen jailed in Iran, we have truly
reached a new low in political probity.)
The prime minister has outlived her sell-by date. She apparently
believes that she has a duty to stay at the helm until a Brexit deal is done. But
her colleagues must surely have realised by now that she is a busted flush; the
only reason they are not telling her that her time is up is that they fear
their party rivals would gain the upper hand under a new leader.
So she needs all the friends she can get. Which presumably is
why as soon as she had dispatched Ms Patel on Wednesday evening, she changed
into her glad rags and swanned off to a black-tie City dinner in honour of Paul
Dacre's twenty-five years as editor of the Daily
Mail.
And by the way, if you thought I was exaggerating when I
referred to the Tories' civil war, how's this for a reaction to Mrs May's
dinner engagement from David Cameron's former head of strategy, Andrew Cooper:
'The Prime Minister attending the "celebration" of the repulsive Paul
Dacre's 25 years as editor of the disgusting Daily Mail is another depressing sign of the sickness at the heart
of UK politics and the Tory Party weakly traipsing towards the edge of a cliff.'
Indeed ...
This sums up the position admirably
ReplyDeleteA wonderful account of the utterly dire political situation. Says it all. Hope you don't mind if I share this on my Facebook page.
ReplyDeleteSaying it like it is again. Agree with everything said.
ReplyDeleteSADLY AGREE WITH EVERY WORD YOU HAVE WRITTEN.
ReplyDeleteSALLY
Does this remind you of last enervated, infighting-riddled days of the Major interregnum?
ReplyDelete