Truss bought her opinions on eBay... the Tories have now run out of gimmicks
THE Tory Party is like a knight dying in his armour. Looked at casually from a distance, it still appears formidable and important. Seen close to, it is obviously done for, gasping for breath inside its visor, kept upright in the saddle only by the steel plates which are supposed to protect it.
Nothing but habit, and a reputation gained long ago, keep it in being. If it were not for the money given to it by donors who are in most cases not actually political, its organisation would collapse. Without broadcasting rules which greatly favour existing parties over new challengers, it would not get the attention it receives.
Nobody knows who its dwindling members really are. It must surely have run out of nice old ladies in the shires by now. I suspect its membership lists mainly contain metrosexual free-market fanatics, swivel-headed drug legalisers and teenagers in think tanks.
Labour and the Lib Dems, I should add, are not much different. This is why their leaders are all so woeful. Whatever was the point of Nick Clegg?
Yes, Liz Truss is perhaps the most woefully unconvincing Prime Minister we have ever seen, but it is unfair to concentrate on her. Sir Anthony Blair is at least as dim, but is a better actor and had much better handlers. David Cameron was unable to cover up the fact he believed in nothing, but like the great actor George Sanders, he played the part of likeable bounder to perfection. Poor Theresa May should never have risen above the level of Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee of Trumpton Borough Council.
But you will look in vain for another Margaret Thatcher or Denis Healey, a new Michael Heseltine or even a new Neil Kinnock, because all the parties have been captured by the deadly dogmas of equality and diversity. All live in fear of the BBC, which – like the medieval church – decides which ideas are acceptable and which are heretical, and will seek to destroy anyone who steps outside its chosen limits.
You cannot now discuss whether the sexual revolution was a good thing. Parents must surrender their children to the power and ideas of the state. You cannot oppose multiculturalism or mass immigration.
Education is so equal that by 2080 everyone will have a first-class university degree. The idea that crime results from human evil and should be punished and deterred is now virtually unspeakable – which is why the police no longer police and our prisons are dangerous warehouses run by the inmates.
The idea that it might be sensible to protect domestic industry and agriculture from foreign competition has been driven underground. If you oppose the crazy wars the West now so often starts or provokes, you will be lucky if you are not accused of being a traitor. It is a terrible mess, but none of the big parties dares admit it has been a ghastly mistake.
So there is nothing left for the ambitious politician but stunts, gimmicks and silly initiatives that come to nothing.
First it is ‘more Bobbies on the Beat’, when there haven’t been any Bobbies for half a century and there is no Beat for them to walk. Then it is ‘tougher sentences’ which are automatically halved as soon as they are imposed. There are repeated school reforms, none of which includes the only thing that would do any good – a general return to academic selection.
It’s much the same for Labour, which has for years scorned its working-class base, especially its fears about crime and migration, and become the party of affluent inner-city bohemians who know Tuscany better than Lancashire.
IDON’T think Liz Truss has any consistent beliefs. So instead she bought some opinions on eBay. She posed as a free-market liberal (probably out of nothing more than ambition, since we know how easily she changes her mind). This is not an especially conservative view, but some people think it is. The trouble is that our economy, loaded with debt and taxes, is far too decrepit to cope with such measures. You can say you are going to stimulate it back to health, but you might as well try to turn a hobbling pensioner into an Olympic athlete by giving him a handful of amphetamines, an electric shock and a can of Red Bull.
There are no gimmicks left. The Tory Party has run out of them and will shortly topple from its saddle with a great clang and clatter.
If you want a proper pro-British conservative government, you are going to have to make your own.
The only good thing is that once the Tories have gone, millions will realise the truth – that they have no friends at Westminster, and if they want to change this they must build a new party and make it win.