Tories need a leader who can find the common touch
THE panic of a crisis can make you forget the basics. The rules. Like political parties do best when they talk to the people, not just to themselves. Right now, the House of Commons seems selfobsessed, talking to itself like a sewer of Babel.
Jeremy Corbyn mumbles into his beard innumerable, contradictory solutions to the national crisis while giving the impression a hard Brexit would suit him just fine.
The Tories talk to themselves, except where there is such bad blood they cannot stand the sight of each other, let alone the sound.
Theresa May seems unwilling to talk even to her own Cabinet and addresses the public only to attack MPs, while the SNP still suffers from political Tourette’s syndrome, crying ‘referendum’ whatever the question.
Europe has divided the Tories for at least half a century. David Cameron’s idea that a referendum could solve the schism was like deciding that arming both sides of a conflict with nukes would be the road to peace. It has ended in war.
What the Conservatives needed in this conflict was leadership, and not Mr Cameron’s vain hope that the votes of the public would do his dirty work for him.
That is what the Tories need now that Mrs May has admitted her term in office is over. Leadership.
And with the EU running out of patience, rather than blinking at the last minute as we were told it would, time is short.
A general election is unlikely to solve anything and, while there may be a need for a contest, the decision on the leadership needs to be taken quickly.
IT means some will have to put their ambitions aside if this internal conflict is going to be de-escalated and the divisions in public opinion addressed. Boris Johnson may think himself a Churchill waiting in the wings, but more and more he looks to have come from a different Tory mould – a Lord Hailsham or an Enoch Powell, popular with the grassroots but divisive among parliamentary colleagues.
His record in every office he has held has looked like marking time while awaiting his prime ministerial destiny, rather than trying to make a success of each job individually and building a CV.
His real destiny now may be to pick up the lucrative offers he apparently has to write books.
Mr Johnson’s role in the Brexit campaign means that to make him leader would look like the Brexiteers had vanquished all before them, rather than chosen a figure
to bring warring sides together. They would own Brexit – and that is not the look the Tories need.
They need to look forward, not back, to what a modern Tory Britain would look like – not one that wears the 1950s double-breasted suits of a Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Although Ruth Davidson may not be standing in this contest, they need to look to what she has achieved in Scotland and how she has done so. The Scottish Tories have gone from also-rans to the main opposition. If Scotland wants an alternative to the SNP at the next election, the Tories are best placed to provide it.
They are consistently second, despite the mess of Brexit and Ms Davidson’s absence on maternity leave. The foundations of the party’s progress have been built on her aspirational, blue collar Toryism.
At a UK level, the Tories need to broaden their appeal in a similar way. The party that gave the country its first Jewish Prime Minister
IT was a surprise when Tory defector Heidi Allen was announced as interim leader of the new breakaway Change UK party ahead of the European elections, should the UK take part.
The urbane sophisticate Chuka Umunna had expected to take on that role, but was apparently denied it.
‘The problem with Chuka,’ one former colleague explained, ‘is that he looks like an Armani model – very pretty but no brain. They need someone more M&S.’ Ms Allen. More M&S. That’s her sorted, too.
and its first women leaders might be the one to give us the first Muslim one, if Sajid Javid can prove he could manage the nation as well as he has his own career.
But if it must be a Leaver who leads, they must be emollient and, however unlikely, Michael Gove may get a second chance.
HE has re-invented himself since his knifing of Mr Johnson in the last leadership election, has been loyal to Mrs May and hasn’t indulged himself in the theological schisms on what a ‘true’ Brexit means, asking only for the referendum to be honoured by leaving the EU in some form.
The old Etonians of the Tory Party should look to the last old Etonian who was a success as Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.
His country estate was in the flight path of Gatwick Airport. While relaxing there one Sunday while in office, one family member annoyed by the noise of the aircraft asked him, could he not have their routes diverted?
No, he said. He liked the sound of working-class people going on holidays they could never afford if he were not Prime Minister.
That is what the Tory Party needs now. A leader who likes the sound of ordinary people.