If the future of the Conservative party lies with Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Adam Afriyie, would the last person to leave the country please turn off the lights? I don’t wish to be unkind to Hammond, but I was rather amazed to read how ambitious he is. I always regarded him as someone who might aspire to be chairman of his local rotary club and do quite well in freemasonry. But apparently he has set his sights on being Chancellor and perhaps even….( this really is so daft that I can’t bear to finish the sentence).
But ice maiden May is quite a piece of work. Because of 24 hour news we have probably all forgotten the fuss she made about being reported in the Sundays (in particular the MAIL) about her plans to tear up the Human Rights Act. Unfortunately this had not been cleared by Number 10 as it rather put the PM’s post Eastleigh Telegraph piece in the shade. As she had such damp gussetted rave reviews I was rather surprised that her dogs of war were putting it around that this was a plot by her enemies. Until I read her speech to Conservative Home pledging to tear up the Human Rights Act; a week later. I once asked Michael Heseltine why on earth he wasn’t mounting a challenge to Thatcher and if he had lost his ambition. His reply was instructive. “Dear boy, the most important thing in politics is not ambition, but timing”. A week later he threw his hat in the ring.
So what May was most upset about was that she believed that her enemies had got wind of her speech and tried to dampen its impact. Blimey, I don’t think she’s paranoid but have a sneaking suspicion that she thinks everyone is out to get her.
And then there is Chris Grayling, the Goyle to Her Malfoy. He too is committed to tear up the Human Rights Act so he didn’t want to be sidelined so he wittered support. So it looked like an operation when it was really a cock up.
But Grayling as Lord Chancellor (why do I burst into hysterical, maniacal laughter when I write those words matron?) should know how unwise it is to mix with undesirables, was spotted at a Westminster hostelry breaking bread with David Davis, Liam Fox and Bernard Jenkin amongst others who are on Parliamentary ASBOS. What on earth did he think they were going to discuss? The price of fish,The Bill Cash Book of Jokes, great recipes from the Andes air crash cookbook? Or what a total pinko shit that Cameron is and how he should be cast into the seventh circle of hell. Shock, horror it was the latter. So some nifty footwork was required from Grayling. Sadly the poor chap has all the political tap dancing skills of Long John Silver with woodworm. So rather than keep his mouth firmly I shut his hounds put it about that not only was he there, but he told them all to get a grip and vigorously supported the PM. So delightfully incompetent that one does know whether to weep or laugh uproariously. I can guess what Cameron did.
So the Tory Dementors are on manoeuvres. It gives a whole new meaning to mission creep. The rather splendid Nick Boles got it right when he savaged those MPs with safe seats who had their own agendas and didn’t give a stuff about the destabilisation which could lose most of the new intake their seats. Are people so dim that they cannot see that the real threat to the Conservative party is not the Kippers but a small number of vocal backbenchers who are hell bent on destroying Cameron at whatever cost. It is time that the silent majority began to howl with indignation.
To some the election is already lost. Time to regroup. Time to have a leader with real vision. Time to have a leader who will promote those policies that sent the Conservative Party into the political wilderness for a generation.
“The fault, dear Brutus, in not in our stars but in ourselves”. Well the Ides of March aren’t all that far away.