As lovely as my three years at ConservativeHome have been, I can’t say that I leave the Tory Party in a better state than I found it. If only you knew how bad things really are.
Number 10’s change of heart should be considered a win for all those in the Conservative Party who have long been devoted to the beaver cause.
Keir Starmer is a sphinx without a riddle – a late middle-aged man of conventional progressive opinions who fancied a late-stage career change to become Prime Minister. But Morgan McSweeney is worth taking an interest in.
Her foreign policy speech has long since been overshadowed by the Prime Minister’s announcement that defence spending should rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.
Three years of war have only demonstrated our unseriousness, as heroic as the Ukrainian resistance has been. When Starmer goes to Washington, why on Earth should Trump listen to him?
Trump’s return has suddenly forced our politicians to confront the reality of our international impotency.
So underwhelming has her tenure been so far that the most commonly discussed question about her leadership has become not if she goes, but when – and who replaces her.
28.9 per cent of our panel declare themselves to be somewhat or much less likely to vote Tory after our new leader’s first hundred days. By contrast, 39.6 per cent say they are more likely to vote for Nigel Farage’s party.
Even if Keir Starmer is reluctant to reshuffle, the first rumours that one is in the offing are emerging.
The President’s return should wake us up to the need to retreat from the American Empire before the world order it was said to enforce is buried for good.
The Bank has joined a string of independent forecasters in downgrading growth expectations, making it even more likely that the OBR will similarly slash its expectations when it pushes its next assessment in March.
The Conservative Party is at a tipping point; replacement, irrelevance, and extinction loom. But Badenoch is said to be lambasting staff for not campaigning or fundraising hard enough. Physician, heal thyself.
What is Islamophobia? Like obscenity, good art, or a good speech by Kemi Badenoch, is one supposed to know it when they see it?
Leaving has not been as disastrous as Remainers feared, nor as beneficial as Leavers hoped. It is an unfinished revolution, overtaken by events. A hard rain still needs to fall.
As the Shadow Foreign Secretary’s hopeless TalkTV interview showed, we can’t be under new management if voters see the same politicians defending the same appalling record that caused them to boot us out only six months ago.