We may resent China’s methods, but it thinks seriously and strategically and can execute quickly. By contrast, Liz Truss’ attempts to reshape the UK were immediately cast as inherently destructive because they rattled short-term nerves.
We can’t rely on policy wonks to win the public over. Politicians need to inject the emotion. If the Conservative Party is to have a future, it must do more than factcheck.
Simply assuming the next leader of the Conservative Party will be whoever in the final two is the more ‘right-wing’ is an insult to our membership. They are much more intelligent and prescient than most commentators give them credit for.
Who we elect to be the next leader of the Conservative Party will have the opportunity to define the party for at least the next 15 years.
The Shadow Chancellor says: “We decisively lost the trust of the British people.”
If there is one thread that unites all the governments and prime ministers we have had over the past 14 years, it is postponing difficult decisions and taking the easy way out. Tonight, the whole party reaped what the whole party sowed.
Whatever the result, there is little alternative to Rishi Sunak remaining to provide stability and preside over a proper evaluation of the party’s problems, rather than a knee-jerk leadership election.
Can the current leadership guarantee they haven’t left behind a financial mess that means that the next leader spends the next two years saving the party from bankruptcy?
Former Chancellor says “I can see why he [Sunak] did it” in calling election, but the party wasn’t ready.
Until we understand just why the electorate is so sick of us, the chances of the Conservatives recovering any time soon are miniscule, however awful the election result.
No party has a divine right to exist if it can’t offer policy propositions that are distinct from others’ and respond to the wishes of a voting coalition that can win an election.
In Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, they got their people. In Brexit and Rwanda, they got their policies. Efforts to pin it all on the Wets, the Remainers, and the ‘Blob’ will be in vain.
If the people get to choose the government, then it seems appropriate that they make a meaningful decision. Voters are entitled to plump for a protest party, but this amounts to opting out.
Her government would have lasted longer, with a better shot at pulling off its core objective, if she and Kwasi Kwarteng had hugged the OBR and Bank of England close.
If the party is serious about Kemi’s pledge to tell the unalloyed truth, they need to be honest that in ordeer to really boost growth vast reductions in public spending will have to be found and there will need to a huge programme of deregulation and supply-side reform.