THERE are moments in the history of any government that are pivotal. I mentioned one with regard to the current Westminster government in my column a week ago. Sunak’s deliberate imposition of poverty, starting on 6 April is one turning point in the history of this government. Partygate will be another. They debacle of Sunak‘s tax affairs provided a third. It is especially rare that these things come in threes.
I am not interested in providing another blow by blow account of what is happening on each of these issues. Journalists on this paper do that all too well. Given that this issue impacts everyone in Scotland from both the Westminster and Holyrood perspectives, it is the politics of what is going on that interests me.
There are three core issues. First there is the indifference that this government is revealing. Whether it be not caring about the cost of living, or not caring about the fact that they partied when others waved their final goodbyes to dying relatives through windows, the Tories really do not think that what they do matters.
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Second, there is the arrogance. Johnson does not believe that the law applies to him. Sunak thinks his wife can choose where and if she will pay tax, when almost no one else can. It is now obvious to almost everyone that they think they are different to the rest of us.
Third, there is their lack of understanding. Sunak is too rich and Johnson just too out of touch with reality to realise that it is possible to worry about heating bills, how to pay for the shopping or the need to buy school uniforms. They simply do not know what having a budget and not being able to stretch it far enough to cover the cost-of-living means. The Conservatives don’t just live in another country when compared to the rest of us; they live on another planet.
There is, however, something really strange to note about that planet. That is that if truth be told remarkably few people live on it. What all long-term political observers like me know is that the Tories should have had a leadership crisis this week, but they have not. With Sunak knocked out of contention by his wife’s tax affairs and with no one, even in the Tories, really thinking that Liz Truss is a remotely credible candidate to be prime minister, the Tories made up all sorts of reasons why they had to back Boris Johnson.
They claimed it was because we are at war. Except of course, we are not. We are bystanders to a war in Ukraine, I admit. But we are not actually at war. And anyway, as many have pointed out, the UK has a habit of changing prime ministers during the course of wars, so there is nothing to stop it doing so again.
Then they claimed it was because Johnson had ‘called all the big issues right’. Corruption, the excess Covid death crisis in England and the lead he has given to the claims that Covid is over when it glaringly obviously is not, all reveal the lie in that one. The cost-of-living crisis also shows they have the economy badly wrong.
Add all that together and the conclusion is that there are simply no competent Tories left to replace Johnson with. That is how small planet Tory is. As a political party the Tories have expelled, worn down or sent to the Lords anyone who can threaten Johnson. In a country of well over 60 million people there is not another person capable of leading the Tories not because the UK lacks credible politicians, but because the Tories cannot attract a single one into their ranks.
What is more, because competence tends to be aligned with ideas, and the Tories have sacked everyone with ideas, they have now forgotten how to govern, or why they want to do it.
Put these two facts together and what we see is all that is left of the Tory party, which is the naked pursuit of power so that they might enrich their friends in the hope that the favour might be returned in due course. That’s it. That is all that now drives the UK government.
The Tories are bankrupt of people, ideas and political ambition, but despite that, Labour has no apparent idea how to exploit this. And even with the golden opportunity that this supplies, the SNP will still not call for an immediate independence referendum. For me, those failures are almost as worrying.
One day I hope for principles driven politics to be at the fore again. I cannot be alone. But all I see is threadbare politics, ground down on all sides by Tory indifference. We all deserve better than that.
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