No. 84 – Last night at Lavenham - A Man for Nearly All Seasons

Dear James,

I came to your public meeting at Lavenham last night and was pleasantly surprised. You are clearly a likeable fellow and a decent man. You handled the situation well and managed the audience professionally and sensibly. I think as a person, you won over the majority of the audience. The two policemen at the door were totally unnecessary!

What struck me however, was the huge distance between who and what we saw last night and what we hear and see on television and in the press each day. For several moments I was convinced that you were in the wrong party. You spoke of your distaste for a no-deal Brexit, calling it an ‘absurd position’. You said that you fundamentally disagree with no-deal and the ERG. The party you seemed to belong to was the one that existed until the end of the May era three months ago. That party no longer exists James.

Last night Mr Cummings's name was mentioned only once or twice even though he is the de facto leader of the new Tory Party with his monomaniacal determination to force a no-deal on our nation. The supporters of this new party seem to base their enthusiasm almost totally on the assertion that ‘Boris has Balls’, hardly a necessary assertion when so many of his girlfriends are there to confirm it - at least in a purely biological sense! 

Last night you persisted in your dream of ‘doing a deal within a couple of weeks’, releasing our country from its EU shackles, unleashing our natural aptitudes and becoming a nation, ‘nimble and fleet of foot’, super athletes in this world of lumbering hedgehogs. Your audience responded with the usual variety of polite disbelief and confusion on one side and thorough going support for a no-deal on the other. You are clearly a man for all seasons James, except for the current Tory season of darkness. Last night you were still sitting on the fence created by Mrs May and seemingly out of touch with your current leadership where lies and a determination for a no-deal are the new party lines. There were rumours yesterday that at the coming election, your party would put a no-deal Brexit at the centre of their manifesto. That would be logical because you have Mr Farage lurking on the side lines waiting to cry ‘Traitor’ at you should you try to fudge the issue. And that is the issue facing your party now. Become Brexit Party Mark 2 or end up with the general election equivalent of 9% of the vote as per the recent European elections.

Yesterday in London, Damien Green led a delegation representing 80 One Nation Tory MPs to see Boris about the above concern. Apparently, he looked them ‘straight in the eye’ and said that he would never put a no-deal Brexit in the Tory Party manifesto. But this was Boris. Yesterday someone in your audience asked ‘Would you trust Boris?’. Everyone laughed. 

James, you have moved from being a 2016 Remainer to a 2018 May supporter of Mrs May’s deal, to a 2019  backer of Jeremy Hunt and now to a supporter of a government pretending to be close to a deal but which is very soon going to have to decide whether it is a One Nation Tory Party or a Brexit Party Mark 2. That is some journey. You are truly a man for all seasons. Or should that be a man who’s main principle is to keep his job no matter where his party leads him?

The answer to that last question will only be revealed when either Mr Cummings is sacked and your party returns to something like its traditional values or when the Tory Party truly becomes Brexit Party Mark 2. That will be the true test of your own gonads James rather than Boris’s. I remember his bolting for the East when the vote on the third Heathrow runway came and went in 2017. Boris proved then that his balls are purely metaphorical.

But again, credit where credit’s due. Last night your boyish charm, your professionalism and your audience sensitivity probably got a few female hearts fluttering and made sure that most people went away happy. You are clearly by culture and natural disposition, a ‘Mrs May Tory’. But real politics is not like that. Your real test is still to come.

Even Sir Thomas More, the original ‘Man for all Seasons’ eventually had to take sides. And look what happened to him! It’ll soon be time to choose James. But I shall not be holding my breath.

Kind regards,

BH - Your Concerned Constituent.