No.55 - The Jeers from the Rear Say it All.
Dear James,
Where do you live? I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. Your message to justify backing Jeremy Hunt as the next Tory leader reads a little like a schoolboy essay in exculpatory flattery. And its irrelevance is almost touching. Surely your real message is that you are – or should be - scared stiff. Because Boris is leading you into a place where, ultimately, you will have to make a massive decision. To go with him or to split with him. That'll be quite a career challenge James.
Let’s face it, forget the nation, your leadership contest is a last desperate attempt to save your party. When Boris gets in, goes to Brussels, bangs the table and returns with very little, you will be faced with the ultimate decision – whether to back a ‘no-deal’ crash out or a party split. Europe (and the world) is yet again, holding their heads in disbelief. How much longer will our poor country have to put up with these extended death throes of your Party?
Yesterday Boris won 114 votes in the initial round. The day previously he launched his bid around the catchy slogan, ‘Back Boris’. The desperately eager ministers in the audience, were there, hoping that they were witnessing the beginning of a party renaissance. The candidate entered nervously and for the first few moments spoke in short ejaculatory jerks with the occasional, mistimed arm thrust to emphasise his points. But there was no confidence there, his speech was flat and he was clearly under instructions to avoid quips or any of the other Boris blunders that might land him in trouble. This was Boris minus the charisma. This was Boris as the bulky, shuffling political bore that he really is, talking to a script which was not his. Probably a concoction of his new girlfriend and Clinton Crosby to placate the ERG, they had clearly given him a dusting over beforehand. Towards the end he became a little more Borisian especially when the press asked their six questions. This revealed a lot. When asked about some of his more outrageous past statements and particularly the mention of the Muslim women looking like letter boxes, the involuntary jeer from the rear at the reporter’s question said it all. Johnson brushed the question aside. Sometimes ‘plaster falls off the ceiling’ when speaking the ‘truth’. Try telling that to the millions of minority voters in our country.
The day before, the only really ‘world class’ contender in your party’s election made his launch speech. Swooping into a darkened tent like some ziggy stardust character come to dazzle us all, Rory Stewart amazed everyone by his well founded confidence, his dash, his wit, but most of all by his undoubted intelligence – both emotional and cognitive. Having watched the other contenders with their laboured, passionless deliveries, their empty bribes and small minded gestures towards whoever they wished to influence, Rory’s launch was a breath of fresh air. Here was a natural communicator with the width and breadth of intelligence to influence any audience and to win over the millions of voters who you will need to win any future election. Your party ignores him at their peril. But ignore him you will. Boris is the only contender who may just solve the Nigel Farage problem so your party will continue down the path towards the ERG and self-destruction. Again we’re back to the survival of the Tory Party.
Meanwhile, yesterday, a leaked farewell message from Scott Wightman, the recently departed UK High Commissioner in Singapore and one of our most senior diplomats, spoke of the damage Brexit is doing to the U.K.'s global reputation. Major investors had told him the balance of future investment in Europe "will inevitably be weighted more towards Germany and France, with post-referendum political risk now their "principle consideration." Wightman also compared the damage to Britain's reputation in the last three years to the Fall of Singapore in 1942, a battle which showed the "complacency and arrogance of colonial leadership and transformed their view of British imperialism”. "Things were never the same again.” “The last three years have done the same for Singapore's view of contemporary Britain. The nation they admired for stability, common sense, tolerance and realism grounded in fact, they see beset by division, obsessed with ideology, careless of the truth, its leaders apparently determined to keep on digging.” "I fear many around the world share their view."
What else do you need James, to convince you of the crazed path down which your party is taking us? Would the fact that In April the UK economy shrank by 0.4% while manufacturing output fell by a full 4% help? And car production alone fell by a quarter?
Quite frankly who you vote for in the next round is irrelevant. Your party is in chaos and does not know where to go next. It is most likely to go towards the ideological noise to the right. In that direction lies perdition James but I do not expect you to understand that.
I suppose I should ask you to save us all from this interminable psychodrama but I know that you are trapped between your Westminster bubble and your constituency leadership. We are witnessing just one more stage in the long process towards the only solution to our nation’s nightmare. To wake up and put the vote back to the people.
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent