It has been a dismal few weeks of Stygian gloom for we
frustrated Tory supporters and especially we Brexiteers for whom the glorious
vision of genuine national independence and future opportunity stir the
blood. Our leaders have failed to step
up to the plate, to give clarity, direction and to display political nous and intelligence. The apathetic,
the timorous and the malevolent hold sway and the nation falters and stumbles
shamefully. We need to get a firm grip quickly – we Brits are often slow
starters but we get to the winning post at the end.
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| Theresa looking grim - as well she might. |
I am sorry to say that a root cause of this malaise is the
personality and subsequent performance of our Prime Minister, Theresa May. She
was a competent enough Home Secretary, but she was a Remainer and has failed to
demonstrate any Prime Ministerial qualities. She is inarticulate, distant and
remotely cocooned from any normal person’s work or life experience. Promoted to
the Premiership as a unifying candidate, a bridge between Leavers and
Remainers, (though that distinction should have disappeared by now), Theresa
first fell asleep; then she was to galvanise us by her Lancaster House speech,
a sensible enough but uninspiring pronouncement, her popularity seemed to grow
as good local election results flowed in; next she called a snap general
election but blew it by hiding in her bunker, materially reducing the Tory
majority. She was supposed to clarify the Brexit programme with a speech in
Florence. She was properly complimentary about Europe but shed little light on
our negotiating posture other than to repeat her mantra “No deal is better than
a bad deal”. Two weeks letter her speech to the Tory conference was billed as
significant – in the event it was a car-crash, her lost voice, a prankster’s
interruption and collapsing slogan signs making all Tories cringe. Worse, the
actual content of her flatly delivered speech was vacuous – a footling boost to
housing and a socialist cap on energy prices – if anyone actually heard it
through her coughs and splutters. Theresa is an electoral liability and she
must go before she can do even more damage.
Yet Theresa’s feeble performance is not the whole story. The
Tories have failed to enunciate clear, logical and compelling policies for some
years. In Maggie Thatcher’s time we knew that Toryism stood for free markets,
tax-cutting, small government, populism and patriotism. The intellectual
background was a legacy of the passion of Enoch Powell, the cool rationality of
Sir Keith Joseph and the rigour of Ralph Harris’ Institute of Economic Affairs.
John Major and indeed Tony Blair were heirs to Thatcherite thinking but since
the Economic Crisis of 2007 the Tories seem to have run out of ideas. David
Cameron and George Osborne were smart operators but hollow inside, with no
interest in serious debate or stringent principle. It is late to start on this
road but I believe an eloquent pamphlet or even a simple manifesto can be
composed by Michael Gove, ripe for the Exchequer, and talented Boris Johnson
(those two must bury the hatchet) and show the Tory party the way back to the
confidence and enthusiasm of the people.
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| Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Together they can save us. |
For the alternative is horrific beyond measure. Were Labour
to take power, filling the vacuum left by the currently inept Tories, we return
to a controlled economy garnished by the philosophy of Chavez’ Venezuela (RIP)
and the wilder fantasies of Bernie Sanders. We can quake to the militant
policies espoused by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell and his Momentum
bully-boys. No Uni fees, trades unions with entrenched rights, soak the rich
taxes, withdrawal from Nato, free care for the old, free beer for the workers
and free school meals for all pupils. Such a programme will be immensely
popular under Comrade Corbyn and the venal media (BBC, Independent, FT,
Guardian, the Murdoch Press), which so rabidly opposes Brexit, will easily
shift its allegiance to the gaudy attractions of a neo-Stalinist Paradise.
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| The Red Menace; Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell |
The Remainers skulk in their tents: the defeatists want to abase themselves before Brussels, the footloose young disparage their own country but the Real United Kingdom will rally, put their shoulder to the wheel, reorganise the government, achieve a sensible Brexit and open an exciting new chapter in our inspirational history.
SMD
11.10.17
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017
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