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Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Friday: “After years banging on about the case for low taxation – the quaint idea that societies are fairer and stronger when people are allowed to keep more of the money they earn – the Tories have now given up. Already there is evidence of support slipping away. A YouGov MRP poll for the Times on Friday found that the Conservatives face virtual wipeout behind the red wall, and severe losses in the south of England, with Johnson himself set to lose his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat along with the former leader Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green. After Sunak’s announcement, Tory commentators despaired that the party seemed to have ditched its commitment to low taxation.
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But the money for that has to come from somewhere, and as the government faces growing economic pressure, Conservative MPs from wealthier bits of the south of England increasingly worry that ‘levelling up’ ultimately means taking money from their voters and giving it to voters elsewhere. Wednesday had seen the senior civil servant Sue Gray publish her damning verdict on “Partygate”. Despite repeated denials from Johnson that any parties had taken place, Gray methodically laid out details of 16 events – several attended by the prime minister himself – with examples of excessive drinking, mistreatment of cleaning and other staff, and general Covid rule-breaking at the heart of power.
These have been confusing and, for many, dispiriting times to be a Tory MP. Many confide privately that it is not just Johnson’s behaviour, the rule-breaking and misleading over parties that is difficult to defend and grinding them down. At the same time, they say, there is also a broader issue – a wider identity crisis – that his premiership has created. But the increasing worry on the right, and in the Tory-supporting media, is that the entire Conservative brand – the offering – is now fuzzy and unclear, as well as contaminated by what has gone on in No 10.MPs who don’t like big spending on principle like it even less when it is their voters paying the bills but seeing little of the benefit. This, I suspect, is the root cause of some of the disquiet.” Asked after Sunak’s statement what the Tories’ biggest problem was, one minister said: “It is that we don’t have a clear strategy. It is that we are not clear what we are.” No miracle can save the Tories from facing the next election with the NHS in a crisis which they have created: waiting lists and staff vacancies will still be rising. Anita Charlesworth, research director at the Health Foundation, warns that a million more health and care staff will be needed when this decade of ageing reaches its peak. Trawling the world for staff can’t fill the void caused when the Tories’ 2010 budget axed training places for clinicians who would now be in service. In support of her t-shirt, which cheekily imitates the Tesco logo, she wrote: “Cannot get behind a man who shames single mums and their children, uses casual racism, gambles with the NHS and gives zero f***s about our children’s future.”
Last week the government ended Covid restrictions and free tests in England, though infections have hit their highest ever level, and the Office for National Statistics says that 1.5m people are reporting long Covid, which will have unknown consequences for the NHS. The Guardian has revealed how children’s mental services have been overwhelmed, a situation worsened by Covid. But for all the NHS’s troubles, hold on to this: in the national patient survey in late 2021, most people report that they had good treatment, with 75% approval for hospitals, 83% for GPs and 88% for cancer. That suggests Tory attempts to rubbish the NHS will fail. The public complains about access to services, and for that they blame the government. But there are also deeper and less parochial forces at work. Worldwide, conservatism is increasingly about rightwing governments, parties and movements trying to leverage limited support – often drawn from a shrinking part of the population that is elderly, white and male – to impose traditionalist ideas on a diversifying wider society that sees those ideas as repellent or just unsuited to modern life. Boris Johnson ‘got Brexit done’ but in doing so, inherited a broad coalition of voters who are difficult to satisfy. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP The problem of the leader, they say, is one thing. The direction in which the party at large is heading ideologically under his stewardship, another. What does it stand for, what does it believe in?Conservatism in Britain and the US has failed to recapture the relatively broad support it enjoyed in the 80s under Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, with comfortable election victories becoming rarities. So the right has increasingly come to rely on democracy-distorting measures: gerrymandering, restricting the right to vote and designing campaigns to win office with smaller and smaller shares of the vote. Conservatism has also tried to magnify its narrowing appeal by merging with, or turning into, populism, a form of politics that often relies on sleights of hand – such as “strong” leaders claiming to represent a whole country when actually they are politicians like any others, with weaknesses and limited support bases. Ourground-breaking recycled t-shirts are made from 100% recycled materials and are, to our knowledge, the first commercially produced t-shirts made from recycled cotton. The fabrics are produced in India from 60% recycled organic cotton and 40% recycled polyester. The cotton waste from normal production is saved ("salvaged") and shredded until broken into individual fibres. These are then blended with locally recycled polyester and spun into yarn. The knitting, dying and manufacturing are carried out in established facilities in Tamil Nadu, renowned for high ethical labour standards and low environmental impact. These products are certified under the Global Recycle Standard (GRS) and the Organic Content Standard (OCS), and carry the appropriate certification marks, licensed by the Control Union Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
The former Tory cabinet minister David Gauke said he felt for MPs who had to defend the prime minister and also make clear to voters what the current Conservative party stood for. “They have a broad coalition of voters to satisfy, a leader who does not have deep beliefs and an exceptional crisis. I completely see why Tory MPs are worried. All they have is cultural wedge issues like [sending asylum seekers to] Rwanda. But that does not amount to a strategy.” The windfall tax on energy companies has been denounced on the Tory right. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA At RedMolotov.com we specialise in producing high-quality, ethically-sourced t-shirts. We pride ourselves in using the best materials we can find, which is why our t-shirts will not fall out of shape after a few washes like other cheaper varieties you may find for sale elsewhere.The senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture,” she said. The prime minister responded initially by telling MPs he was “humbled”, before defiantly rewriting the ministerial code so that ministers would not always be expected to resign for breaking rules. To the astonishment of many in his own party he also removed a section from the code about the importance of ethics in government. One explanation for the Tory power grab is pretty straightforward. They see confronting and weakening the whole range of tabloid bogeymen, from “ lefty lawyers” to trade unions, as one of the few remaining ways to get re-elected, now that most of their other policies have so obviously failed. In their desperation, the Conservatives are behaving even more than usually like the reactionary newspapers that sustain them, trying to shout down and delegitimise their enemies while presenting the minority of Britons who are consistently rightwing as “the people”. The danger for the Conservatives may not be that many voters see their power grabs as sinister, but that they find them risible. Incompetence in government is now one of the Tories’ most widely recognised characteristics. Another is their discontent with the society they have ruled for so long. The more they rage and try to act against “wokeness” and other culture war adversaries, the more they inadvertently admit that they have failed to reshape the country as they wished. After a similar stretch in office, more effective governments such as Blair’s and Thatcher’s no longer needed to fight constant battles, as they had beaten most of their enemies. The chancellor Rishi Sunak making a statement in the House of Commons on the cost of living crisis. He rivals Gordon Brown in imposing tax rises. Photograph: House of Commons/PA
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