Liz Truss’ Jenga tower of a government continues to sway, nearing the collapse that will cement its one true legacy: as the answer to future pub trivia questions about shortest stints as UK prime minister. That the latest blocks were plucked from the structure after a chaotic and rancorous vote on fracking — an injection of high pressure forcing existing fissures ever wider, anyone? — is so perfect it’s almost unimaginative. Home secretary Suella Braverman resigned via a scathing letter, and several other MPs have called for Truss to resign.
After all this, a Tory backbencher called Charles Walker, his eyes bearing the fixed intensity of someone working very hard not to raise their voice, spoke to the BBC:
“To be perfectly honest this whole affair is inexcusable. It is just a pitiful reflection on the Conservative parliamentary party at every level and it reflects very badly, obviously, on the government of the day,” he said.
Until now, Walker is best known for a widely lauded speech detailing his experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder and, with more mixed responses, his eccentric protests against what he saw as his own government’s overreach during the COVID-19 lockdowns. That dissent is put entirely in the shade by this interview.
“This is an absolute disgrace. As a Tory MP of 17 years, who’s never been a minister, who’s got on with it loyally most of the time, I think it’s a shambles and a disgrace. I think it’s utterly appalling,” he continues, beginning to quake with anger.
It’s worth consulting the full text. His account of people delivered to and from the highest seats of power, as part of opaque deal-making serving the interests of no one but those involved … well, it may sound familiar:
I’m livid, and you know, I really shouldn’t say this, but I hope all those people who put Liz Truss in Number 10, I hope it was worth it. I hope it was worth it for the ministerial red box. I hope it was worth it to sit around the cabinet table. Because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary.
I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their personal interest to achieve ministerial position. And I know I speak for hundreds of backbenchers who right now are worried about their constituents, all the time, but also worried about their personal circumstances, because there is nothing as ex as an ex MP.
And a lot of my colleagues are wondering, as a lot of their constituents are wondering, how they are going to pay their mortgages if this all comes to an end soon. I’m leaving Parliament at the next general election and I’m leaving voluntarily. But I’m afraid if we don’t get our act together and start acting like grown-ups, many hundreds of my colleagues, maybe 200, will be leaving at the behest of their electorate.
Of course, this is all a bit wordy, particularly when you compare it to the more terse feedback veteran Channel 4 journo Krishnan Guru-Murthy gave Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker. After a “robust” interview, Guru-Murthy was heard on a hot mic amiably saying “What a cunt” of the departing Tory hardman.
“I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their personal interest to achieve ministerial position”
Yup!! Good luck to the Brits.
The ‘talent-less people’ quip will reverberate.
Clearly the Cameron mishandling of Brexit was a major, and BoJo a comic figure in an unfolding tragedy, but at core the problem is the unraveling of the world-wide obsession with economic rationalism. Truss and Kwarteng were throwbacks, too extreme even for colleagues, but liked by the membership, steeped in decades of ideological grooming. Who next should really be secondary to where next for the Tories in the days ahead now Liz ‘Footnote’ Truss is gone, but the obsession with leaders is so pervasive, that will be the chaff we’re fed.
British media, apart from several independent outlets including ByLine Times, New European, Open Democracy and DeSmog, have gone out of their way to avoid analysis of the Tory Party (vs. personalities ‘he said, she said’) and Tufton St. think tanks promoting crazy libertarian economics joined at the up with nativism, all imported from the US.
Further, ageing demographics, wacky right wing media ecosystem and a mysterious ageing male membership have the Tories set up for untethered policies, yet no one in the Tories seems to know what is happening and why? Libertarian coup of Brexit supported by the same negative influences….
‘joined at the hip with nativism’
c follows f into the list of failed – overused – expletives.
And the Limp lettuce wins! Exeunt Truss, stage left pursued by a tortoise.
The next (s)election is to be limited to 3 candidates, most likely Dishi Rish, Capt. Mainwaring Mordaunt and the priapic Bozoid.
Sounds like he would have been a much better choice