A common complaint in the current arena is we’re being waterboarded with coverage of the Tory leadership, despite a fraction of us actually having a say in who wins the fucking thing. A few thousand members of the Conservative party will decide who becomes our Prime Minister, but that’s only after the Westminster lot have filtered it down and fucked it up, rounded the edges and removed their risks - to ensure the final two options we're left with are just as awful and useless as the last twenty times they've done it. By the time we’re down to the final pair, so many backroom deals and vote lending and promises and commitments and compromises will have been made - the remaining two vacuous, careerist mannequins will be so devoid of principles and freedom of thought, we'll just have a more useless, more compromised version of Maybot by the first week of September. If it’s Truss, she’ll be pushed around by the ERG and hectored by the moderates; pressured by the tabloids to cut taxes and impending autumn energy prices - and chastised by the BoE who’ll tell her she’s financially illiterate for increasing people's net income in the midst of 1970s-style inflation. If it’s Sunak, he’ll be dogged by accusations of disloyalty, of being uncaring for not lowering taxes at a time of financial hardship. Indeed, he'll be seen as the tax-dodging “American” billionaire who chose to do nothing while his own country starved. He’ll be targeted by Francois and Rees-Mogg for not being Truss. He’ll be monstered by One Nation Low-Tax Tories - for maintaining the highest tax levels we’ve seen for seventy years; "This isn't conservatism... don't blame me, I wanted Truss!" they'll cry. Despite the poisoned chalice at the end of it and the fact none of us have any say in it, the truth is the leadership race has been useful for two reasons: First, it’s given Labour and Lib Dems a boost. Lol. I mean, it’s quite darkly funny when you realise the only way to get Tories accurately appraised on prime time television - is to let them attack themselves. But second, the race to the Leadership has given us an accurate read on what Tory MPs actually care about. And that’s little to do with taking climate change seriously. Nothing to do with the financial meltdown headed our way in the Autumn. No, what their campaigns have focused on and what the MPs have voted for - is small boats hysteria, being "the anti woke candidate!", obsessing over trans people in toilets - and people who lie that they’ll be cutting taxes. That's what they've focused on. As the country burns. And as poverty rages. We need to remember this, that in their moment, when the country needed them to lead, to govern, they opted to chase the approval of statue-obsessed, poppy-nonce flag-fuckers. And we should never forgive them for it.
