So Boris finally got the message and agreed to step down after one gaffe too many. The Conservative Parliamentary Party decided collectively, as it is wont to do on such occasions (perhaps strangely for an individualist party) that enough is enough.
Life now moves on.
A lot of people in the wider world of Conservatives and conservatives (not the same thing) have been getting excited, blaming Boris’ departure on his failure to implement whatever programme they prefer and fantasising about someone new coming in and delivering the Tory Utopia that the country is clearly yearning for.
So let’s have a bit of fun and rate some of the runners and riders.
I should firstly make clear that I’m not going to try and be objective or to sum up these people up fairly, as they deserve. I don’t spend my days paying minute attention to what they get up to. I have limited horizons and interests. I also forget things. This will be a limited, quite uninformed perspective (though probably better than most).
Also, I’m not a Tory. I will approach this as an observer who is not particularly unfriendly but not particularly sympathetic either. The Tories are primarily a party of wealth and property from where I’m sitting. I think this is what the party exists to conserve for the most part, and what gets most of its MPs up in the morning.
So I’ll be approaching this vital task with a particular perspective: seeking out those who will push the Conservative Party as far as is realistic in my sort of direction: towards a politics that does indeed seek to ‘level up’ in the country a bit, that takes Brexit and borders seriously, and also one that seeks to tackle the frankly huge problems in the state, not least those associated with the dominance of progressive identity politics in it. A conservative politics that takes conservation seriously, while taking on self-serving interests that damage trust, promote antagonism and waste taxpayer’s money.
I’m not sure any of the runners and riders are properly cut out to implement such an agenda and get away with it – not least because their party wouldn’t let them – but let’s see how they pan out through my frankly ignorant and prejudiced eyes.
Rishi Sunak
About all I know about him is that he has been Chancellor, is super-rich and British Indian. I tend to think that even with Conservative Party members or MPs, the former will count against him, but the latter should count in his favour. I wonder if the rough-and-tumble of being Prime Minister would suit him. Talk of how he had an American citizenship ready for him if he should so wish suggests he may have doubts about a political career in the ‘UK’.
Verdict: Too global establishment, unwilling to visit Stoke on a cold Tuesday night.
Chances: I doubt it somehow.
Liz Truss
Truss is clearly keen on the job and is a proper neoliberal, deregulating, tax-cutting, promote-free-markets-and-support them-militarily-around-the-world-red-meat-Whig-Tory. This no doubt appeals greatly to the ideological side of Torydom, but I suspect she will scare off enough members/MPs with her strident tone and politics to not get far enough in the context. The fact she wants to concrete over the shires in order to create a more business-friendly environment won’t ultimately help her.
Verdict: Scary.
Chances: In it, but won’t win it.