MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Labour would win a Tory civil war
There is never a good time for a political party’s members, especially MPs, to plot against their leader.
But in the second half of a parliament such behaviour is even more dangerous and foolish.
The next General Election is likely to fall by May 2024. If the Tory Party now gives itself over to internal strife, which is never over quickly, this will be the main thing that voters will remember two years hence.
And it is well known that the public actively hate it when their would-be leaders squabble in public. If those who seek to govern the country cannot behave with self-restraint and discipline, why should they be entrusted with the seals of office?
But, alas, internal war is enjoyable for many of those who take part in it.
There is never a good time for a political party’s members, especially MPs, to plot against their leader. But in the second half of a parliament such behaviour is even more dangerous and foolish
It can further the ambitions of the obscure, who can make names for themselves in small-scale strife as they never could in normal times.
It can also provide revenge for those who have held office and lost it.
Perhaps too many Tories have forgotten the era of Theresa May, during which incessant division gravely weakened their party.
But they surely ought to remember the success which followed its reunification under Boris Johnson, who famously got Brexit done, won a convincing majority in a General Election and, by common consent, has coped well with Covid and the Ukraine crisis.
It is precisely because his opponents have so little political ammunition against him that they have needed to make a huge issue out of Partygate. And while Mr Johnson has many failings, and has had a bumpy ride over the past few months, he remains an unusually effective political leader with a direct personal appeal to the public which no Tory has had for decades.
Those who now say that he has lost his magic need to understand that the challenges of actual office strip the outward shine off almost everyone who takes it on.
Which of them could stand the incessant personal scrutiny that is nowadays the lot of a UK Prime Minister?
And they need to ask themselves, who else could do any better – especially in the key task of appealing beyond the Conservative Party’s traditional constituency in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats which will be so important at the next Election.
Murmuring against him will only help Sir Keir Starmer, and his allies, with all this implies.
It is precisely because his opponents have so little political ammunition against him that they have needed to make a huge issue out of Partygate
For many people in this country, it was the European Union’s interference in our way of life which made its rule so unacceptable. The grander issues of monetary union and foreign policy mattered, but they did not actually upset people.
What did upset them was being told, for no good reason, that – for example – they could no longer buy their fruit and vegetables by the pound, and that the weight of newborn babies would be given officiously in kilograms, something meaningless to millions.
When these matters came to court, as they sometimes did, it often seemed that it was not just the EU pushing for soulless changes, but that there were jacks-in-office in this country who rather enjoyed expunging these harmless and treasured aspects of Britishness.
The widespread failure to reverse such meddling since we left the EU has strengthened that impression.
So The Mail on Sunday gives hearty thanks for news that the traditional Crown symbol is to return to pint glasses in pubs.
But this should be only the start. Why should English lawmaking and officialdom be relentlessly metricated in purely domestic matters? Man went to the Moon in feet and inches, so why can’t we buy petrol in gallons and butter by the half pound?
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