Most Conservatives will tell you that they are the party of responsible government. The Johnson administration is anything but. In a few short weeks he has promised money to almost everyone who has asked for it. Ten years of telling us that nurses, teachers and welfare recipients needed to be careful with their money because bankers had been so reckless with it has gone out of the window. Now the spin is that if you vote Conservative there will be lots of money for the things that we all care about. That isn’t the way economics works. You don’t suddenly find trillions stuffed down the sofa. It is the way that tricky politicians work. Signal to everyone that they can have money before an election and then worry about the consequences afterwards. As the Trump sugar rush of tax cuts that aren’t funded unwinds one set of questions ought to be central in everyone’s mind. What exactly caused the 2008 banking crash? Have those problems been fixed or are we even more vulnerable to a financial crash? Who is thinking seriously about how to create a stable and sustainable economy, society and ecology? If you are looking for economic responsibility then you need to look to sustainable Green New Deal economics not trust to the luck of financial booms and busts and the decades of grinding austerity that will be the best that might come out of the next bust.
Most Conservatives would also claim that they deliver stability. “Strong and Stable” government was Theresa May’s election slogan. Nothing was said about lurching from one crisis to the next. Nothing was said about the Conservative party being split down the middle by an ideological divide that is fundamental. There was no talk about throwing out rebels who dared to ask whether ideologically driven policies were practical and could actually be delivered without huge damage. There was no talk about Constitutional crises with the Queen unsure about whether she can trust the word of her Prime Minister. We have gone from May’s weak and unstable government into a wholly new experience. We now have strong and unstable government. It is hard to tell which is worse but I think, on balance, determined self-assured active pursuit of stupidity may well be worse than accidental bumbling incompetence. Either way the one thing we have no sign of is stability.
Conservatives also like to think that they are the people who make Britain strong. Instead they have turned the country into a laughing stock. Faced with critical international crises in Iran, Kashmir, and Yemen at the same time as a major trade war between the US and China the UK government can do nothing constructive. We are being ignored when decisions are made that we used to be an important part of. All the energy has been sucked out of the UK by endless debates about Brexit. The country’s status as a place where rational reasonable people could be found has gone for a long time. We have a government which is desperately sending trade delegations to New Zealand to see if they will let us drive our hill farmers out of business by selling us more lamb. Whilst we queue up to receive the Donald Trump treatment in an unequal trade deal. Is it a sign of strength to be begging the US for a deal that will include access for US companies to NHS contracts and US farmers celebrating whilst UK ones go out of business or adopt lower standards? Most shamefully of all we are so desperate for any exports that we are selling arms by the boatload to the religious bigots of Saudi Arabia to help them to fuel a vicious war in Yemen.
Conservatives used to pride themselves on being practical people who weren’t driven by “silly” ideologies. Now they are the people given over to silliness. Jacob Rees Mogg lounges around in the commons spouting theories about how to restore our former greatness that have no foundation whatsoever in practical experience. Our Prime Minister walks around a hospital with the press and then stares straight into a TV camera and says “there are no press here” and expects to be believed. One minute the government tells us that we are coming out of the EU whatever happens on 31st October. The next they tell us they will obey the rule of law when there is a law that instructs them to do the exact opposite. Next they tell us that Parliament can’t meet to make any new laws because that might prevent a no deal that no one ever voted for. We’ve now reached the point where ideological commitment to the cause of the one true Brexit is so important to the government that a Conservative Prime Minister is prepared to tell lies to the Queen and then argue before the highest court of law in the UK that whether a Prime Minister lied about the constitution of the UK is not a matter for the courts. Before proceeding to plot ways that they could ignore the court ruling if it goes against them. This isn’t rational political pragmatism. It is fanatical conviction politics. Of such a dangerous degree that it has forced a former Conservative Prime Minister to launch a legal case against the current one.
The leader of the Conservative Party says “fuck business” and means it. The Conservatives are negotiating trade deals that will do the same to British agriculture. The Conservatives are squandering money to buy votes. The Conservative Party is completely split over a question of ideological belief.
Is this really an organisation that any reasonable person can trust to take the country forward? Is it wise to put the next five years of the future of this country into the hands of a man who has been sacked twice for lying, cheated on his second wife whilst she had cancer and shut down Parliament because he didn’t like what it said?
For once in my life I am quite looking forward to a Conservative Party Conference. Because one of the other things that the Conservatives always prided themselves on was being united. It will be interesting to see exactly how divided they are and whether they still retain the ability to manage and control their own conference. Let alone the country.