Boris can justifiably claim to have been a huge factor in winning the campaigns for Brexit and then the General Election. The concern I always had - and voiced even back then - is that he is not an ideologically strong leader, merely an opportunist career politician. It's common knowledge that he only decided at the very last moment to back Brexit rather than Remain, because he (rightly) thought it would provide the best platform for his career, and despite showing some positive early signs that he might govern as a strong right-wing PM, he has since lost the plot personally and politically. It more or less coincided with Dominic Cummings leaving and the PM's wife apparently taking his place as key advisor and chief pusher of the supermarket trolley.Quote:
Originally Posted by Old_pie
Somebody asked Nigel Farage (the genuine Brexiteer) a few weeks ago who he would like to see as leader of the Conservative Party, to which his reply was 'a Conservative'. He correctly observed that if the current situation continues, the public in this country will go into the next General Election with a 'choice' between three social democrat parties, such is the way the Conservatives have gone about wasting what should have been an incredibly strong position. It goes without saying that if you're a Conservative Prime Minister and the only way you can get a key policy through Parliament is relying on Labour votes to overcome opposition on your own back benches, then you've seriously lost your way. Theresa May ended up in the same bizarre situation and suffered the same fate Boris probably will.
Two things can still play in the Conservatives' favour going forward.
Firstly, the Labour Party are not ahead in the polls because of any great public affection for Sir Keir Starmer, who himself lacks any real ideological convictions and sometimes sounds more like a Tory than the current Tory PM, annoying the hell out of the left of his party in the process. He hasn't got the charisma of a young Tony Blair and he hasn't got anybody as cunning as Peter Mandelson guiding his strategy. He's basically just stumbled into the lead by virtue of Boris' failings over the past year or so.
And therein lies the second point. The anger and frustration of the public, especially Tory voters, is towards Boris, and therefore a strategically-timed (I would say inevitable) leadership change in the not-too-distant future would see a lot of that anger go with him. The onus would then be on the replacement to set their own, hopefully much clearer course.
The biggest difficulty is finding that replacement - a genuine Conservative who means the words they say and actually believes in delivering the kind of policies and action the public mandated when they voted for Brexit and then the Conservatives in the General Election. To be honest, I don't see a convincing ideologically right-wing politician amongst the potential replacements being mooted, namely Sunak and Truss, but in the absence of many 'oven-ready' contenders it could be a case of working with what's available. Most of the (few) consistently right-wing minds are on the back-benches and are either at the veteran stage of their career (like David Davis or John Redwood) or too new and young to have gained any Cabinet experience yet, let alone run for the top job.
I think the country could do with a return to the politics of thirty or forty years ago when the holders of the most important jobs were older, more experienced, more seasoned politicians with far greater gravitas and a more developed sense of purpose. And if they happened to have 10 or 20 years of real-life experience before they began a career in politics, even better. That way, they might have an idea of what the real world looks like and their desire to enter politics might come from a passionate, gut-felt desire to change it for the better, irrespective of whether that drive comes from a right-wing or left-wing perspective, because you need strong ideological leaders on both sides. Sadly it won't happen for now, because key Government and Shadow Government jobs seem to be moving towards ever younger and more vacuous career politicians.
