This is half the problem. We're governed by men and women who aren't managers trained in logic and problem solving, but more like evangelists trying to sell a belief system.
It's pretty clear Sunak is finished. He will be out sometime this year and attention is now turning in earnest to his replacement, both among the candidates and those who have influence and a vote. And therein lies the puzzle because there is no obvious front runner and none of the potential candidates look like they could cope with a whelk stall to me. The party is in much deeper trouble than it thinks and it's only going to get worse:
Listen to this from Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times:
"Just as many MPs regard Patel as the most likely unifier, given that she remained loyal to both Johnson and Truss — still key influencers in Tory circles — and has not publicly rounded on Sunak. They regard her as the right-winger who is more palatable than Suella Braverman, her successor as home secretary, to Tory moderates. “If Boris backs her, she will be the favourite,” an MP said."
It looks like MPs and the members are crazy enough to select Priti Patel IF Boris Johnson supports her, and he is more than crazy enough to do it if it means he might make a comeback. I am sure Patel in turn is well disposed towards BoJo and would have him in her cabinet any day of the week - assuming the country was ever insane enough to put her in Downing Street.
The party has lost its single biggest electoral advantage, its reputation for economic competence, and it will take fifty years to get that back. People have long memories, as Labour knows.
Even more worrying for the future is some polling covered by The Telegraph: Almost half of Tory councillors think Government is too Left-wing
This revelation comes from polling carried out by Savanta for Labour Together which shows 47% of Tory councillors think the present government is too left wing. This is amazing isn't it? The party has shifted as far to the right as it has ever been in my lifetime and probably in history, yet local Tory councillors think not only that it's not right wing enough, but that it is in fact too left wing!!!
The PM was an enthusiastic Brexiteer - and still is as far as I know although he could be having second thoughts - and has now taken to suggesting openly that Britain should quit the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). He is absolutely desperate to ship "the wretched refuse" arriving on our "teeming shore" off to Rwanda where human rights mean nothing.
Public services have been decimated with more deep cuts in the pipeline while billionaires are drowning in money, yet grassroots Tories think the party has become socialist.
This is the reaction of people who want to change other people's attitude to reality. The average voter isn't impressed with Conservatism so the obvious solution must be to shout louder, to become more and more right wing unto the benefits, as those Tory councillors see them, are clear. The problem of course is that no matter how extreme things are (i.e. quitting the ECHR) that are never quite extreme enough to persuade everybody are they?
In fact, it's the reverse. Voters are repelled by extremism but that doesn't prevent the fanatics pushing things further and further. Looking back, I think Cameron was only ever a front. The fringes of the Tory party has held these sorts of views for years but knew enough to keep quiet until they were elected.
They now need another twenty years in the wilderness and it looks like they're going to get it. There will be a lot of soul searching after the defeat and I expect several factions to emerge.
Whatever happens, it should allow the membership to dwindle to perhaps 50,000 or below and for fresh, younger and more moderate members to be recruited, otherwise I think the party is finished.
