The Tory party’s direction of travel changed dramatically in June 2016. I think we all know that. It’s safe to assume that had Cameron won the EU referendum it would have spiked UKIP’s guns and headed off any possible threat from the far right. Cameron's position as leader would have been strengthened allowing him to distance the party from some of the more extreme elements. They would I'm sure have continued as moderate and centre-right and perhaps with Osborne at the helm might still be in office. The 2017 election wouldn't have been necessary and they still had sensible men like Philip Hammond, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke and others.
As it is, Brexit changed all that. Johnson forced the moderates out and ensured all the 2019 intake were Brexiteers to a man (and woman). And on that basis, the Tories have been shifting ever further to the right. The election of Kemi Badenoch as leader from a pretty dismal pool is just another step towards oblivion.
Badenoch was elected as MP for Saffron Walden in the 2017 general election but had she been in parliament at an earlier time I am quite certain she wouldn’t have made cabinet or even been selected as a junior minister under Thatcher or Major.
Her victory is a sign of just how out of touch the party membership is with normal people. They admittedly didn’t have much of a choice. The original lineup included Patel, Cleverly, Tugenhadt and Stride. Hardly inspirational visionaries. In any other era, they might have been a PPS to some real political heavyweight, nothing more.
Jenrick was tainted from the start for the Tory grassroots. A remainer in 2016, his conversion to hard-line (let's quit the ECHR now) Brexiteer was seen as a cynical ploy. The members still harbour hopes that Brexit will somehow turn out to be successful. It's telling that none of the candidates or the party at large made a big thing of it in the general election even though it was the single biggest 'achievement' of the last parliament.
Trump
Stephanie Grisham was a White House press secretary under Donald Trump. She has now written a book about her time there: I’ll Take Your Questions Now: My Time in the Trump White House. It's due for release next Tuesday but excerpts are available in a Politico article: How Jared and Ivanka Hijacked the White House’s Covid Response.
There are some fascinating sections. On one occasion it was suggested he might go vegan for a month to raise £1 million for charity. His response? "No, no. It messes with your body chemistry, your brain. And if I lose even one brain cell, we’re f****d."
He must have been worried about his one brain cell.
And Grisham reveals that a trip to India had been scheduled for early 2020 to meet PM Modi but Covid threw it all up in the air. Trump wanted to cancel but for some reason, his son-in-law Jared Kushner wanted him to go and suggested Trump call Modi personally, "because, like the rest of us, he knew that the president had a hard time saying no to someone and that Modi would likely talk him into going."
Imagine that. The president of the USA having a hard time saying no! A bit of flattery and he's anybody's stooge. Ain't that just the problem.
Another newspaper has come out against Trump. This time the Arizona Star, the largest circulation daily paper in Tucson. An editorial concludes:
"By contrast, Trump has painted a false, dark picture of America under siege by “others.” His constant mendacity and virulent nativism gives his campaign a harsh and cynical cast — fully supported by vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance. Even more concerning, Trump has displayed an autocratic bent that should concern everyone with interest in the preservation of the American republic.
"The choice is not close or difficult. The stakes are as high as they get. The Arizona Daily Star urges its readers to vote for Kamala Harris for President."
Constant mendacity! How many previous candidates for POTUS could be accused of that?
Elsewhere, 1,043 National Security leaders have signed an open letter that endorses Kamala Harris and says she is an "effective leader able to advance American national security interests."
"The contrast with Mr. Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed. He has heaped praise on adversarial dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah. Conversely, he has publicly and privately excoriated the leaders of our most steadfast allies, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, Canada, and Germany.
"He abandoned our Kurdish allies while ceding influence in the Middle East to Russia, Iran, and China.
"Further, Mr. Trump denigrates our great country and does not believe in the American ideal that our leaders should reflect the will of the people. While Vice President Harris follows the democratic norms we expect of any political leader—including promising to abide by the outcome of the pending election and respecting the rule of law—Mr. Trump is the first president in American history to actively undermine the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of American democracy."
The letter also says that Trump "threatens our democratic system" and has said he wants to terminate parts of the Constitution and be a “dictator". They add that his "clarification that he would only be a dictator for a day is not reassuring."
And finally, Gary Kasparov, the chess player who had to leave Russia because of his criticism of Putin and the authorities, has written an article for The Dispatch: The United States Cannot Descend Into Authoritarianism.
He ends with this:
"Anyone who has lived in the Soviet Union or in Putin’s Russia will tell you what it’s like to fear publicly condemning the government. In Trump, I hear echoes of Soviet leaders past and Russian leaders present. Kamala Harris’ election is the only way to preserve democracy, at home and abroad.
"She may not be the best choice. But on November 5, she is the only one."
We all should pray Harris wins next week.
