Sir Simon Clarke is 0.29% correct when he says Rishi Sunak should go. He shares the typical Tory blind spot of thinking that electoral success can be achieved by changing one thing or one person. Changing PM at the last minute will not undo 14 years of withering public services.
We have seen the beating heart of Conservatism with the millions given to favoured friends and donors with no accountability during the Covid-19 pandemic. The VIP lane system ignored all the normal suppliers of PPE to give away multi million pound contracts to any of their mates who could quickly knock up a company and source dodgy unusable PPE from a disreputable supplier on the other side of the world.
The beating heart of Conservatism is also apparent with the decline in public services. With five local authorities bankrupt and about 20% close to failing, government commissioners are set to asset strip these authorities all in the name of ‘financial prudence’. These authorities for the most part do not find themselves in this situation because of financial recklessness. Increasing demands and rising costs on essential services such as education, adult and child social services all drive up the money spent.
It is far too late for the Tories to convince anyone that they are remotely competent. However, let them crack on with it. Who cares if they waste their time on another vacuous beauty contest.
The other mistake they are making is in thinking that their main challenge is the UK Reform Party (UKR) This is driving them to think that they need to be more right wing to capture voters tempted by UKR. There are several orders of magnitude more voters in the middle ground than tempted by UKR. These middle ground folk might vote for them if they weren’t winding themselves up with the bogus culture war that the right invented to give themselves a purpose. The Tories would also have to try again at not being the nasty party.
Any person who has done doorstep canvassing will know that the majority of people are mostly concerned about local issues that affect them directly. The state of the roads, transport, local facilities, education and the health service. Having presided over 14 years of decline do the Tories think they are worthy of anyone’s votes?
As long as the Conservative Party contains Tories then they will lose. Sunak is one out of 349 Tory MPs – 0.29%. When the rest have been replaced then they may stand a chance of success.