‘When you want to help people, you tell them the truth…When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.’
Author and economist Thomas Sowell quoted by… Kemi Badenoch, Minister of State for Equalities, in her forward to Inclusive Britain: government response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, March 2022
Ready for Karen! and Gammon!
I’ve spent ages pondering (as if it really needs pondering) the Conservative’s problem with Woke, but meantime, the leadership election has moved on: I think the results of the next round of MP voting will be announced shortly whittling the remaining candidates from four to three, so I’ll bang this out now.
In the beginning… there was a truly unseemly rush from candidates to come out with the rawest, reddest pitches to their fellow MPs.
As something of an aside, if Ready for Rishi was registered some time ago in the distant days of Partygate, as was ‘PM for PM’ (Penny Mordaunt, in case you didn’t guess), you’d really think that at the same time they did that, they’d also have jotted down a few ideas so, come their moment to shine, they would have just a couple of pre-prepared, marginally more considered promises than the fantasy tax-cuts and anti-Woke mumblings they came out with. In fact, you would think it were part-and-parcel of an MP’s working life to periodically wonder ‘where do I stand on this issue’, ‘how does this affect my constituents?’, ‘If I were in this position, what would I do?’. You might expect that, given the opportunity by attentive MPs to expound upon their views, it would be a job to shut the candidates up. But it seems I know nothing because they all seemed to be taken rather aback even by the ‘starter for ten’ question: tell us why you’d like this job?
Of course, elaborating on your politics and how you might go about leading the Party and, by extension, the government and the nation, was never the task, which might explain my misplaced expectations. The real task was tell MPs what they wanted to hear, because then they would vote for you because they would think that you wanted the same things as them and might be quite good at getting them done. Cunning eh? Hence the red meat.
But is red meat really what Tory MPs want to hear? Or is it really what leadership candidates think MPs want to hear? The problem with this game of ‘tell the other person what they want to hear’ is that it quickly dissolves into a world of mirrors: MPs must surely know that they’re being spun a line; candidates must surely know that MPs know they are being spun a line. Do they adjust their message accordingly? Do MPs then know they are being spun a line pre-adjusted to allow for a bit of circumspection or write-down on their part? Faced with all this, it must be tempting to just wear a skirt and cross your legs occasionally. Though it still needs to be said that candidates were still exceptionally ill-prepared for even the simple task of selling a lie. Not really a good indication of superior leadership skills or a good demonstration of the core skill-set of the jobbing politician. Or maybe I’m wrong? Given they all initially came out with the same lines, perhaps that was because they were prepared, all having come to the same conclusion as to what MPs were looking for from a leader?
Anyway… all I wanted to acknowledge was that, having delivered laughable first pitches, candidates have evidently hastily conferred with their PR teams to come up with bits and pieces intended to fend off the gathering tide of incredulity. Throughout this game – whatever the game is – the candidates who have looked most credible are Tom Tugendhat (because he has least to lose by speaking his mind, indicating that the others are playing the ‘say what you think they want you to say’ game), and Rishi Sunak, whose established seniority gives him a bit of assuredness, and whose time as Chancellor means that he has less room to indulge in fantasy. The others just sound craven and desperate.
All of which brings me to the point of what was going to be a short post:
Bookies’ favourite for the last two? Sunak and Truss.
Bookies favourite to win? Truss.
So I find myself in the disconcerting position of feeling slightly sorry for Rishi (multi, multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak). The poor chap though: he’s make it through all these rounds essentially being the target to hit. He’s drawn on his seniority to make pledges that are only half half-baked. In short, he’s managed to sound like the more competent, more experienced, least worst candidate. Hence his status as favourite to date. Because maybe even Tory backbenchers know what’s good for them.
And now, assuming he makes it to the final two, he has to face the Karens and Gammons that comprise the Tory Party membership and it’s all change. Now he’s not the favourite. Now he’s ‘too slick’; ‘too rich’. It may or may not be too far to suggest he might be ‘too Asian’, but I get the impression he’s ‘not like us’.
Welcome to the Meat Raffle, Rishi, where it’s raw meat that Party members want.
