This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Tory Party is in its best shape in decades lol, there’s no reason for this thread other than to moan about their electoral success.

They are currently in a very strong position, obviously.

But its just two years (almost to the day) since they recorded their lowest ever score in a poll (17%)

Complacency is rarely a wise thing.

They say that pride goes before the fall.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm wondering if there are any good books to learn about the conservative parties recent history ? preferably from someone which isn't written from an obviously partisan lense

The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron by Tim Bale is a reasonably good summary of the period 1990-2010, although it was written and thus breaks off even before the coalition so it’s now a little dated (as is Bale’s boostering for the political dead end of ‘modernisation’, but that’s another story). I’ve not really read a lot of books about the politics of the last decade - the books in the Nuffield Elections Series about the elections of the last decade are good but very pricey unless you have free access to Springer Link. I enjoyed reading Tim Shipman’s accounts of the EU referendum and the first year of the May ministry but I believe that others on here have their doubts about those books and about Shipman. The inevitable problem really with any account of ‘recent’ politics is that it ages faster than a Mummy exposed to the elements, so they usually end up looking a little silly even a year or two down the line.

This is incredibly good advice, I was tearing my hair our for the last hour trying to figure out how I would be able to get those books before remembering to check my university institutional access and discovering that I did in fact have free access to Springer Link.  If only I had read your comment in time I could have saved a lot of time wasted in searching

I'll definitely check out the book and many more thanks to my new found free-accses.

Good to see you've found what you needed! Best of luck man.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What did Ben Eliott do to have such low net approvals?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Andrew Bridgen has been expelled from the Conservative Party, for his tweet equivocating vaccines and the Holocaust. 

He has the option to appeal, but word on the street is that he’s still leaning towards defecting to Laurence Fox’s far-right Reclaim Party.

Of all the hills he could die on...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does she want to be fired in order to be the darling of the Tory far right?

She definitely seems to be auditioning for the top job right now. The speech that's being trailed in this article was the one she gave this afternoon at the "National Conservatism" conference. It went way outside of her government brief, and was full of really weird stuff designed to enamour her to hard-right of the membership and base.

It included such zingers as this bizarre swing at Starmer: “Given his definition of a woman we can’t rule him out from running as Labour first woman prime minister.”

As well as several attempts to lay out her ideology in full. “I understand the goal of conservatism is to protect fundamental rights…the left sees the purpose of politics to eradicate the existence of inequality even if this is at the expense of individual liberty and flourishing.”

Seems like she wants to be Leader of the Opposition, really badly. Ironically, I think Ed Davey and Suella Braverman both dream of her being the next leader of the Conservatives, given what she could do to their chances in seats like those of Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.

The 1990s called, they want their internally dysfunctional Tory party back.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does she want to be fired in order to be the darling of the Tory far right?

She definitely seems to be auditioning for the top job right now. The speech that's being trailed in this article was the one she gave this afternoon at the "National Conservatism" conference. It went way outside of her government brief, and was full of really weird stuff designed to enamour her to hard-right of the membership and base.

It included such zingers as this bizarre swing at Starmer: “Given his definition of a woman we can’t rule him out from running as Labour first woman prime minister.”

As well as several attempts to lay out her ideology in full. “I understand the goal of conservatism is to protect fundamental rights…the left sees the purpose of politics to eradicate the existence of inequality even if this is at the expense of individual liberty and flourishing.”

Seems like she wants to be Leader of the Opposition, really badly. Ironically, I think Ed Davey and Suella Braverman both dream of her being the next leader of the Conservatives, given what she could do to their chances in seats like those of Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.

The 1990s called, they want their internally dysfunctional Tory party back.

The 90s was plain sailing in comparison to the current situation.

Would be ironic if the Tories' next election is not as bad as 1997's, then.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There's more:
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1661366579659960324

Ah, the Tory party's certainly unified enough to be a marvelous governing party! This is all the proof you need!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

God-tier chicken-run attempt reported: Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) has apparently been shortlisted for Windsor.

I have a sneaking suspicion it will only ever be an attempt.

These are the type of situations that occasionally produce a surprisingly ginormous swings to the Lib-Dems.

Windsor certainly is not that far from areas the Lib Dems did quite well in in 2019...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you (correctly) think Simon Clarke as PM is deranged, it still has nothing on the concoction of some right wingers breathlessly written up in the Mail today - Priti Patel is installed as "caretaker PM" and wins an election (despite her ratings when HS being even worse than Braverman's) in order to make way for the "dream ticket" of a restored BoJo with - and this is the real "chef's kiss" moment - Farage as his deputy (leaving aside the fact neither are currently MPs, and Nigel isn't in the Tory party)

"Fever dream" really doesn't do justice to this sort of stuff.

"Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius."
Benjamin Disraeli

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well maybe "inspiration" isn't how I would describe the outpourings of the last 24 hours

I was being a tad bit perhaps too charitable there. The operative part was desperation. Plus, it felt funny (and fitting) to backhandedly satirize the chaos in the contemporary Conservative Party with a Disraeli quote.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ah, Conservative competence (in shooting themselves in the foot) strikes again.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Today somehow the issue of Reform being overpolled appeared in my dream. I proceeded to end up in a British pensioner's house try to ask them who they favored in said dream, before they showed me their bedroom...which was kind of boring tbh. (Furnishings were nice but not eye-catching)
First time UK politics has found its way into my dreams in a long time.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Coalition of Chaos line is now being peddled, and it appears to be on the back of the laughable Sky News projection and such like.

"History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce"
Like, do they think the SNP is as scary as it was a decade ago?