Well, it’s certainly been an interesting few weeks since the Leadership contest got underway, exploded into a fair bit of acrimony, settled down (largely) into a debate, was decided and then the famed iron discipline disintegrated as so many rushed to air their every grievance.
Every cop in Scotland except Taggart and Rebus descended on poor Uddingston and we found out that the auditors had resigned months ago and we had acquired a caravan for the Sandra’s to use at Saltcoats presumably. Just as well they had that exercise to dig up the soup pot.
In the middle of this one of the most bizarre episodes when my local MP and Leader of the Tories in Scotland called for the unionists to coalesce around a single candidate at the next Westminster Election, (probably in the Autumn of next year). Many people have assumed that he was asking tories to vote Labour or LibDem but I think his motives were far more base than that. Simple Tory self – preservation!
For Dross’ bosses in London it really doesn’t matter if an MP from Scotland is Labour, LibDem or SNP; they all sit on the opposition benches! The only ones they care about at all are the few remaining tories. And all they care about them is the numbers.
This was NOT so much a rallying cry for unionism as a desperate attempt to persuade Labour and LIbDem voters in places like Moray, West Aberdeenshire etc to row in behind the tories and save their miserable skins and six invaluable seats.
Not for one single moment have the tories given up on the next election. They believe that people have short memories and that time will be their friend. They pretend that somehow Sunak is a “fresh start” that he wasn’t a member of the Cabinet which supported Johnson or the Party which endorsed Kwarteng’s insane budget which so nearly destroyed the pensions industry in the UK along with the rest of the economy in just 7 weeks of utter tory madness.
And they are not without evidence to support their hope of clinging on. The polls are slowly tightening. Across England it seems that people are willing to swallow this “fresh start” crap, worry about small boats crossing the Channel while ignoring the criminal gangs making the profits from human misery all around them and somehow thinking that Jeremy Hunt is actually a credible Chancellor. For those of us old enough to recall the 80s, we know that the evil bitch was happy to sacrifice the tory base in local government if that would satisfy the people who needed to make a protest by voting once against her. And this might well work again next month in England.
As the memory of Covid slips, as the economy appears to improve (inflation will fall rapidly just because of the way it is calculated year on year) and the ugly dog whistles of Braverman etc sound ever more shrilly, so “middle England” seems to be willing to listen to this nonsense aided by media which is utterly appalling!
Add to this a Labour “Leadership” which has taken the concept of policy and personality by-pass to ridiculous lengths and you can see where their hope of clinging on springs from.
So, when you hear Dross and his colleagues chunter about saving the Union by beating the SNP remember that the only thing tories care about saving is themselves!