‘My concern is that anybody can be accused of something and be simply “knocked out”’, he tells GB News.
P.S: A poll that compared Sunak’s performance against Sir Keir to, say, Kemi Badenoch’s, Penny Mordaunt’s and James Cleverly’s might tell us something worth knowing. This morning’s nugatory exercise does not.
Conservatism is not some doctrine deduced from some authoritative text by a great thinker or leader of the past. What comes first for Conservatives is not the theory, but the practice.
Tensions between the rights of Party members and the essentials of Parliamentary democracy can’t be smoothed away altogether. The question is how best to manage them.
The joint One Nation Caucus and Tory Reform Group conference last weekend, following the recent National Conservative Conference, are pointers to the shape of a possible future.
The decision involves children, parents, schools and doctors, and has implications for rights, mental health, responsibilities and culture – as well as the management of a restive parliamentary party.
To date, the Parliamentary Party has been divided between a small number of committed critics, a larger one of enthuasiasts, and a larger one looking to see which side triumphs.
Many of Tory MPs will be sick and tired of the self-reverential obsequies attached to the Committee’s deliberation and verdict – and of the hysteria, hate, vitriol and venom directed at a man without whom many would never have had the opportunity to serve in Parliament.
The evidence from the local elections is not that the voters are abandoning the Tories to back Reform or Ukip , but parties of the centre and the left. Their situation is bad, but it can be made worse.
The Prime Minister must make up his mind whether or not to see through a policy to stop the small boats – now an issue of profound symbolic importance.
It’s unjust to sack an Minister, rather than suspend him, over unproven claims. Now those against him have been dismissed, he should be restored to government.
If getting worthwhile legislation passed means making deals with Labour, the Prime Minister should do so.
Over and above his future hangs a bigger question – namely, whether holding Ministers properly to account is the same thing as pile-ons by the media pack.
Faragist liberatarians wouldn’t have the right message to seize the moment – but Dominic Cummings is a different story.
In the previous five elections, the size of the shift in the polling gap between election day and six months before has been between six per cent and 12 per cent towards the Conservatives.