Even so, we are now officially in gaming territory. AKA the Tory party is having a collective orgasm as it exposes its deep dysfunction with countless deluded misogynists deciding they want to be prime minister while making promises they have no hope in hell of keeping. I mean, Rehman Chisti. Not even his family knows who he is. Why waste everyone’s time? It’s not like someone is going to throw him a cabinet spot. And Grant Shapps. You know the party is really screwed when Grant Baby is one of the most serious candidates. And his only promise – apart from mandatory unfunded tax cuts – was that he could help re-elect a few MPs. Because that’s the big picture. The way to move the country forward is to make sure Chris Pincher voters vote for him next time. This will do it. Things are so bad that Rishi Sunak’s pledge to bankrupt the country marginally slower than any of his colleagues seems pretty appealing. However, we are where we are. So we might as well sit back and enjoy the shitshow. Watching a collection of Tories crash and burn as they compete with each other to appear the least competent. Heck, Wimbledon is over, the World Cup has been delayed until November, so we might as well pop into the popcorn and see the leadership race as the next summer’s entertainment. A third-rate reality show. Only with more laughs. And lies. The fun started at the Churchill War Rooms in Westminster, where Steve Baker was launching his latest pet project, Conservative Way Forward. The ideal bunker for the bunker mentality. They will never take Steve alive. The CWF isn’t really a think tank, as there’s no think tank with anyone aligned with Baker’s derangements: it’s more of a nostalgic trip back to pure Thatcherism, where the market and low taxes solved everything. The opening video, which somehow left Boris Johnson off the list of recent Conservative prime ministers, was pure Little Britain. Baker’s motto was “happiness through freedom.” Or something. He made the Bruges Group look like intellectual heavyweights. He was supported by the irredeemably dim Lord Frost, whose attempts to struggle with the mind/body split led him to attempt a full frontal lobotomy on himself. Now he has no idea he was the man who negotiated the Brexit deal. He mumbled monotonously while steadily losing his suffocating audience in the heat. “I’m excited,” he said. When leveling. Then came the first candidate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer for the next 10 minutes or so, Nadhim Zahawi. It was painful. Nadhim has no idea that the only reason he got the job was because the Convict was completely desperate and anyone with any self-respect would say no. He was also essentially incoherent. Sentences were destroyed and died without meaning. Whoever told him he would make a good leader can never hear him speak. Being marginally more familiar with word formation than Liz Truss isn’t the vote winner he might have hoped for. Zahawi initially pledged to immediately repeal the planned tax increases, seemingly unaware that he was part of a lame-duck government that was prohibited from doing so. Like I said, not the sharpest. He then promised to cut even more taxes and cut departmental budgets by 20%. Nothing like taking a wrecking ball to the NHS and schools. As the word salad continued, a young woman passed out in the heat. It was the smartest response of the day, although Tobias Ellwood, one of Zahawi’s surprise supporters, pushed a few people out of the way to offer his help. Not that he wanted anyone to notice, of course. Meanwhile, Nadhim continued to spar. Ignoring the drama. He ignores everything. Except to get to the end. It was effectively the shortest leadership campaign of the season. Even if he didn’t know it was game over, everyone else did. Suella Braverman was among her people – her tribe – and her appearance at the lectern was greeted with whoops and cheers. He began by saying he had fully signed up to the tax cut – he did not say how he intended to fund it, but we can all play financial fantasy these days – before insisting he wanted to keep the Good Friday Agreement by ditching the Northern Ireland Protocol and the European Convention on Human Rights. Her grasp of the law is weak. Even for the attorney general. It was fitting, he said, that we were in Churchill’s war rooms because it was thanks to Churchill that we made this leadership election. You could make fun of me. I could have sworn it was because the Tories were in the doldrums and the party had finally realized the country had had enough of Johnson’s lies. He went on to say that he hoped the elderly would do the right thing and not use too many of the NHS services. “I have a clear vision,” he said. There again… The final launch of the day took place in the private dining room of the Cinnamon Club, where Sajid Javid made his address to the party. He wasn’t going to continue to be the son of a bus driver, he said, while he continued to be the son of a bus driver. Because being the son of a bus driver hadn’t worked out so well for him when he was captain three years ago. And it had no flash videos or promotional material. Although he had a glossy manifesto that didn’t look like he had been shot down in the last five days. We need a leader for the national interest, he continued. Although he couldn’t explain why it took him so long to realize that the Convict was wrong. Nor why he was happy to support the tax increases he was now determined to undo. “The best prime ministers surround themselves with people smarter than them,” he said. Javid, however, seemed to surround himself with utter levity. Sitting in the front row were Chris Philp, Rachel Maclean and Robin Walker. None of them can boast of a neuron among them. “Only two candidates are really suitable for this competition,” he concluded. Without telling us who these two might be. Although obviously not him, Braverman and Zahawi. Who seemed to be doing everything they could to get banned. But the rest of the week would almost certainly reveal some fresh idiocy. Continue with the motley.
