In this leadership campaign, Penny Mordaunt’s supporters are attempting something similar, almost as if she had won the Falklands conflict herself. (She can be seen in her campaign video.) Ms. Mordaunt comes from the military and is a Navy reservist. Her campaign line is: “It needs to be done a little less for the leader and a lot more for the ship.” Her “back story” may well appeal to many party members who will vote in the second round. But since a leadership contest must, obviously, be about the leader, it’s worth asking Ms Mordaunt more about how she’ll steer the ship. In some respects, it’s not exactly what the Tory electorate usually warms to. In Greater: Britain After the Storm, a book she co-authored last year with Chris Lewis, an anti-Brexit writer who is now helping her campaign, Ms Mordaunt launches a surprisingly scathing attack on various old British films and TV series. He complains that they promote the idea that “the past was much better.” In this category he places David Lean’s films Great Expectations and Lawrence of Arabia, as well as Michael Anderson’s The Dam Busters. He particularly dislikes David Croft and Jimmy Perry for the “nostalgic focus” of their “scrappy” comedies such as Dad’s Army and Hi-de-Hi! He describes It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum – the World War II comedy set in India and Burma – as “a complete bingo card of… casual racism, homophobia, white privilege, colonialism, transphobia, bullying, misogyny and sexual harassment”. No doubt Croft and Perry wouldn’t stand a chance in the current age of official disapproval, but more sensible Tory supporters are trying to resist the 21st century suggestion that being funny is a crime. Tone-deafness to the past is exactly what they dislike in wakefulness. Ms Mordaunt has also spoken out on transgender issues. When she was minister responsible, she piloted through Parliament a ministerial bill on maternity leave that only referred to “pregnant women”. The House of Lords noticed this and proposed a maternity bill to recognize the existence of women. The government eventually passed a Lords amendment which deleted the words “pregnant” and inserted “mothers-to-be”. Accepting this, however, Ms Mordaunt added, gratuitously, that “trans men are men and trans women are women”. Her remark left people confused. Does he think only biological women can be pregnant or not? It is this matter of what a woman is that has left Sir Keir Starmer almost speechless. Do the Tories want a leader who is in the same pickle?
The best candidate for the Tory leadership is not necessarily a Brexiteer
In asking difficult questions of candidates, the two Conservative constituencies – one inside Parliament, one outside – must not treat the process as a catechism in which there is only one ‘right’ answer to each question. The purpose of the campaign is to get a sense of what really matters to the candidates and whether they have leadership qualities. This is relevant in relation to Brexit. While there is still much to be done to improve the post-Brexit situation, we Brexiteers would be wrong to treat this as a war to be fought again. We won: the task is to make the best of the victory. It is not the case that candidates who voted Remain – notably Tom Tugendhat, Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss – should be automatically disqualified. Indeed, perhaps someone like Mr. Tugendhat, who is well versed in continental politics, could be more creative in leading us through the battles ahead than someone who thinks it is still June 23, 2016. This is the view by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, his main supporter in the cabinet so far and a whole-hearted Brexiteer from the first. The task, he puts it, is “to use all the tools that Brexit has given us”. One of the points Mr. Tugendhat makes is that any attempt at reintegration would be a dead end. The EU would reasonably ask Britain: “Why should we believe you this time?” It would impose even worse conditions of participation than those it had previously imposed and put us at the end of a long queue. Far better to devote ourselves to developing all the other international forums that suit us best. The tragedy of the war in Ukraine has shown us an important fact that we have tended to forget. NATO is the most important organization in the future of Europe and we are probably its most important European member.
An end to the College Green media circus
During the long Brexit dispute, College Green in Westminster became a political cockpit and media circus. MPs were swept away by interviewers as they walked by. This suited TV companies, but created a tiresome, non-stop and noisy theater of the absurd that attracted shows and fanatics. It was also a big hole for those who lived or worked in the area, because they were denied access to the normal path and thus forced into the street. Many, including this column, criticized the parliamentary authorities for allowing it. The show finally closed. Now, with the leadership election, it has started all over again. Please God – or rather, the Speakers of both Houses and the Black Rod – stop.
