Britain votes for its next government tomorrow. It is definitely the end of an era. The polls (haha) tell us the present Conservative government is heading for a crushing defeat – maybe the worst in its nearly two hundred year history. If so, a depressing era in British politics will come to its well-deserved end. After the feeble premiership of Rishi Sunak and, before him, the failures that were David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, please let us find deliverance from that terrible day when we learnt that all the lies of the BREXIT referendum had led us, almost literally, to walk off a cliff, like The New Yorker’s brilliant cover from 4th July 2016.

I had always been a bit of a politics addict, but I got depressed in 2010, when David Cameron redefined what we understand to be leadership – it’s not leading, it’s cynically and weakly following populist headlines – and my political mood got worse with BREXIT and has stayed low ever since.

Today, the day before tomorrow, I am feeling optimistic, but still a bit worried. Yes, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, and probable next Prime Minister, is a good man, a clever man, outstanding in almost every way apart from his self-marketing skills. I want to believe that he can and will succeed in bringing Britain back from the edge and help make the country a modern, fair and tolerant nation. I was going to say “a fair and tolerant nation again”, but I’m not sure, like the USA, it has ever been the great modern liberal nation that it should be. All the seeds are there, if only our politicians could lead the way.

Things can only get better as the slogan went, not fully aware of the hidden irony. They can and will, I am sure, I want us to return to the EU, but, I want more than that. We all deserve much more than that. I want us to start along that path of being a tolerant, egalitarian, nation of grown-ups. We need put away childish things, like The House of Lords, the aristocracy of elites, the fear of not being like our grandparents’ parents, they weren’t always right and they certainly weren’t free. We should give up those dreams of fictitious golden eras, and then maybe we could see the pride that can be won by citizenship in a community of equals, not subjects of our masters, equal citizens, no matter what race, class or nationality. You know, the stuff we could have got right a very long time ago but didn’t. Can we start tomorrow with the new government, I hope so.

But, no matter who becomes the British Prime Minister tomorrow, there’s still the problem of this man……but at least the era of Britain’s terrible prime ministers seems likely to end.

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What is it about paisley pyjamas? If we are to believe what we read in the British press today, then they are irresistible if you are a Tory woman. Or so one of our tabloid newspapers found out when they got a male reporter to pretend, on  Twitter, possibly illegally, to be a young woman, improbably named Sophie Wittams, a ‘Twentysomething Tory PR girl.’

In all fairness, real Tory PR girls might be able to resist paisley pyjamas but that’s not what junior Tory minister, the even more improbably named, Brooks Newmark thought when he sent Sophie a photograph of his genitals popping out, seductively, or so he thought, from his irresistible paisley pjs.

I can only assume that Mr Newmark thought that Tory girls not only find him irresistible but that they also have a weakness for men in paisley. The former Minister for Civil Society resigned over the weekend when it was also revealed that he was the co-founder of Women2Win, a campaign to, er, attract more Conservative women into Parliament.

This is what Women2Win have to say in their publicity pamphlets: ‘Having gone from 17 to 49 MPs in the 2010 election, Women2Win aims to continue increasing the number of Conservative women MPs by providing support, advice and training to women who wish to enter Parliament or get more involved in politics.’

I wonder if they will be using photographs of men in paisley in their future publicity campaigns. It will all depend, I suppose, on which Twentysomething Tory PR girls they employ.

 

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Britain didn’t elect this man Prime Minister at the last General Election but he got in anyway after a deal with the Liberal Democrats – today his party couldn’t even come second against those same Liberal Democrats in the by-election at Eastleigh fought after the sitting liberal Democrat MP, and cabinet minister, had to resign for cheating his way out of a driving offence  It doesn’t feel like mid-term for the Conservatives, it feels like terminal. The Conservative party hasn’t won an over-all majority since 1992 and it certainly didn’t win anything in yesterday’s Eastleigh by-election. When the British electorate found out that they hadn’t really wanted anyone last time round and that we were to have our first coalition government since the Second World War, there were many who saw this as a hopeful sign of politicians coming together to sort the economic crisis brought about by the crazy free-run by the banks and other international financial institutions. I didn’t share that hope and I have even less reason to be hopeful that this government can solve the problem half way through their term of office. The economy has worsened, Britain has sunk into an unprecedented triple-dip recession and the Prime Minister has started to spend as much time as possible overseas. Who can blame him?

Will the Eastleigh by-election mark the beginning of the end for this government? I don’t know but Mr Cameron and his chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, have not only failed but have been seen to have failed. We the people can certainly see that but so can the Conservative Party itself so we can expect it soon to start its by now traditional habit of tearing itself apart from within. Who will win the next election? I don’t know but this time, British electorate, please don’t allow these people to govern again. Britain can’t afford them.

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 British Prime Minister David Cameron did some clearing up yesterday in his first cabinet reshuffle – or shuffle as it should be called. The big beasts of his government, Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, Foreign Secretary Haig and Home Secretary May, like ’em or hate ’em, all stayed in position even if a wiser leader would have noticed that all three have already racked up a fine load of cock-ups but there were a few embarrassments that he just had to clear away.

He couldn’t have a Transport Secretary who is against darkening the skies over London with an extra runway at Heathrow Airport so she had to go to a “safe” job as Overseas Development Secretary, the seat next to the door for potential trouble-makers.

Baroness Warsi was sacked as co-chairman of the Conservative Party and given a job where she can sit at the cabinet table, also near the door, but not say anything. She had to disappear from centre stage after a series of embarrassing admissions over her business dealings even though she was cleared of allegations concerning her expenses. She might have been a forceful and useful Moslem voice in the cabinet but she was just too accident-prone even for this government.

Old-timer Ken Clark has been kept on in the cabinet as a wise old man but told to quit his job as a leftish Justice Secretary with, for the Conservative side of the wobbly coalition, a dangerously pro-European attitude when the Conservatives are out to free Britain from the liberalising influence of the European Convention On Human Rights. Ken, the great survivor, is only there to placate the Lib Dems and those brave Leftish Conservatives who are feeling less and less welcome in their own party.

The most important shuffling though was doing something about the beleaguered Health Secretary Andrew Lansley who single-handedly turned the muddle of his National Health Service reforming ideas into a political and public relations nightmare. Too central to government policy to be just ditched, he has gone to a lowlier “graveyard” job looking after the day to day business of the House of Commons.

It was a nifty piece of juggling to replace Lansley with the other main problem in the cabinet, the dodgy Culture Secretary who narrowly escaped being pulled down by his cosy relationship with the media ogre that is Rupert Murdoch. His cheerfully free-for-all attitude once  displayed over press ownership is now to be unleashed on the NHS but at least, Cameron decided,  he won’t have to deal with the publication of the media ethics enquiry, the Leveson Report.

There was never any point in looking to the cabinet reshuffle for hope during this dismal administration so no one is likely to be disappointed or surprised by the inevitable consequences of a little bit of half-hearted, face-saving tidying up.

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Also, maybe a cold shower would make a change from the normal and enjoyable hot variety.

Falling down the stairs would be a change from walking down them holding on to the banisters too.

I don’t want to be old-fashioned and conservative in my habits as we are being told on posters all over Britain that we should be making a change.

For a moment I thought that these posters were referring to the rising star of the Liberal Democrat party who have had a formidable rise in their popularity. It would, I thought, certainly be a change to see them getting elected.

No, it wasn’t them who stuck the posters up but, I suspect, the slightly red-faced Conservative Party who have put the Lib Dems into our minds every time we see one of their posters.

I do wonder, however, about this business of making a change. If it is the only reason for voting for a party then it might be wiser to think again.

There is no question that Britain wants a change in its politics but, judging by the Conservative Party’s tiny lead in the opinion polls, they are not the change the nation is looking for.

We are fed up with the old brigade it seems but don’t really like the Conservatives and, unless a miracle is happening in front of our eyes, the LibDems are no more likely to get to No 10 Downing Street than the Green Party.

The nation wants to vote for “a hung parliament” but we can’t do that because we have to vote for one person to represent us in the area where we live. The hung parliament that is so popular is really a symbol of how little the electorate want the Labour Party or the Conservatives.

If the country is to get want it wants then there should be a strong LibDem showing in the polls tomorrow and they should be a part of whichever new administration staggers to Westminster after what could be an awkward few days of haggling. If they do manage to gain some influence then they will do what most of us want: they will make sure that the electoral system is changed for good.

I am looking forward to the General Election after next. We might even be able to get the government we want next time.

I spoke to my High Tory, but deeply respected mother yesterday. She is having her hair done today so I suggested she got herself a crew-cut – just for a change.

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