The Tories have nothing to offer but the ghost of Thatcher

(This will appear in Bournbrook)

It’s like that scene from Spartacus.

‘I’m Thatcher!’, ‘No, I’m Thatcher!’, ‘No – I am Thatcher!’

None of them actually are Thatcher, of course, and you probably already know who I’m talking about. Naturally, it’s the various non-entities vying to lead Britain’s innately inept Conservative Party.

Once ‘Dishy’ – now ‘Fishy’ – Sunak has claimed in The Telegraph that: ‘My values are Thatcherite. […] I am a Thatcherite, I am running as a Thatcherite and I will govern as a Thatcherite.’

After reading this highly ambiguous sentence I was still unsure what exactly he meant. After all, I had been under the illusion that he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who happily poured kerosene over our already disastrous public finances, and who had happily paid homage to the incessant stream of greenery which contributes so much to our inflationary spiral.

Talk is famously cheap, and Sunak is now talking aplenty. His actions, however, belie the truth that he is more a Schwabite than Thatcherite. Indeed, sceptics in our midst may even uncharitably undermine his claims to be for ‘sound public finances’ and ‘low inflation’ by pointing to the colossal economic disaster in his wake.

As for Liz Truss – whose desperate Thatcher impression is about as convincing as a one-legged Elvis impersonator at Butlins – the less said, the better. That the Conservative Party (who are oh, so, ruthlessly efficient as we are forever reminded) has presented its membership with two such uninspiring figures speaks directly to the complete lack of talent the party possesses, its ranks being filled with the peculiar creatures whose ilk populate university Conservative Societies across the land.

But back to Thatcher. That the Conservative Party is unable to appeal to any other figure or school of thought, desperately invoking the legacy of a Prime Minister out of office for 30-odd years, speaks only to its utter hollowness and philosophical desolation. Moreover, it underlines the party’s abysmal failure to speak to anyone of even relative youth. The party cannot be bothered to attract new voters, and seems happy to let support among younger cohorts evaporate entirely.

To boot, having spent the last few decades – and twelve years in power – abandoning any pretence of principle and readily hoovering up up the noxious dregs of Blairism, the Conservatives find themselves completely unprepared for an increasingly ideological world.

With no answers to any of the questions being posed – ranging from immigration, to the culture wars, to our current energy disaster and impending war – they fling blindly around for something to latch on to, somehow believing that the electorate will be swayed by the spectre of Maggie Mk. II.

I would suggest that the Conservatives get some principles, but that would be a stupid suggestion to make: the party is purely a vehicle for the acquisition of political power for an unscrupulous and intellectually vapid group of nobodies. There is no reforming the party, in the same way there is no way to lightly renovate a house that has been gutted by fire and has had incendiary bombs dropped on it.

Instead, another building has to rise in its place, to be built from the ground up.