Turning Up The Volume

I do have to commend the dear old National Health Service for its gas and air, and for its opium-based products.

Once I made it home from hospital last night, I managed to hallucinate that Iain Duncan Smith had resigned. 

And it's all free. Imagine how much you'd have to pay for a trip like that on the street. Or in America.

IDS has found his principles after several thousand deaths. But more joy in heaven, and all that.

The Conservative Right now has to chose to side with him against the pro-EU George Osborne, but thus against the cuts in general and the benefit cuts in particular.

Or to side with the cuts in general and the benefit cuts in particular, but thus with Osborne, through Osborne with the EU, and on all counts against the only Leader to have come from the Right in recent decades.

No one else has the faintest idea what Boris Johnson thinks about the cuts or about welfare reform, if even he knows. We know for a fact that he has no idea what he thinks about the EU.

Whereas IDS is many things, but no one could accuse him of being unsure as to his own mind.

It would appear from the last 24 hours that he had not given up on the Leadership, which in this Parliament would entail the Premiership.

Against his name is written the fact that he was the Leader of the Opposition when it failed to oppose the Iraq War. Another, and even greater, act of contrition is therefore in order.

There is no reason to assume that that would not be forthcoming, and even sincere. Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man.