Spoilt little rich boys are weak. It took the Blue Tick Brigade four years, two General Elections, and a torrent of the most horrific abuse to remove Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party, and to neutralise the economic and anti-war Left as a political force for the foreseeable future. But it has taken them only four days and a little light doorstepping to neutralise the Johnson Government even if, as is perfectly plausible, that Government were to last until 2029 or beyond.
Johnson is now in office, but not in power. The number of mostly "centrist" Conservative MPs who have publicly called for Dominic Cummings to be sacked is now over 40, meaning that they have established themselves as the Government's majority in what amounts to a hung Parliament. And as ever, the true number of dissidents is at least double the public figure. After all, why should any of them care for a man who was far more powerful than they were, yet who had never been a member of their party?
The media know why Cummings really went to Barnard Castle. Everyone else has worked it out, but they have the proof. Why Cummings did not tell the truth at that carry on in the garden, I have no idea. He was going to work, or so he could just about have claimed. But instead, he chose to peddle that obvious nonsense about testing his eyesight. So now he has both the richly deserved ridicule of that, and the facts known to the media, hanging over to whom until the media chose to publish those facts. Fiendishly clever people can have absolutely no common sense.
The Blue Tick Brigade polices the borders of acceptable political debate. There must be no deviation from an economic and social liberalism that the use of soft power where possible but hard power where necessary had made unquestionable at home, so that the use of soft power where possible but very hard power where necessary could spread it across the whole wide earth by means of an unquestionable alliance between the European Union and the United States, an alliance with Britain at both its cultural and its military heart.
But things have not been going so well for that of late. And Keir Starmer is the last chance of the people who were by now supposed to have risen through the state schools or perhaps the local private day schools, then through the good but not grand universities, and then through the private sector, to have taken their places as the guardians of what was meant to have become that hegemonic order.
In 2024, it will be 60 years since Harold Wilson first promised those unmeek that they would inherit the earth. That offer was repeated by Ted Heath, by Margaret Thatcher, by John Major, and by Tony Blair. But none of those five ever made good on it, and the last General Election was fought between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
The Blue Ticks themselves are rarely from that background, but they know their market. Starmer was sold as "Prime Ministerial" because he was the only Oxonian public schoolboy to stand for Leader of the Labour Party this time. Yet he can also be sold as one of the betrayed class, since his school was state when he started at it, and since his first degree was from Leeds.
For four and a half years, everything was thrown at making him Leader of the Opposition instead of Corbyn. And for four and a half years, everything is going to be thrown, by exactly the same people, at making him Prime Minister instead of Johnson. Absolutely everything.
All the signs are that that is still not going to work. But as a Plan B, the Johnson Government has in any case been taken hostage at Barnard Castle. And in the meantime, there will be suicides. Spoilt little rich boys are weak. They are a hell of a lot weaker than the Left. As some of us have always known. And as everyone can now see.
Johnson is now in office, but not in power. The number of mostly "centrist" Conservative MPs who have publicly called for Dominic Cummings to be sacked is now over 40, meaning that they have established themselves as the Government's majority in what amounts to a hung Parliament. And as ever, the true number of dissidents is at least double the public figure. After all, why should any of them care for a man who was far more powerful than they were, yet who had never been a member of their party?
The media know why Cummings really went to Barnard Castle. Everyone else has worked it out, but they have the proof. Why Cummings did not tell the truth at that carry on in the garden, I have no idea. He was going to work, or so he could just about have claimed. But instead, he chose to peddle that obvious nonsense about testing his eyesight. So now he has both the richly deserved ridicule of that, and the facts known to the media, hanging over to whom until the media chose to publish those facts. Fiendishly clever people can have absolutely no common sense.
The Blue Tick Brigade polices the borders of acceptable political debate. There must be no deviation from an economic and social liberalism that the use of soft power where possible but hard power where necessary had made unquestionable at home, so that the use of soft power where possible but very hard power where necessary could spread it across the whole wide earth by means of an unquestionable alliance between the European Union and the United States, an alliance with Britain at both its cultural and its military heart.
But things have not been going so well for that of late. And Keir Starmer is the last chance of the people who were by now supposed to have risen through the state schools or perhaps the local private day schools, then through the good but not grand universities, and then through the private sector, to have taken their places as the guardians of what was meant to have become that hegemonic order.
In 2024, it will be 60 years since Harold Wilson first promised those unmeek that they would inherit the earth. That offer was repeated by Ted Heath, by Margaret Thatcher, by John Major, and by Tony Blair. But none of those five ever made good on it, and the last General Election was fought between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
The Blue Ticks themselves are rarely from that background, but they know their market. Starmer was sold as "Prime Ministerial" because he was the only Oxonian public schoolboy to stand for Leader of the Labour Party this time. Yet he can also be sold as one of the betrayed class, since his school was state when he started at it, and since his first degree was from Leeds.
For four and a half years, everything was thrown at making him Leader of the Opposition instead of Corbyn. And for four and a half years, everything is going to be thrown, by exactly the same people, at making him Prime Minister instead of Johnson. Absolutely everything.
All the signs are that that is still not going to work. But as a Plan B, the Johnson Government has in any case been taken hostage at Barnard Castle. And in the meantime, there will be suicides. Spoilt little rich boys are weak. They are a hell of a lot weaker than the Left. As some of us have always known. And as everyone can now see.
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