What is so wrong with Dominic Cummings? Not with his views, but with the man himself? Electorally successful Prime Ministers are always instruments of people who are brimming with ideas, but whom, therefore, no one would ever elect. Boris Johnson will probably win three General Elections. Two Prime Ministers in recent decades have done that. They were both as thick as mince, but so what?
No one would ever have elected Alastair Campbell, but he had Tony Blair to win for him. No one would ever have elected the likes of Alan Walters or Alfred Sherman, but they had Margaret Thatcher to win for them. And no one would ever have elected Cummings, but he had Johnson to win for him.
Who has Johnson to win for them now? There is already concern about the cranky opinions of the people who may be close to this Government, but the Blair Government and the Coalition were surrounded with people who wanted to join the euro and the Schengen Area, adopt European Central Time, and metricate the road signs. They would have driven on the right if they could have done. There were fewer of them around Gordon Brown and Theresa May, but they were still there. And of course, they were never going to get anywhere.
The same is true of those who would abolish British Summer Time, restore the pre-1974 counties for administrative purposes, return to the 11 plus, bring back pre-decimal currency, or disrupt the ground level compromise between the imperial and metric systems, which in any other country would be decried, not as the road to chaos, but as the chaos itself, but which deliciously manages to work in Britain.
Out here in the real world, some things are just never going to happen. Other things might, though. Other things might.
You've got the measure of both tribes.
ReplyDeleteI have seen them both right up close and personal.
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