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The Ruination of Britain [1]
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Date: 2022-10-21
In his guest essay at the NYT today, The Ruination of Britain, the British journalist Peter Oborne reflects on the Conservative Party:
Like the Republicans in the United States, the Conservatives are detached from reality. In a generation, they have become a party of monomaniacs, incompetents and ideologues. Like a thoroughbred that has run one race too many, it needs putting out to grass. After a decade or two in the wilderness, perhaps the party can recover — though let’s not rule out the possibility it is finished once and for all.
Oborne goes on to say:
This is a perilous time. Britain is facing perhaps its biggest economic, political and even constitutional crisis since World War II. It’s daft to expect that the Conservative Party, which has done such damage over the past decade, might at last be about to govern sensibly.
Oborne describes a possible opposition leader “like Joe Biden” — lacking charisma but “reassuring”, and he says the Labour lawmakers look “more competent than the Tory shambles.” A similar comparison of the Democratic and Republican members of Congress could be made.
Oborne’s description of the Conservative Party may be new to American readers:
Until very recently the British Conservative Party was able to claim, with a great deal of credibility, that it was the most successful political party in the Western world. The party of Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher has governed Britain for most of the last 200 years. Through much of that time the Conservatives have been synonymous with good sense, financial sobriety and cautious pragmatism….. “Not anymore. Today, the Conservatives are synonymous with chaos.”
Oborne says Liz Truss, who was Tory prime minister for 44 days (the shortest term in history) was foolish to think she could “defy the collective wisdom of the financial markets.” But he warns that the Conservative Party chose her and must also take responsibility. A blog points out that Truss was elected by only 81,326 Tory members and not by nearly 50 million British voters. To quote Oborne: “Two years could pass before the next general election. But Britain needs one now.”
For the Tories to lose two prime ministers in the space of three months shows that they are out of control. The government is already on its fourth finance minister this year; one of them crashed the pound and ruined the party’s reputation for good financial management.
And unlike Winston Churchill, whom Osborne quotes as saying 70 years ago that a member of Parliament must “do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgment is right and necessary for the honor and safety of Great Britain,” today’s Conservatives “cling to power for power’s sake.” Again, the comparison with Republicans in the U.S. is obvious.
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