A doomed party in freefall loses whatever shred of sanity it had left. After byelections that show no seat is safe, Tory MPs shriek at the pilot, turn right, turn back – pull that tax-cut joystick! The chancellor, it’s said, is reaching for the eject button. Nearing political death, they abandon all the cunning pretences deployed by David Cameron and Boris Johnson to disguise everything repellent about their party. In panic, their true nature is stripped bare.
Look at some of the extraordinarily mistaken measures they plan, propelling them faster to the ground. MPs and their newspaper backers are desperate for tax cuts and call for benefits to be cut yet again. “Time to be bold, prime minister,” the Telegraph editorial says. The government must “restrict” the benefits bill and our “out-of-control welfare state”, according to the newspaper.
