Can the Conservative party of recent years ever really be said to have been in recovery from its addiction to pure, teeth-gnashing chaos? It’s possible that there was a brief period at some juncture after the third prime minister of last year had been installed that the natural party of government was not tearing itself or the economy or the country apart … but if you happened to be taking the bins out at that moment, you’d sadly have missed it. Whatever the truth about the good old day/hour/minute, the Conservatives have fallen well and truly off the wagon again over the past week, as the prime minister, Rishi Sunak’s, sensationally defective and distasteful Rwanda deportation bill makes landfall.
You are cordially invited to recall that when Sunak was appointed party leader in October last year, all manner of Tory grandees and commentators assured the nation that the sensibles were back in town. It was a “new dawn”, the “system” had proved robust, and all those wonderful people out there in the dark would be relieved at the era of calm about to be ushered in. Yesterday I suddenly recalled a column written by William Hague on the occasion of Sunak’s accession to the prime ministership, in which the former Tory leader confidently asserted: “After being an object of global pity in recent months, Britain will again be an example of government being conducted with professionalism, honesty and reliability.”
