If you want to understand why the Conservatives are in such dire straits, consider social care. This is a significant issue for the country when more than one million adults receive state-funded support annually and another 1.5 million people work in the sector, even if most politicians on all sides treat it as a Cinderella service.
Yet after 14 years of chronically incompetent Tory government that left public services in disarray, with glaring staff gaps in underfunded care plugged by migrants, the pair of surviving candidates for the party’s leadership are calling for a smaller state while demanding fewer foreign carers come to this country.
Robert Jenrick, a former health and social care minister, glibly claims staff shortfalls can be solved by bunging carers “a pound or more an hour”.
Certainly many are on scandalously low wages and should be paid much more. Yet a key part of the problem is the funding crisis fuelled by his own party’s targeting of local government during the years of austerity – a concept he still seems to support with demands for a smaller state and lower taxes.
So who would fund this extra cash if he shrinks the state again? And does he really believe that bunging another pound an hour at carers is sufficient to solve the persistent crises that plague this sector?
The problems go far deeper than poor pay. Another key issue is the low status of carers in society. And this was demonstrated by his rival Kemi Badenoch during the conference hustings, when she talked about focusing on the future “not just who’s going to wipe bottoms for us today.”
No wonder social care never gets fixed and carers are left badly paid when a prominent politician sneers so dismissively at workers performing a public service. And now Badenoch, in a report called “Conservatism in Crisis” released this month, argues that autism diagnosis can give children “better treatment at school” and “offers economic advantages and protection” – an offensive claim far removed from the grim reality of many despairing citizens and families struggling for support.
Such is the tragic state of today’s Conservative Party. Arrogant, blustering, heartless and out of touch with concerns of ordinary people. There is hollow talk of renewal, but we see again why this historically formidable election fighting machine crashed and burned.
This final duo posing as party saviours and seeking to run our nation barely even pretend to care about creaking state services or dedicated public servants beyond a few boilerplate sideswipes at bureaucrats and managers. Instead, the party simply shifts ever further right and rushes further down the rabbit hole of populism as it embraces an even harder brand of English nationalism.
It was remarkable how the 121 Tory MPs, survivors of mass culling at the hands of infuriated citizens, rejected their chance to pick a leader who might have started to reconnect with voters on all sides.
James Cleverly spoke well, has a strong back story and dared suggest the party should sort itself out. He could have steadied the ship for a couple of years with his bonhomie and positivity while they reflected on their failures in office, analysed their electoral toxicity and searched for a strategy to beat a stumbling Labour government in our fractured political system.
Instead, he was dumped in favour of a gaffe-prone provocateur who believes one in 10 civil servants should be in prison and a shape-shifting charlatan who asked for cartoons for migrant kids to be painted over and claims British special forces murder people to avoid arresting them.
It is, of course, much easier to rant about illegal immigrants, reopen wounds on Europe and strut around trying to look tough in a “war on woke” than to offer serious solutions to complex problems that are corroding public services, stifling growth, fostering inequality and weakening our nation’s global standing.
Such is the lack of fresh thinking that dismal ideas such as the migration cap and Rwanda scheme are reheated as they double down on the failed populism that led to electoral disaster.
Ultimately, this oddball pair of second-raters still standing in the battle to succeed Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher at the Tory helm only show the extent of party woes while proving that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were not a sad aberration.
This is not some kind of strange comedic sideshow, however, even when hearing them complain that the Tories lost power for being too left wing. It is hard to believe so much of Surrey turned to the Liberal Democrats as punishment for the party’s lack of conservatism rather than its rank ineptitude and Brexit fanaticism.
Yet such is the volatility of modern electorates and lack of trust in politicians – inflamed by Labour’s dreadful first 100 days in office – that the result of this contest might still matter since it is not beyond the bounds of frightening possibility that the winner ends up in Downing Street.
For any sensible party members – and some still cling to their One Nation tradition – the choice between these two must feel like being asked if they would prefer to be shot or stabbed.
Should they pick the pugnacious culture warrior who seems unable to hold a discussion without sparking some silly row over bread-and-butter issues such as maternity pay or the minimum wage?
Or her bloodless rival with little to say beyond constantly bashing migrants, his soul shrivelled by ambition as he slithers from centrist conservatism under David Cameron to praising Donald Trump after his hard-right makeover?
Regardless, Nigel Farage seems the real winner of this dispiriting contest since his planned hostile takeover has been made so much easier as the broken Conservative Party dances to his nasty populist tune.
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