Friends, sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. It appears that Boris Johnson, who resigned as Prime Minister not so long ago, is now a serious contender to resume the premiership. Holy moly! This isn't mentioned in my most recent article, but I do stress the need for Conservatives to stop sabotaging one another and to join ranks ASAP. See what you think...
British Conservatives Need to Get a Grip
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II “stayed calm and carried on” for 70 years on the throne. The last Prime Minister she appointed, Liz Truss, lasted just 45 days before she announced her resignation on Thursday. The contrast could not be more stark.
And yet this is not so much a crisis of the British political system as it is of the leadership of the governing Conservative Party. Conservatives cannot agree on who should be running the country, and that ambivalence threatens both their grip on power and the country's ability to weather a major fiscal and economic storm.
Truss clearly did not handle the premiership very adeptly, but her cardinal sin, in the eyes of many Britons and more than a few Conservative insiders, was to advance an agenda of tax cuts at a time when Britain faces large deficits, a faltering economy, and high inflation. The markets demurred, the Bank of England tut-tutted, a storm of media criticism bloomed, and Truss herself reversed course. Once she had shown weakness, the knives immediately came out for her, and she was finished.
While the wisdom of tax cuts in the current adverse economic climate can be questioned, the fact is that the opprobrium that has been showered upon Liz Truss is totally out of proportion to the scale of her “mistake”. Britain faces huge structural economic and fiscal challenges, as does the United States, as we all know, and 99.9% of these challenges aren't Liz Truss's fault (most of them aren't Joe Biden's fault either, for that matter).
Moreover, in trying to deliver tax cuts, Liz Truss was merely attempting to honor the pledges she had made to the Conservative Party members who chose her to lead them. Last time I checked, we call that “democracy”.
What's more, the hypocrisy of the financial elite here is breathtaking. We're supposed to believe that trillions in wasteful government spending and borrowing was justified by (gasp!) COVID, but, now that we're facing recession because of this unprecedented profligacy, modest tax cuts will break the bank? Please!
The lesson here is simple: at some stage, the Conservatives are going to have to "man up" and stop eating their own. The mainstream media will happily pick off Conservative PMs one by one, and frankly no one is going to have an easy time of it in this economic and political climate. That means that the least the Conservative Party can do is...get a grip and support its own titular leader. Without internal unity, the party is doomed in the next general election. Even with their own house in order, they face a formidable challenge, as the opposition has surged to a large lead in the polls.
Here in “the States”, it sure looks like we're about to provide our British cousins with a vivid demonstration of how precarious the position of incumbents is, as the economic skies start to darken. British Conservatives better learn their lesson fast, or there may be no Conservative Party left to contest the next election. It's already looking more like a dysfunctional rabble than a governing class.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
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In other news, here's a great and erudite analysis of where we stand in the battle against leftism, written by a conservative pal o' mine.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/20/will-the-left-allow-voters-to-take-back-power/
Any movement towards school choice elicits my hearty approval, so the fact that the great state of West Virginia is giving parents more latitude to decide their children's educational destiny is excellent news.
Dems and progressives are miffed and bewildered. They keep telling us that Republicans are fascists, and, if the GOP wins the midterms, "democracy" and everything you love and cherish will come crashing down in a heap. Well, the American people don't seem to be buying into this reckless, breathless scaremongering, and leftists are shocked and appalled. This article is a good introduction to the current leftist mindset. Read it at your peril!
Steve Bannon has been sentenced to four months in jail for defying a subpoena from the January 6th committee. For now, he's free on appeal. One has to wonder -- if the committee disappears after the midterms, will the charges be dropped? I'm assuming not, since the DOJ would never show mercy to a Trumper. The subpoena recently issued against DJT, however, could easily go up in smoke.
There's at least one poll now showing Republican Lee Zeldin ahead in the race for Governor of New York. Sounds too good to be true, if you ask me, but, hey, as the New York Lottery likes to remind us, "You never know..."
Finally, Giorgia Meloni, Italy's new P.M., is getting the Trump treatment from the mainstream media. This BBC article positively drips with contempt for Italy's new "far-right" leader. She's unfazed, however, and we here at WaddyIsRight wish her well!
Ray to Nick
ReplyDeleteBoris looks like an unhinged retard with that hair style. All he needs now is a tattoo on his neck.
Ray to Nick
ReplyDeleteBBC (Stands for Better to Be Communist) would surely not like Italy's new P.M. Don't forget that Italy is home to the late Antonio Gramsci, that piece of s**t Leftist who advocated many of the things we are seeing today, such as the abolition of religion, destruction of the nuclear family, and you name it. Every good leftist should have Gramsci's image tattooed on each buttocks, with the center of that part of their anatomy representing Gramsci's ideology.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: What a lasting effect Slick Willy has had on the dems. Their latest clintonian ly disingenuous preemption is of conservatives being determined to destroy our country and replace it with dictatorship. The y ought to know about that; it has been their dream for decades now to do it themselves.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Hope the Mill article's possibilities become reality. I'm 75 now; I grew up in a time when monstrous far left tyranny seemed invincible. But we saw it fall in on itself, so it can come about.
ReplyDeleteRay, you can't judge a man by his hairdo...or maybe you can, because Boris's rapid entrance into, and exit from, the premiership contest might be a sign of erratic judgement.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Ray, that a lot of post-modern, cultural Marxist B.S. has come out of Italy. Now they have a chance to redeem themselves!
Jack, I tend to think that Mr. Mill is a tad optimistic. Yes, much of the Left's sway consists of intimidation, and bullies can indeed be defeated, and often by the remarkably simple expedient of standing up to them...once. On the other hand, a lot of the assumptions of cultural Marxism have burrowed their way into our popular culture. We often THINK LIKE MARXISTS, even those of us who claim to be conservative, and that means that beating back the onslaught of pinkos won't be easy. And we won't even get into their institutional power base. Yikes!
Ray to Nick
ReplyDeleteOnly Boris's hair dresser knows for sure.
You mean the wind? Possibly. It's been murmuring sweetly to me for years...
ReplyDelete