Tuesday , March 19 2024

Lost for Words

What the PM said at the Party Conference is trying hard to be heard over what she didn’t, or couldn’t say. Regardless of whether or not the chancellor gives things away for free, or if Amber Rudd told the Foreign Secretary to applaud, it was still the PM’s speech. Or at least supposed to be. But again it seemed that the PM with the most room to exert her vision of Britain upon the nation again failed to have one. She began by arguing for free markets, and then put that into practice by calling for caps on electricity bills, the antithesis of a free market. There can be little question the UK’s electricity bills are too high; capping them too low will likely drive them out of the market. Calling them too high will do nothing. Faced with such a dilemma, it is hard to see which option May thought was a good idea.

The letters falling off the poster behind her merely added to what was already quite the debacle. What was the speech about. For herself, surviving as PM, yet it was many times worse than IDS’s defiant strike back.

To my mind, she needs to think about why she is the PM? What is her goal, the mark she wishes to leave on the nation; the issue she wishes to solve. Merely achieving Brexit is not a policy issue. Brexit is of itself a Policy and merely needs to be guided through. That does not require a Prime Minister to perform. It, and to some extent even the negotiations, are administrative work. Indeed, the negotiations – the sole aspect of Brexit now – could even be turned over to a computerised algorithm which would calculate whether or not to accept the results of the negotiations or to leave the EU without a deal. The occupant of No. 10 needs to be more than a mere “Maybot”, and she can be. She just needs to have a dream.

To return to a topic I have mentioned before, May seems to have no imagination, idea or dream. She seems to want to preside as PM, instead of actually governing. It would appear the idea which Jacob Rees-Mogg described the “dire words” – “managed decline” – has returned. Is it, therefore, any surprise that Corbyn’s ratings are increasing at her expense? Corbyn offers something; it may be cloud cuckoo land, but to those who do not have the time or inclination to research it all, such proposals appear to be the promised land. And who can be blamed for not wanting more of what we have now: “responsible” presiding over what seems to be a slow collapse of our society?

Do we, as a nation; need to consign ourselves to merely managed decline? It seems the PM has. The economy, always a Tory strongpoint, is now hardly mentioned, and the only reason the economy is growing is because of Brexit, and more accurately, despite the new regulations and top-down control coming from No. 11 Downing St. For all his numerous faults, Osbourne knew how to manage an economy, spreadsheet Phil does not seem to be achieving equal results. The economy, always a Tory strongpoint, is now hardly mentioned, and the only reason the economy is growing is because of Brexit, and more accurately, despite the new regulations and top-down control coming from No. 11 Downing St.

The one policy mentioned in her speech was gained from Ed Milliband. A policy that was deemed to be “economically illiterate” on numerous occasions by David Cameron. It is an example of how policy starved the current cabinet actually is. The next problem stems from this phenomenon. BoJo, for whatever reason of his own, seems to be the only one suggesting anything on the policy front. This then makes it look like he is continually plotting against the PM.

May is a stable (but not strong) pair of hands, but while the nation needs a stable pair of hands now, it also requires a wise brain determined to steer the hands in the right way. At this point in time, unless May is making plans we do not know about, all she is doing is keeping the nation stable for Jeremy Corbyn to let us become a Socialist Experiment. May needs new ideas and new blood in the cabinet to ensure this does not happen. The appointment of “Chief Yes Man” Gavin Williamson as Secretary of Defence seems to signal that the Prime Minister has no intention of putting new blood or ideas into her cabinet, worryingly. Without any policies, not merely the government and Conservative Party is at risk – the entire nation is.

About Ted Yarbrough

Ted is the co-founder and editor of the Daily Globe. He is a long-time blogger on British politics and has written a thesis on Thatcherism.

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