A few weeks ago I stated to my friend that I thought Liz Truss would be in deep trouble by November … boy did I get that wrong! I think as I write this she is still the Prime Minister but the way that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer (I believe he is the third in 3 months!) Jeremy Hunt is charging around the place I’m really not so sure this morning. This is a disaster of unimaginable proportions and I can’t see it holding together for very long – perhaps November was the right month after all?
Jeremy Hunt is hated by many people in the parliamentary Conservative Party. He tried to run for Party Leader in the summer and failed miserably so why he thinks he can do what he is doing is beyond me? The first cabinet meeting is going to be something to behold as many of the Hunt haters are sitting around the table and I am sure they will not be shy coming forward with their complaints – after all there are also many around that table who also wish to replace Liz Truss so it is not in their interest to let Hunt get away with the things he has this weekend. If this is correct then we are in an even bigger whole that we were when Hunt was appointed: Truss has no authority; the Cabinet will be in open revolt and the Parliamentary Party will be trying to come up with crazier and crazier fixes. In short by the end of the week we may well no longer have a government at all. Yet the world moves on and the vultures of the money markets will smell the decay and try and make matters worse for their own financial benefit. Forget the Halloween budget by then we might have no government to talk of at all.
I have listened to many talking heads, read many articles and examined Twitter in detail and the truth is no one has any real clue how to get out of this mess – no one (That includes me!). However, there is one person who can relieve the pressure and that is the King. It is the King who dissolves parliament, normally on the advice of the Prime Minister, but what happens when we don’t have a Prime Minister or the largest party want to hold yet another leadership contest to try and identify their new leader which will take another 3 months (I don’t believe the guff about there being some form of a single candidate being brought forward, a la Theresa May, so they don’t have to go to the members for their conformation). How could the country endure this? Indeed why should the country have to? If as, I fear, the government collapses then there is only one solution: A General Election. The only way we will get that is by the King intervening. Will this happen? I haven’t the first clue but it makes more sense than yet another Tory Party leadership contest whilst at the same time there are blackouts, a flu epidemic, the NHS collapses, interest rate rises, possibly riots at home…I could go on but it is just too depressing…
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