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How did the Conservatives get us into this unholy mess? This documentary tried its best to answer that, but was hampered by the absence of the chief architects of the political crisis
A former potato farmer turned Brexit-backing Tory MP, Andrew Bridgen is nicknamed Spud-U-Hate by his foes. It fell to him to explain, in Tories at War (Channel 4), how he and his fellow uber tubers in the Conservative party elect their leader. First the candidates form a circle. Then they take up their weapons. The circular firing squad ends when the candidates are eliminated – leaving, Bridgen fancifully imagined, “a nun from the Outer Hebrides to become leader”. If only. The problem, in retrospect, was that only 11 Conservatives stood this summer to lead their party. If only all of them had stood, and been eliminated, we wouldn’t be in such a mess. Given that the Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency that includes the Outer Hebrides elected a Scottish Nationalist last time round, most likely that nun would not have prorogued parliament but revoked article 50, thus wiping the insufferable smile I had to endure watching this show from the face of the par-boiled spudleiter of the Brexit party.
The point of this hour was to bear witness to how, since Theresa May’s election, the most successful democratic party in the world (or so ex-minister Alan Duncan called it) got blighted by potato politicians. The civil war would have been fun to watch were it not for the fact that the rest of us are in its crossfire. Tories at War showed that Britons in 2019 are not so much lions led by donkeys as couch potatoes ruled by red-skinned, elite potatoes bred in top vegetable academies in the Thames valley. Continue reading...