In comparison to the Republicans in the United States, the British Conservative party is a model of unity and discipline. In Manchester this week, for all the blather about Nigel Farage and ‘pandering’ to the far right, the grumbling about nanny-statism and HS2ing-to-nowhere, the Tories held themselves together.
Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, a small group of right-wing representatives in Congress managed to throw out their own House speaker, Kevin McCarthy. A motion for him to ‘vacate to chair’ was won 216 to 210. That’s never happened before.
The trigger for McCarthy’s removal was disgruntlement over the spending deal he struck with President Joe Biden in order to avoid a US government shutdown. The deeper cause is that a number of Republicans, chiefly Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who led the vote, have long disliked and distrusted McCarthy, whom they regard a classic Washington ‘swamp’ creature.
McCarthy’s election as speaker was a shambolic affair. He only captured the gavel after two gruelling days of 15 votes, and fierce resistance from the same conservatives who just managed to eject him.
McCarthy’s election as speaker was a shambolic affair
‘My father always told me, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish’, McCarthy said after that exhausting victory.
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