The right must unite

I mentioned here recently that to my mind Boris Johnson bears a fairish similarity to Dr Faustus, as Christopher Marlowe portrayed him: selling his soul only to then waste his time in futile and silly gestures.

Perhaps I can now add Rishi Sunak as another possible stand-in for that role. As Sunak announced a general election in the drenching rain last week, I was forced to ask again: ‘What was the point of all this? What was the point of rising up the ladder, of knifing his predecessor, of working, campaigning and scheming, only to leave in such a manner? Why seek the highest political office only to have no idea what to do with it once there?’

It isn’t uncommon for conservatives to make the following observation but I will make it nonetheless. The Conservative party always lets you down. I loathed the Cameron–Clegg years, loathed the post-Brexit mess, loathed the infighting, but always thought: ‘Well, maybe they’ll pull something out of the hat.’ But no. As the Tories slide out of office once more, they have done almost everything they could to disappoint anyone inclined to vote for them. There are people alive today who have lived their whole lives under Conservative party rule. And though you can claim that the country would have been in a worse state if Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband had spent the past decade or more in office, it is regrettable that that is the only argument for the Conservatives.

To take just one issue, they leave office with immigration – both legal and illegal – at historic highs. Those of us who love this country find it hard to work out why even the politicians who claim also to love it seem to be intent on leaving such a mess for their successors.