Rod Liddle

One of the most disappointing things about the general election for me was how few people must have read Nick Cohen’s article ‘Why You Shouldn’t Vote For Jeremy Corbyn’ before entering polling booths on 8 June. Or perhaps they did read it and thought: up yours, mate. The more I think about it, the more I suspect it’s a case of the latter. Mr Cohen, quoting from a Labour party member, listed the perfectly sensible reasons why sane people would not want Corbyn as prime minister.

So, they limp on, and Corbyn is justified in holding aloft the Queen’s Speech in jubilantly derisive fashion. Some of you Tories are no doubt hoping that Theresa May 'recovers her mojo' and that the past six weeks have been some weird transgression from her norm. No, sorry. She does not have a mojo. She has never had a mojo. Theresa May with a mojo is about as probable as Ruth Davidson getting it on with a hunky fella. The rest of you – me included - wonder who she will be replaced by. Only Davies and Davidson would improve the current position. And even then not by much. But nor should Labour be too smug. Not least because it comprehensively lost the election. But also because a cannier socialist party would have co-opted the DUP.

The Conservative party lost the general election, even if they are still in power (at time of writing). It was a defeat — as awful and fundamental a defeat for the political right as any I can remember. Brexit is now endangered. And few would doubt that a subsequent election would mean a victory for a very left-wing and jubilant Labour party. It is, then, a catastrophe for the right. And here’s what hasn’t happened as a consequence: 1. There are no hordes of right-wing demonstrators on Westminster Green screaming ‘Labour scum’ and spitting at anyone they think might be a socialist. Nobody has, to my knowledge, set fire to their own training shoes in protest.

One more quick observation on Labour. I was hanging around polling stations in my constituency on Thursday, somewhat in the manner of a wonk-nonce. The constituency is Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. The enthusiasm of the voters and of the Labour activists was genuinely startling (and in truth a little uplifting). They were absolutely avid to vote. Labour had a canvasser on every station and loads more handing out flyers. I’d had three leaflets from Labour through my door in the previous three days. None from the Tories. No Conservative placards anywhere – although a nice Labour activist told me she’d seen one on the road to Marske. But it was the fervour among the Labour voters that was most striking.

I would direct you to Liddle passim for why we are now in this state of chaos. Even if Theresa May hadn’t run the worst election campaign in living memory (again, passim) she still wouldn’t have increased her majority by much at all. I knew that as a fact, an absolute certainty, on the day the election was called, and explained why, no matter that the polls were showing a landslide. The decision to call an election was arrogant and complacent — and so was the subsequent campaign. None of us may want the additional chaos of a leadership election, but nonetheless, there should be one. She is, as I said two weeks ago, undone. Come apart. And dead meat. I see the odds have shortened on Boris Johnson becoming leader and thus PM. I like Boris. He was even a friend.

I am trying to remember if there was ever a worse Conservative election campaign than this current dog’s breakfast — and failing. Certainly 2001 was pretty awful, with Oliver Letwin going rogue and Thatcher sniping nastily from behind the arras. It is often said that 1987 was a little lacklustre and Ted Heath had effectively thrown in the towel in October 1974. But I don’t think anything quite matches up to this combination of prize gaffes and the robotic incantation of platitudinous idiocies. To have suggested that the hunting with dogs legislation might be subject to a free vote in the House of Commons was, whether you are pro hunting or against, a move of quite stunning stupidity.

Alastair Campbell once famously punched the Guardian’s Michael White in the face. A commendable thing to do, undoubtedly, as Mr White is the very incarnation of pomposity and self-righteousness. Quite possibly the best thing Campbell has ever done. But the brief spat (White hit back, according to White) was revealing in another way. Robert Maxwell had just drowned by falling off his yacht and Campbell, then working in the lobby for Maxwell’s paper, the Daily Mirror, took exception to White’s glee at this watery end to the proprietor’s life. ‘Captain Bob, Bob, Bob!’ White chortled, so Campbell punched him.

A stirring defence of press freedom from Jeremy Corbyn at his party’s manifesto launch. Urging the booing Momentum authoritarians to have 'respect' for the press, Jezza commented: 'We also recognise that in many societies around the world very brave journalists have lost their lives or are assassinated because they have uncovered the truth about brutal regimes and abuses of human rights. Journalists and journalism and free journalism and free press are intrinsic to a democracy and a free society. I fully understand that.' Excellent. Corbyn then allowed precisely two questions from the print media about his manifesto. One of them being from the Daily Mirror. The other from some desolate hack from the Morning Star – who asked what could be done to curb the bias of the press.

I see that the UK’s Lucie Jones has blamed her Eurovision Song Contest failure upon Brexit. Lucie actually came fifteenth, which was substantially higher than either she or the song deserved. Her song, 'Never Gonna Give Up On You', or some such egregious, banal, tripe, was a hugely boring ballad without even the redemption of an interesting chorus. That’s why it came fifteenth – that and the fact that we chose a failure from that anti-musical jamboree, X Factor, to sing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl1GYTg4GmA Lucie is just the latest in a long line of people to blame Brexit for being utterly useless. I might use the Brexit get-out next time I can’t get an erection. 'Sorry love, I just feel bad about us leaving the European Union.