Goodbye to the Crying Lady

FAREWELL then to quite simply the worst Prime Minister in recent history. The crying lady’s body language wasn’t one of sadness but of bitterness she’d been evicted.

History will not judge Theresa May kindly, she was crowned as someone who ‘got the job done’, the vicars daughter who would reach out to those ‘just about managing’ and heal a country riven by austerity.

Instead she presided over the worst General Election campaign from a sitting Prime Minister, failed to marginalise the most ideologically-driven Labour leader since Michael Foot and deepened the divisions caused by Brexit.

And when confronted by her unpopularity, when the political winds demanded a change of course or an acknowledgement she could be wrong, she buried her head in the sand.

Politicians of all colours need a keen eye and ear to work inside and outside of the Westminster bubble, she possessed neither.

She called an unnecessary General Election in 2017. Jeremy Corbyn will never appeal to the centre ground of British politics enough to unseat a Conservative Government outright.

She began the campaign 20 points ahead in the opinion polls, yet ended with a loss of a majority which took the Tories more than 20 years to achieve.

During the campaign she was robotic, charmless and frankly boring. Corbyn meanwhile energised the youth, inspired his supporters and displayed his talents at rallies up and down the country.

When the Tory manifesto was scrutinised, instead of laying out the reasons for change, May backtracked insisting ‘nothing has changed’. A Prime Minister who offers the exotic tutti fruiti before racing back to plain vanilla is not someone who has leadership licked.

Confronted with the loss of her majority, May could and should have quit. Instead she sought a deal with the DUP, nothing wrong with that of course except it came with £1billion of cash for Northern Ireland.

The voters were rightly annoyed to see the Magic Money Tree sprout having been told ‘there’s no money left’ for seven years….

Faced with delivering Brexit, the biggest cultural shift our country has demanded in five decades, Mrs May displayed a tin ear of epic proportions.

The result was separated by just 1,269,501 votes. A majority yes but not anything like the 10 per cent difference showed by the Scottish people after their independence referendum.

Delivering the voters mandate therefore required political skill and courage, she lacked both.

Successful British Prime Ministers govern for all, not just those who elected them. Yet when she needed to carry her country with her, Mrs May marginalised everyone who voted remain.

In countless speeches she referred to delivering the wishes of the 17.4million who voted for Brexit. Had she delivered a Brexit for the 65million in this country, including all of Scotland which voted to remain, I dare say she wouldn’t be in this mess today.

We’re screaming out for leadership to carry us all forward as a country, to bring us back together. Because the British people didn’t do anything wrong, they were asked their opinion and gave it, no matter what side of the argument you are on that can never be a bad thing.

When her deal was published, it was rightly panned. It was a compromise she said, yet that wasn’t the binary choice on the ballot paper on June 23, 2016.

Faced with resignations, Mrs May acted tough, ‘My Deal or No Brexit’ she attempted to roar. Leaders can do that when they have the numbers to back the threat up with.

She never did, she presided over two of the biggest Parliamentary defeats in our history as her own party and her DUP partners baulked at backing the withdrawal agreement.

When she sought help from Corbyn, she expected Her Majesty’s official opposition to ride to the rescue in the ‘national interest’.

She didn’t for once think a) her party might be a tad annoyed at her legitimising a man they’ve deemed a threat to national security and b) Corbyn would go along with the talks but stop short of helping.

Labour doesn’t need to help her, Politics 101 tells you when the opponent is sinking never chuck a life raft.

She’s been doomed since a third of her MPs said they had no confidence in her in December, had they waited until the spring the number would have been much higher.

The simple truth is had the men in grey suits acted quicker, had the opposition been much stronger, her time as PM would already be over.

Britain deserves better than this. The question is can anyone out there rise to the challenge?

Debunking Jeremy Corbyn

WHILE David Cameron staked it all at the EU casino and walked away empty handed, Jeremy Corbyn remains, loathed by the majority of his MPs and MEPs, viewed with contempt by his opponents and, crucially, not that welcome with the electorate.

After 2015 we ought to not rely on opinion polls as much we still do but the latest ICM poll has the Conservatives 16 POINTS in front of Labour.

That's a Tory party which has fallen out over Europe, seen backstabbing and skulduggery akin to a chapter from Macbeth, elected a new Prime Minister unopposed and even appear to ditch Austerity 1.0 for the slightly better Optimism 2.0.

Meanwhile the Labour top brass will go around saying it's all the plotters and rebels fault, that they should all fall into line and together he will lead them to the promised land of Government.....

Except that is not true and Corbyn knows it, he simply wants to take 'his party' back. Plenty has been said to discredit good Labour people in recent days so let's examine Jeremy Corbyn.

"Those against him should respect his mandate from the members" - Yes and a fine victory too, there can be no doubt he energised what would have been a really dull campaign. Quite simply he spoke with a passion Labour voters needed to hear after a crushing defeat to the Tories. None of the others came anywhere close.

However, how many of the £3 members voted for him and were genuine Labour supporters? How many joined to get their man in and have now left?

And while we are on 'respecting mandates' consider this; the Labour party's official position on Trident is to support renewal. This was voted on by members at the party's annual conference last year.

On July 18, Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party voted AGAINST renewing the nuclear deterrent. So while the Corbynistas want everyone to 'respect the mandate' they won't lead by example.

"The media are against him" - Another frequent moan is how the media is against Jeremy Corbyn, well t'was ever thus. Newspapers pick a party and side with them, is it fair? No of course not but it hasn't stopped others from winning the media over.

In terms of broadcast well Jeremy is hardly the most affable with a camera. His first shadow cabinet appointments took so long to reveal that when a reporter found him to ask a few easy questions all Jeremy could say was he was being 'harassed'.

And yet when it comes to speaking to Press TV in Iran or Russia Today, Jeremy is only too happy to have a chat...

"He's won every by-election since he became leader" - Again not a bad feat especially as all four by-elections the candidates increased their majorities. But the indisputable fact is they were all held in safe Labour seats; it would have been more of a story had Labour LOST them not retained them.

Ah but London is back under a Labour Mayor - yup and did Sadiq Khan have Jeremy Corbyn at his side throughout the campaign, no. He like many other candidates distanced themselves and let's face it when all the Tories could do is point to Khan's ethnicity then Labour had the keys to London in the bag.

Labour under Corbyn is emulating the 2015 election under Ed Miliband, securing its safe seats with no progress elsewhere.

To form a Government in the UK, either one of the two main parties has to secure their heartlands but also appeal to voters in swing seats, where majorities are on a knife edge. Labour show no sign of doing that but instead losing even more votes to the likes of UKIP.

"A kinder, gentler politics"  - Corbyn promised different, more grown up politics, debating not shouting, action not reaction. The truth has been anything but, from the bullying 'Momentum' to the disgraceful smearing of a Jewish MP, Corbyn and his acolytes just can't help themselves.

McDonnell called rebel MPs 'f****** idiots' but then said it was just a 'joke', and social media is not the place to be if you have an anti-Corbyn opinion.

The truth is Labour is being led by a clique, a closed shop of people who are serial rebellers but now demand loyalty, by people so dominated by their own dogma they lose sight of what really matters in 2016 Britain and quite frankly, a bunch of hypocrites.

Jeremy Corbyn isn't a 'man of principle', he's a hypocrite.

Only bravery will save Labour now

DAVID Cameron took to the stage in Manchester, the first Tory Prime Minister in 19 years to address his party with a majority.

He left it an hour later having took the Tory tanks off the battleground, onto Labour's lawn, through the sitting room and kitchen and out the other side.

A devilishly bold speech sought to solidify his core vote and say to any moderates in the Labour Party "Come on in, we're open." Those same Labour moderates who have been told to 'go and join the Tories' now have an invitation. 

The speech was short on policy, based heavily on promises. But it was never designed to be policy rich, it simply is the next move in the Tory chess game.

Already proud of how they made the 'Labour crashed the economy' message stick and then the 'Vote Labour, get the SNP' follow up (ironically most in Scotland just bisected Labour and went straight to the Nationalists), the Tories now smell real blood.

The Labour corpse is still twitching after May but the election of Jeremy Corbyn has delivered a potentially fatal dose of 'leftitis'. The Tory wolves scent blood.

Cameron delivered a straight punch with the 'danger to our security' line, expect to hear that more in the months ahead. But there were the cursory jabs, the left of centre policies and the downright appeal to soft Labour voters to reject Corbyn's blast from the 70s.

Cameron gets it, to win power you need to win Middle England. Blair did it in 97 and he did it in May. He knows a Corbyn led Labour Party will never appeal to swing voters in areas such as Worcester so is looking to both toxify Labour and welcome new support at the same time.

Of course he will be judged on what he actually delivers. But when you compare the leaders speeches, one was full of desire, the other full of empty rhetoric and desire to be nicer on Twitter.

A very well respected journalist tweeted after the speech: "@janemerrick23: Labour's gigantic problem: why did I, from a Liverpool comp, who voted for Blair & never voted Tory, agree nearly every word of PM's speech?"

It's a problem a brave Labour Party need to solve. If not then 2020 is going to make 1997 look close. The answer? Alan Johnson, loved by the Blairites and a former union official.

Sometimes speeches change the politcal weather, well David Cameron made the rain fall eeven heavier on Labour. It's time to reach for the umbrellas!