Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 The Party is out of options. Not even a new leader can save it Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/03/24 This morning the political talk was of how Cabinet ministers are debating whether to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory Party leader and PM. With so little time left before a general election is required, support for the Conservatives sinking as low as 18 per cent in some opinion polls, Reform catching up and luring its MPs, and a large number of Tory members announcing they are standing down, we have clearly reached desperation stage. How can any of this be a surprise to the party? What, honestly, did Tory MPs expect to happen, after Conservative voters saw them as plotting to remove one leader over being given cake by his wife, then ousting his replacement, Liz Truss, because she attempted to do something actually Conservative? How was it not obvious to Tory MPs that such conduct, hot off the back of 2018/19 when Tory MPs sought to prevent Brexit, would lead to electoral annihilation if n...

 PM told by 1922 Committee members there is ‘nothing to lose going later’ and he’d be ‘barking mad’ to opt for a snap May poll Source - Daily Telegraph 13/03/24 Link Rishi Sunak “should go long” and call an autumn general election, members of the 1922 Committee executive have urged. Eighteen Conservative MPs on the ruling body of the backbench group held their termly meeting with the Prime Minister on Monday night, when some reportedly warned him against a snap poll in May. Senior Labour figures are insisting the Tories are planning to hold the election in two months, despite trailing Sir Keir Starmer’s party by around 20 points. Mr Sunak has said an autumn election was “the working assumption” but refused to categorically rule out a May election in the wake of the Budget, prompting renewed speculation about when he will trigger the vote. One member of the 1922 Committee executive told The Telegraph: “My view is he should go long. The economy will pick up, Labour will be challenged...

 The Tories seem intent on dying as they lived. Incompetently. Source - Matt Goodwin - 12/03/24 With potentially only a couple of months to go before the next election, the Tories have finally decided to pull their finger out, take heed of the public mood, and swing into action. After years of procrastination, promises and prevarication this sclerotic government has, at last, committed itself to ridding Britain of thousands of uninvited foreign parasites, undesirables, and spongers who have been arriving on these shores in droves and leeching off our fine nation’s goodwill for far too long. The Tories are not messing about. Not only is our no nonsense government going to send these bloodsuckers packing. But they are even making them buy their own plane tickets. Take that Johnny Foreigner. Good luck, and good riddance. Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced the abolition of the non-nom status. I’ve always found Hunt a bit creepy to be honest. He gives the ...

 Lee Anderson's defection is significant, but his new party lacks direction   Without a by-election, Anderson's defection lacks the drama of previous Tory losses to UKIP   Reform suffers from an anaemic ground machine and scant base in local government Source - Capx 11/03/24 Link Last year, Lee Anderson claimed that he had been offered ‘a lot of money’ to defect to Reform UK. One wonders whether he finally got his payday before announcing his defection this morning (and if his recent loss of the Conservative whip affected the spot price). The bigger question, however, is how much his crossing the floor will damage the Government. The obvious point of comparison is the 2010-15 Parliament, where the defections of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless helped to heap pressure on David Cameron to promise a referendum on the European Union. On the face of it, Anderson’s move seems less likely to have such drastic consequences, for a few reasons. First, there is no indication yet t...

Former Tory vice-chairman was suspended over his refusal to apologise for claims that Islamists had ‘got control’ of Sadiq Khan and London Source - Daily Telegraph 11/03/24 Link The former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party was suspended from the Tories over his refusal to apologise for his claims that Islamists had “got control” of Sadiq Khan and of London. The defection, which will be a blow to Rishi Sunak, follows weeks of speculation about the Ashfield MP’s next moves.  Mr Anderson sparked a furious backlash after he claimed last month that the capital had been “taken over” amid the weekly pro-Palestinian protests over the war in Gaza. In an interview with GB News, Mr Anderson said: “I don’t actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is that they’ve got control of Khan, they’ve got control of London. “He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates... If you let Labour in through the back door, expect more of this, e...

The former PM is mooted for a return to his old seat, but frenemy David Cameron could be in the way of any grand comeback plans Source - Daily Telegraph 09/03/24 It was a departure speech that left more questions than it answered. When Boris Johnson vacated Downing Street in September 2022, comparing himself to Cincinnatus, he naturally sparked speculation as to what exactly he meant when he said he would be channelling the Roman statesman by “returning to his plough”. Some took it as a suggestion that he would go quietly back to the backbenches, but those with a more in-depth knowledge of classics found deeper meaning in the obscure reference. As the historians Tom Holland and Mary Beard quickly pointed out, “enemy of the people” Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was recalled from his plough to become leader of Rome for a second time. He was working on a small farm in 458 BC when he was re-appointed dictator of Rome to rescue a consular army that was surrounded on Mount Algidus. After defe...

Counter-extremism tsar Robin Simcox warns of ‘permissive environment for radicalisation’ developing in UK Source - Daily Telegraph 07/03/24 Link Pro-Palestinian protests are turning London into “a no-go zone for Jews”, the counter-extremism tsar said as he warned that extremist groups have “gone unchallenged for too long”. Writing for The Telegraph, Robin Simcox, the Home Office’s independent adviser on extremism, said the Government and its agencies had powers to combat extremism but had failed to tackle groups that “lurked” just below the threshold of being terrorists. He issued the warning after Rishi Sunak urged protesters last week not to “let the extremists hijack your marches”, and with Michael Gove preparing to announce a broader definition of extremism. Mr Simcox said the “permissive environment for radicalisation” developing in the UK meant that activities such as pro-Palestinian protests, which he said leave parts of the capital off-limits to Jews, had become “normalised”. H...