This article was published in July during the previous leadership election
It beggars belief that Penny Mordaunt, the Queen of Woke, is odds-on favourite to win the Conservative leadership contest and become the next prime minister. The country needs her like a shot in the head. Apart from an impressively bouffant hairdo in the best Thatcherite tradition, a photogenic smile, and the obligatory reference to unfunded tax cuts, the qualities and achievements that would qualify her for the top job seem thin on the ground.
Two of her ex-bosses have damned her as incompetent, as simply not up to the job – including Lord Frost, for whom she deputised in last year’s Brexit negotiations. Now she is in trouble over her views on transgenderism, having declared, when women and equalities minister, that she was ‘in complete solidarity with the trans community’.
Mordaunt has responded by saying she is ‘going to stay focused on the things that matter to the public’. Now, where have we heard that line before? Far more worrying are the views she expressed in her book Greater: Britain After the Storm. Her agenda, apparently (I am grateful to Sam Ashworth-Hayes of the Spectator for having read the book), is that Britain needs ‘modernising’.
We should, argues Mordaunt (prepare to hold your nose), be proud of ‘the NHS, the countryside, diversity, pubs, the armed forces and the BBC’. Our problem is that our current leaders come from ‘a heterosexual, white, Christian, Western-orientated world’ where ‘there was no mansplaining. No white privilege. No colonial historiography.’
Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation explained ‘how superior Oxford-educated British middle-aged white men were’. Britain still lacks ‘an offence of stirring up hatred on the grounds of transgender identity’. And she slams much-loved classic comedy shows, like Hi-di-Hi!, Dad’s Army and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. The latter is described as ‘a full-house bingo card of … casual racism, homophobia, white privilege, colonialism, transphobia, bullying, misogyny and sexual harassment’ (odd as I do not recall there being any women in the show).
Mordaunt, it seems, is a liberal democrat on steroids, who happens to favour tax cuts. That she commands such popularity among her fellow Conservative MPs speaks volumes about the modern Conservative Party.
However, there is still hope. The star of Friday’s televised Conservative Leadership Debate was the rank outsider, Kemi Badenoch. Unlike her rivals, she came across as straight-talking, genuinely conservative (that is, socially conservative), and refreshingly unrehearsed. Asked if Boris Johnson told the truth, she cheekily replied ‘sometimes’, and the audience laughed.
After hearing the other candidates declare that their loyalty had been to the prime minister, she declared that she would choose her cabinet, not on grounds of loyalty, but talent. Badenoch is well-known for her anti-woke credentials, for believing people should be judged as individuals, not by their colour or race. She is also the only candidate to draw the link between family values (she has a husband and 3 children), housing, and immigration – issues that none of the others dare touch. She wrote in her recent Telegraph pitch, ‘Building confidence in the Government’s ability to control immigration is an important foundation for ensuring a cohesive society’.
In interviews, she comes across as articulate, highly intelligent, and engaging, one of those rare politicians who has no need to resort to stock platitudes but can answer any question head on. Her intellectual hero is the great Thomas Sowell. I notice she has the support of Michael Gove, Charles Moore, Rod Liddle and Trevor Kavanagh of The Sun, who writes that ‘she is Labour’s worst nightmare’.
These are people who know the score. Something is definitely afoot. Let the battle commence!
Mordaunt was asked in a television interview this morning where she stood on immigration. Did she believe immigration was necessary for growth or would she stick to the Conservative party’s commitment to reduce it to below 100,000? It is a nonsense question because mass immigration fuels population growth, not productivity – but the assumption is standard in the media and government (with Badenoch and Braverman the only honourable exceptions).
Nevertheless, this was Mordaunt’s reply:
‘I believe in evidence-based policy making and cabinet collective responsibility.’ And that was it. I am not making this up.
As for her other principles and policy ideas, her economic plan, she was very clear. She believed that politicians should ‘focus on the people they serve’. She also believed in ‘stability’ – despite having supported Liz Truss, loyally serving in her cabinet, and comparing her to Churchill.
There we have it.
An additional comment now that Penny has thrown her hat into the circus ring. She is a good presenter but of what policies? I cannot recall who called the “Tories” the “stupid party”, but what of the constituency workers on whom MPs to some degree must rely for re-election to the “Mother of Parliaments”? Do they take notice any more of Liz-Not-Rishi “Daily Mail” exhortations? Then there is Boris back from another well-undeserved holiday with his latest wife.
And what of the rest – the Starmerites, the Corbynites, the Daveyites, the Sturgeon Shoal and the Gwrywgydiwr gweriniaethwr?
Great Britain has spiralled down from Zenith in 1902 to Zero in 2022, with a collection of vanity-driven careerists now competing for most glittering chalice of national poison. Who has a constructive policy for national recovery in face of the perennial “external factors” to which will soon be added the northward mass-migration of “climate refugees”? Sunak might just qualify but may not beat the “Labour” party at the next “election”, with his strong religious convictions a deterrent to the Muslim household patriarchs in key constituencies. A hundred years ago Chesterton said that a vote is as useless as a one-way ticket on a blocked line, and that was then!
The Bad Penny is backing the former Remainer & Republican Trimmer Truss with an eye on what ministry I wonder. What a duo! The return of Blair in Tory clothing?
Rishi and Braverman have also attacked the Woke tyranny, but will these three get anywhere on THIS issue under the new management of Liz & Penny?
For background, readers may like to consult my own current article on this threat to Britain which only the Council of European Canadians has agreed to post online.
Why not offer it to this magazine/website?
The “diverse” (Afro-Asian) and “inclusive” (LGBT+ Flagwaving) Commonwealth Games in our second City is a microcosm of the “Britain” to come.
From Raj to Rishi, from riches to rags.
There is a massive disconnect within the current Conservative Party between the leadership and the rank & file members.
The current TINO leadership are, effectively, a close knit, Blairite, New Labor Lite clique, wedded to the concepts of high Government spending and the subsequent high taxes and borrowing required to sustain such policies.
They are without any understanding of the fears and aspirations of the party membership, let alone the country as a whole and are destined to either destroy the party or condemn the country to 10 to 15 years of WEF inspired Socialism.
The grass roots level Tory party membership needs to get a grip of their constituancy parties. Deselect any MP who supported the coup against Boris Johnson, replacing them with local people known and respected in the area, and reject any attempt by the control freaks at Conservative Party Central Office to impose unsuitable candidates.
Only then will the Conservative Party have a chance of recovering the ground they have lost in recent months.
It looks like Truss then. Not ideal but at least Truss is anti-woke and pro-free speech. She dresses and moves well too – definitely a biological woman, I would say. I’m also looking forward to all those tax cuts. If she appoints Kemi Badenoch home secretary, in charge of immigration, as seems to be on the cards, things could yet work out well.
Conservative doesn’t just mean “socially”; it also means “fiscally.”
If you continue to redistribute wealth, then you will go bankrupt.
It’s a mathematical certainty.
Kemi Badenoch is clearly the best choice. It’s not even close.
As an unreconstructed opponent of the stepwise and deceptive transformation of our English national homeland, without the consent of its indigenous population, into a largely Afro-Asian socialist republic, as now regrettably confirmed by writers ranging from Eric Kaufmann to Clare Ellis, I agree that it is hard to fault the actual policies and personal character of Mrs Badenoch. I am well aware of the bad apples in immigrant communities census-defined as black, more notably among Jamaicans and Somalis than others, and the general intellectual backwardness of Africa, but I have not forgotten that one of the most exceptionally gifted and pleasant students I have taught in 30 years was Sharon White, now Lady Chote. Kemi Badenoch deserves a prominent Cabinet post, at least, if we ever get a CONSERVATIVE government, after what Major, May, Cameron and Johnson bequeathed to what remains of our once great country.