Do As I Say, Peasants...

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'Acts of great public service' - your Great Leader Doris in this afternoon's select committee meeting, referring to to ennobled Tory donors with respect to moves to prevent cash for honours peerages being dished out in future. In almost the same breath, he'd justified it all by saying that the only alternative for the Tory Party's future functioning was a publicly-funded political system, as The Labour Party could trust to draw on substantial resources from the Trade Unions; sums not available to the Tories without those donors.

Surely this pointedly elucidates just how far out of date the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are. A party originally of the landed, privileged and aristocratic, who by dint of birthright owned most of the wealth of the nation in their hands, and whose party consisted almost entirely in those very classes, was originally wealthy in a way that kept them at the forefront of political power in these islands, finds themselves on the financial back foot without being able to maintain and entertain rich and powerful donors in exchange for favours.

The debate in Parliament today brought by the Opposition in response to the debacle over Owen Paterson, saw the Tory benches pretty much empty as the Opposition lead the speeches relating to what amounts to an attempted cover-up over the half-billion-quid's-worth of contracts awarded to Randox during the pandemic's early days. I don't know which way the vote will go - the debate is still in progress - but the arguments put forward by the Opposition are both compelling and heartfelt, and I suspect that a lot of the red wall newbies amongst the Tory ranks will be quietly in agreement with them.

At the moment, there is a Government amendment being debated that attempts to defuse the motion: BTW, the PM is not even in attendance, even though the amendment emanates from his orbit. I guess he is hoping that his reality-distortion-field [read This Week's New Clothes'] will carry the day yet again. I so hope that will not be the case and that the absolute shower that in reality is the Tory Party will be forced to fund their political activities out of their own pockets in future or risk the demise of this entirely irrelevant party forever. History beckons. 

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