NEVER underestimate the stupidity of the Stupid Party.
Having been almost wiped out in the Fourth of July massacre, the Tories have been offered the chance of rising from the dead.
Yet here they are, squabbling, plotting and looking this miraculous gift horse in the mouth.
Labour has crashed in flames. Freebie-grabbing ministers are leaving old folk to freeze. Jails have been emptied on to our streets.
In just 100 days, Keir Starmer has become the most unpopular new Prime Minister in history.
It’s surely an open goal for an Opposition which has learned from 14 years of misrule.
The Tories just need to pull themselves together, pick a decent leader and start selling their wares as a viable party of government.
Not so fast. Forget about pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, this lot have forgotten what it means even to stand together and fight.
We are three months into a shambolic battle for the Tory crown, with true-blue party members having to choose between two candidates — Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.
Badenoch and her “Tell The Truth” manifesto is the grassroots darling.
Jenrick preaches to the Tory choir with his promise to abandon Europe’s absurd human rights laws.
Yet even as the battle moves into its final stage, headless-chicken MPs are threatening to abstain, spoil their ballot papers or refuse to support whoever is elected.
Some are sulking because pet Remainer Tom Tugendhat has been eliminated.
Others blame dirty tricks for turning James Cleverly from cock-of-the-walk into a feather duster.
Still others shy away from Badenoch and Jenrick’s forthright views on the issues which worry voters most — multiculturalism and immigration.
Worst of all, there is a well-founded assumption the next leader is simply a caretaker until Boris Johnson makes his glorious return as the Messiah.
BoJo dismisses the rumour as “less likely than being reincarnated as an olive”.
But the irrepressible ex-PM has admitted his restless ambition in an interview with Sun Political Editor Harry Cole.
The Tories just need to pull themselves together, pick a decent leader and start selling their wares as a viable party of government
Boris’s new book, Unleashed, is the Trump-style bugle call of a political giant brought down by pygmies.
And it could work.
Johnson is a beguiling force of nature who can charm suspicious and even hostile voters into giving him a hug.
No Tory could win twice as Mayor of Labour-leaning London without a magical capacity for turning dross into gold.
Only a Casanova of political seducers could win Brexit and leapfrog his rivals into Number 10.
And yet his three-year psychodrama inflicted more damage on the Tory brand than has any other Prime Minister — including Liz Truss, who would never have got the job but for BoJo’s meltdown.
His new book is a catalogue of excuses for failure and a charge sheet of treachery against anyone who stood in his way.
And if by some disastrous mis- hap he is given a second chance, it will be Groundhog Day all over again. It is thanks to Boris that the Tories now face their biggest obstacle in the shape of Nigel Farage’s fast-growing Reform Party.
Farage fell for BoJo’s bluff and ordered supporters to stand aside for a Tory landslide in 2019.
In exchange, Boris pledged to guard Britain’s borders and curb immigration, legal and illegal. As Prime Minister, he failed dismally on both counts.
Immigration is out of control, unstitching the very fabric of British society.
Farage has vowed never to do a deal with the Tories again. Time is already running out. Whoever wins the Tory crown must galvanise the party, spell out coherent policies — especially on immigration — and win back deserters in time for next May’s local elections.
Farage is already ahead in this race. If he wins big then he will raise his sights still higher.
He does not want a deal with the Tory Party. He wants to smash it, then lead it.
That would leave the door wide open for Labour to rule indefinitely — a bleak prospect for millions of voters who have now seen behind the curtain of Starmerite socialism.
First impressions count. It is hard to imagine this Government — with no cash to spend — reversing the tide of public disgust over its greedy and unprincipled opening months in power.
In theory, Labour should struggle to win re-election.
In theory, Labour should struggle to win re-election
But many thought the same when class warrior Sadiq Khan was running again for Mayor of London earlier this year.
Thanks to an almost insultingly inept Tory campaign, Khan won a record third chance to wreck our great capital city.
Just imagine what five years’ hard Labour in Westminster would do to Britain, let alone ten . . . or 15.
Unless the Tory Party seizes the Lazarus-like miracle on offer, rallies around its new leader and puts up a proper fight, Keir Starmer will win again in 2029.
That would be a betrayal of the British people — and the last nail in the coffin of the Stupid Party.
