SO the voters finally got their Gavin Williamson moment, the chance to tell the Tories to “go away and shut up” – and the result could not have been clearer.
To everyone except Suella Braverman, it seems.
It baffles me that anyone could possibly look at the election and think the answer is more Tories shouting at each other in public.
But just like when she announced her 2022 leadership bid live on TV without so much as resigning from the Cabinet, the former Home Secretary was straight out of the traps on election night burying Rishi Sunak before the ex-PM had conceded the election.
In just a few short days she has attacked Sunak and her former Cabinet colleagues, declared fresh war on her former officials and sparked a massive row about the trans flag.
When rival Kemi Badenoch accused her of having a “very public nervous breakdown”, she got two barrels from Braverman too.
Even some of her closest friends are begging Suella to not just put a sock in it but abandon any delusions of running for Tory leader altogether.
Former backers suggest she will struggle to even get enough signatures to make the first round of voting, but she’s still holding the microphone for now.
Suella… branded him a lefty remainer who was too wet to tackle immigration. And they were meant to be pals!
Suella Braverman on Robert Jenrick
Many of her old team have moved wholesale over to Robert Jenrick, who is telling MPs he can offer the “policies of Farage with the presentation of David Cameron”.
That earned him a roasting from Suella, who branded him a lefty remainer who was too wet to tackle immigration. And they were meant to be pals!
Surviving senior Tories are pulling their hair out and wouldn’t mind if Suella stormed off to Reform and became Nigel Farage’s problem.
Teesside Mayor Lord Houchen warned publicly: “If the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.”
But Farage is canny enough to know she’s a liability so it might not be an open-arms welcome.
As Keir Starmer finally gets to play Sir Statesman at the White House, the remaining rump of Tories look dazed as they wander around Parliament this week.
The lesser-spotted breed of former ministers gathered on terraces and in corridors to spit tacks as the new Commons got into the swing of things.
In fact, the only Tory I saw smiling was Jeremy Hunt, who defied the bookies to hold his seat against the Lib Dem tide in the Home Counties.
The ex-Chancellor looked as surprised as everyone not to be leaving, like so many of his tear-stained colleagues, with cardboard boxes and snotty sleeves.
But no Conservatives were smiling at the sea of red MPs who greeted them on their first return to the Commons on Tuesday.
There were so many Lib Dems too that they spilled over on to the depleted Tory benches.
If the scale of their drubbing hadn’t yet sunk in, the message from the public could not have been starker in that moment.
Some get it, and have taken a Trappist vow of silence publicly, while admitting Farage came pretty close to sinking the whole damn boat.
While many are holding their peace now, bar Suella, there is no doubt there are going to be some painful moments this summer.
And there could be months more of this, with party chiefs weighing up going long for the leadership campaign to perhaps allow a dark horse candidate to emerge.
Gareth Davies, the former Treasury Minister who represents Maggie Thatcher’s seat of Grantham, is whispered as one such contender if there was a view to skipping a generation from the current crop of ex-Cabinet contenders.
Meanwhile, Labour are hitting the ground running, making all sorts of concerning noises about Brexit, and Farage appears to be the only one attacking the Government.
Despite the blue massacre, the Tories would be fools to spend all summer reminding the public quite how awful they are.
Yes they got thumped last week, but drilling down into the numbers suggests there is a way back in 2029 if they get their act together and do what clearly and obviously needs to be done.
New analysis by former Labour adviser Alex Hilton says the Tories would need just a two per cent swing to return to power if they can pull off a pact with Farage over the next five years.
Yet he says “without such an agreement, the same swing wins them just nine more seats, with Labour losing only ten”.
According to Hilton, if Reform and the Conservatives teamed up, Labour would need a further seven per cent swing to just about scrape a majority — beyond what it achieved on July 4.
Farage and his four million voters could be the difference between the Tory party spending a decade in the wilderness or even surviving ten years of Labour government.
He will likely be ahead of the Conservatives in the polls by the autumn if they carry on like this, and will come to the table with heft.
Perhaps if they really want to survive, the Tory leadership contenders might stop shouting . . . and start talking.
DITCHING his constituency neighbour Emily Thornberry from his first Cabinet as one of his initial actions as PM was pretty brutal from Sir Keir Starmer.
Being the top lawyer in a government run by a top lawyer was always going to be a big ask, so it’s not surprising Starmer brought in an external Attorney General.
But I hear things were even colder than has been reported, so far . . .
Not only was Thornberry fired from the role she shadowed in opposition – nor was there the customary offer of a more junior ministerial role below Cabinet level.
She was just shown the door.
Kremlinologists should look at one of the few gaffes made during Labour’s extremely disciplined campaign where the lines to take were stuck to religiously.
Starmer had to publicly slap down discussion that class sizes could swell in the state sector due to Labour’s planned tax raid on private school fees.
The offending frontbencher who started the row by “misspeaking” in an interview?
Yep, Emily Thornberry.
WERE you still up for Liz Truss?
The ex-PM losing her seat in her South West Norfolk constituency was one of the dozens of landmark moments in the Tory wipeout.
But there was more to why she appeared to be shunning her own count and getting on the stage at 5am.
Her entourage was actually stuck at a level crossing as a very long early-morning goods train hurtled through her Norfolk constituency.
Better late than never.
