Powderhounds and pot-heads... The absolute state of the Tory leadership contest

This weekend has seen a pathetic scramble among Conservative Party leadership contenders to 'fess up about their past drug use. Last month, Rory Stewart inadvertently kickstarted the Tory snort-off with a confession guaranteed to liven up the next Lonely Planet guide to Iran - he smoked opium at a wedding there 15 years ago, apparently out of politeness.

Then there was the obligatory statement of regret and of an awakening when he saw the damage the opium trade does to communities in that part of the world.

It would have been a mildly amusing footnote to a leadership campaign dripping with lies, false promises, Brexit unicorn fantasies, mindless bumper sticker soundbites and general self-serving omnibollocks, if it wasn't for the Daily Mail interviewing Michael Gove and leading with his confession about taking cocaine 20 years ago as a "young journalist", a mere spring chicken ingenue aged 31.

Then we had Jeremy Hunt trying to out-Stewart Stewart with his gap yah confession of gulping down cannabis lassi while backpacking in India, Andrea Leadsom sticking her head over the powdery, potty parapet with a tedious admission of smoking a joint while a student, and Sajid Javid boldly stating that he has only ever smoked cigarettes. A ridiculous claim of Boris Johnson's from a 2005 episode of Have I Got News For You reappeared this week in multiple news reports - he said he tried to take cocaine but sneezed. Jesus Christ, even when Johnson is not actively seeking attention, it is handed to him anyway.

Johnson's story is the snot-stained equivalent of Bill Clinton trying marijuana without inhaling. It's totally on brand for him. It's perfect for his completely contrived, lovable buffoon persona. Oh, what japes! BoJo is such a silly duffer, he gets stuck on a zipwire, his moobs jiggle hilariously when he goes for a jog, his hair is a fright and, golly, he got all sneezy when he tried to snort a line! It's yet another distraction from the many, many reasons why Johnson, a principle vacuum with the ethics of a wasp at a picnic, should not be an MP, let alone PM.

They all regret their drug use, of course. None of them would dare admit that it might have been fun. And nobody is going to compare the impact of illegal drugs to the impact of the legal, but frequently socially, mentally and physically destructive drug that is alcohol.

This sorry snowstorm wouldn't really matter too much except that none of them have used this line, so to speak, to announce that under their premiership, the country can look forward to a new, innovative approach to drug laws. Nobody is going to promise harm minimisation polices, broader decriminalisation, a public health approach rather than a punitive approach to drug use, or call for an end to prison terms for minor drug offences.

It's a cynical tightrope act for the candidates. They are trying to appeal to the wider community and to the Conservative Party members who will choose the next leader and therefore the next Prime Minister, despite the party membership being a group that in no way resembles modern Britain. Hurrah for democracy!

Once upon a time, these confessions of illegal drug use would spell the end of a political career but we are living in absurd times - Claire Fox has been elected an MEP for the Brexit Party despite appalling views on child pornography and jihadi videos that, even a decade ago, would have ended her political career before it started.

The drug confessions are a calculated risk - will enough Tory party members be unbothered when it comes time to make their selection, and will enough people who might vote Tory find the whole thing to be a massive wheeze rather than an exercise in self-interested hypocrisy with nothing constructive promised as an outcome? Overall, the whole brouhaha has been viewed as a bit of a laugh rather than evidence of how terrible the candidates are, of how little they would actually do about ensuring drug laws are sensible and evidence-based rather than populist kneejerk reactions to play to their crowd.

The reality is that it's much easier for these white, privileged people to admit to drug use than it is for poor people or people from ethnic minorities. These are the people who end up in jail for low level drug offences way more often than people like Gove, Stewart, Hunt, Johnson and Leadsom. Indeed, Gove was predictably mealy-mouthed this morning when Andrew Marr asked him if he should have gone to jail for taking cocaine, and about the obvious hypocrisy of being responsible for tightened drug laws despite his own experiences.

In the end, these pitiful confessions probably won't harm the chances of any of the candidates, but they are not the start of the Conservative Party developing drug policies that will do any good either.







Photography by Austin Kirk/Flickr

The form guide of the damned... Runners and riders for our next PM

Theresa May is a dead woman walking, although her cadaverous prime ministerial form has managed to stagger on for longer than many expected. But she will not be the PM to contest the next election, which will presumably be against Jeremy Corbyn, unless he is, I dunno, caught interfering with barnyard fowl in the speaker's chair or something. 

As such, the country is witnessing the unedifying spectacle of assorted Tory MPs on leadership campaign manouevres that are as subtle as Liberace's bathroom - Poundland Machiavellians, the whole sorry lot of them. How about on this Grand National weekend we take a stroll through the terrible contenders who might replace the terrible incumbent, shall we? None of them are likely to get shot if they break a leg but, rest assured, they are all more concerned with not breaking the Conservative Party than they are about not breaking the country.

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is the man who wasted money while Mayor of London on everything from a cable car that is used most days by approximately three people and a Basset hound called Trevor to secondhand water cannon that ended up being sold for scrap for £11,000 to a £1.4 million fiasco in which he thought gluing pollution to the road might help London meet, funnily enough, EU air quality standards. Boris Johnson is the man who is originally responsible for people whining about Europe because of supposed regulations about things like the shape of strawberries and the bendiness of bananas, after he got bored while play-acting at being an EU correspondent for the Telegraph and simply made shit up. Boris Johnson is the man who played no small role in ensuring Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe won't get out of an Iranian prison any time soon. Boris Johnson is the man who buggered off to Afghanistan at our expense to avoid facing an embarrassing vote on the expansion of Heathrow Airport. 

Boris Johnson is an irresponsible, verbally incontinent, principle-free, contrived, self-serving pedlar of clown car fuel. As such, he should not be anywhere near 10 Downing Street, yet William Hill has the odds of him being next PM at 9/2. 

Dominic Raab

In these absurd times, it is absolutely fine that this glorified nightclub bouncer with an amoeba's grasp of European geography should be considered a serious contender for the highest political office in the land. 

He said, out loud, in a public forum, where other people could hear him, that he "hadn't quite understood the full of extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing."

Despite this blinding flash of clarity about why it might be important to ensure trade remains seamless with our nearest neighbours, Raab insists on styling himself as Mr Hard Brexit. Sure, he, along with Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, were the trio of self-interested flakes who suddenly decided Theresa May's rancid Brexit deal was alright after all, but he still likes to come across as some kind of Brexit enforcer. This is despite resigning from the post of Brexit minister over work he'd done himself during his ill-starred tenure, claiming as recently as March 21 that a no-deal Brexit will be just dandy - and, scandalously, admitting that he had not properly read the Good Friday agreement. Never mind that reading the Good Friday agreement from cover to cover should be a bare minimum requirement for anyone who thinks they can sort this shitshow out. 

Here's a crib note, Dom - Strand 3 is the bit that you really need to read to understand why a hard Brexit with a hard Irish border could see a return to the violence that had been left behind 21 years ago. But rather like Johnson, Raab doesn't do details either. 

Sajid Javid

All hail The Saj! For that is how he refers to himself, apparently - and who doesn't want a bellend who refers to himself in the third person for PM, eh?

So far, as Home Secretary, he is proving remarkably bold. Stripping Shamima Begum of her citizenship was clearly a populist move - it won't do a damn thing to keep the UK safe but it plays well to his crowd. And it appears that his crowd are UKIP types who are desperate to appear progressive in a reductive "some of my best friends are Asian" kind of way. 

Today, he is happily riding out the remainer outcry about the words "European Union" being removed from British passports, even though we're still in the EU. He says it's simply more efficient to take these words off the front of passports now, even though that explanation makes precisely no sense.

Last week, he loyally joined forces with Theresa May to urge hospital staff and teachers to spot young people who might be at risk of being involved in knife crime. Unsurprisingly, there does not appear to be any evidence of extra funding for this plan - no mention of when already-overworked NHS and teaching staff will be trained to spot the signs, whatever they may be, or how such training will be funded, or who would conduct the training (probably G4S after the bang-up job they did with Olympic security...), or whether more staff would be employed in hospitals and schools to help with this new addition to everyone's job description, or what sort of protection might be on offer for hospital and school staff who report on such young people and find themselves on the receiving end of threats themselves. Nope. It's just another pie-in-the-sky idea with no real money attached to it, and it will be as effective as a fishnet condom.

But, like Johnson and Raab, The Saj is another one who does not feel the need to do details. Which brings us nicely to... 

Michael Gove

In the Govester's defence, he was quoted out of context when he said people were "tired of experts". He actually said: "I think people in this country have had enough of experts ... with organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best and consistently getting it wrong." 

To be fair, there is a grown-up conversation to be had around this idea but, just as we are no longer in an era where potential PMs need to be at all details-oriented, we are in the era of bumper sticker politics. It is cheap soundbites that win the day. While it was easy to be outraged at Michael Gove saying we've all had enough of experts, it was a soundbite that played well with the leave voters who are perceived by all these runners and riders to be the people they need to stay in power. 

And with Gove, we have another one who breezes through scandals with effortless ease. He has brushed off questions about whether he was aware of any illegalities in the Vote Leave campaign by simply saying he had no idea because he was too busy campaigning in the lead-up to the referendum. Still, he was only the co-convener of Vote Leave so it's not as if he was involved with any of the major campaign decisions. 

So, in this case, we have someone who probably does do details and may well have been aware of certain unsavoury goings-on, but in this case, it serves him well to bat off any hard questions from journalists by portraying himself as a hardy little Brexit foot soldier, out there on the campaign trail back in 2016, not really having any time to be aware of any irregularities. Details, like any fallout from a hard Brexit, are for the little people. Someone else can worry about those piffling trifles.

Andrea Leadsom

Oh good! At last! We have a woman in the running to be the next PM! Oh shit. It's Andrea Leadsom. This is the woman who made people defend Theresa May after Leadsom made appalling comments about May's childlessness last time she aspired to the top job. It was a nasty, unnecessary cheap shot, particularly as (a) there are plenty of good reasons to criticise Theresa May no matter what side of the political fence you sit on and (b) nobody ever starts wondering out loud about whether a man's fatherhood status is relevant to his ability to do pretty much any job.

Thanks to crap from the likes of Leadsom, women really can't win - we're either being told that we're bad employees because we'll all sod off to have babies and then want silly things like maternity leave and affordable childcare or we're told that if we don't breed, we've somehow failed as women. With this in mind, not to mention her hateful voting record, it's quite clear that a Leadsom government would not be a feminist statement. Still, that's probably not her demographic either so why would she care?

It is pretty clear that a Leadsom government, just like the government of any of these contenders, would look to things like further NHS privatisation and a one-sided trade deal with the US, particularly in the event of a hard Brexit, which she favours with almost religious fervour. 

Jeremy Hunt

It is not exactly a state secret that any of these contenders are more concerned with their own careers and with the survival of the Conservative Party than doing what is best for Britain. But of these craven cynics, it is Hunt's mask that fell the hardest. 

He appeared on Marr last month and said that it would be "devastating" for the Conservative Party if Brexit wasn't delivered. He doubled down on this astounding rhetoric by saying his party was in "perilous waters" and that the Conservative Party would be blamed if the UK didn't leave the EU. To which anyone who gives a damn about the national interest should say "So bloody what?". 

Of course, it is naive to suggest that either major party is absolutely devoted to serving the people of this country and that nobody is obsessed by getting into power - it is what they all want - but for it to be said so brazenly was a new low, even for Jeremy Hunt. He was Britain's longest-serving Health Secretary and, on his watch, A&E waiting times went up, funding in real terms went down and junior doctors went on strike. I'm not sure what one expected when a failed marmalade mogul was given this job rather than, say, an expert. 

Like Johnson, Hunt has flip-flopped on Brexit, campaigning for remain and now trying to out-UKIP UKIP in his quest to fly the flag for a hard Brexit while simultaneously staying loyal to Theresa May's Brexit deal. Like Johnson, he is not a conviction politician. He is a snake in the grass but he is not bright enough to be truly sly. Like Johnson and Raab, it is a mystery why he is considered a serious contender for Prime Minister or why his message, whatever the hell it is, would resonate with anyone.

Matthew Hancock

Who? Oh yes, that's right, the talking potato who is the Health Secretary... Nope, again no idea why he thought he had anywhere near enough runs on the board to make a serious bid for the Tory party leadership. Next! 

Ian Duncan-Smith

Oh Christ, not him again... He already had a go at leading the Tories between 2001 and 2003 and look how well that went. To paraphrase former Australian PM Paul Keating, when asked about the resurrection of the political career of one of his rivals, Andrew Peacock, is IDS another souffle who could rise twice? Next!

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Et sanguinem infernum, as Rees-Mogg himself might say... He is another one, like Johnson, who puts on a ridiculous persona to ensure he gets a leave pass no matter how awful he might be. Last week, he was lumbering about, moping like a gothic Eeyore, as reporters asked him if he was going to try and convince other MPs to support Theresa May's deal, after he finally voted for it as "the least worst option". He looked like a man who had no real zeal for pushing for a hard Brexit. In any case, he is so wealthy that it doesn't matter how things pan out - it's not as if his six kids will go without shoes any time soon. 

I predict that, assuming the next Tory party leader is a Brexiter, Rees-Mogg will get a nice cabinet post. For all the talk of him being the next PM, William Hill only has him as a 50/1 chance. But, hey, if you think a man who has let his religious beliefs interfere with his parliamentary votes on abortion and same-sex marriage should be in charge, knock yourself out! I'm jetlagged, I need pasta and I'm overwhelmed by the state of it all. Don't even get me started on some of the absolute melts on the other side of the house...

Image by Karen Arnold

An open letter to left-leaning Brexiters

Dear left-leaning Brexiters,

I understand why right-leaning Brexiters voted to leave the EU in May, even if I fundamentally disagree with them. But this letter is not for them. This letter is for the left-of-centre people - in many cases, the hardcore, far-left-let's-destroy-capitalism people - who voted to leave the EU.

What the everloving fuck were you hoping to achieve? What the everloving fuck did you think would happen if the majority actually did vote to leave the EU? Did you really think leaving the EU would amount to some sort of socialist victory? Why could you not see that it was a choice between two forms of capitalism? Are you really so dim as to believe that leaving the EU was going to herald some sort of workers' revolution?

"But this means we're free from TTIP!", I hear you whine.

TTIP has been killed, largely by France. France has been against TTIP from the get-go and in August, President Hollande stalled negotiations again. Couple this with growing opposition in Germany and Angela Merkel desperate to retain power, and there you have it - the two big hitters of the EU in no position to proceed.

But it isn't just French obstruction or a strong German protest movement that is halting TTIP. Labour and Green MEPs were doing excellent behind-the-scenes work to negotiate terms, going through TTIP with a fine toothed comb. Unfortunately, "behind-the-scenes" are the operative words here - nobody bothered to find out about what our MEPs were doing for us. And soon we will have no MEPs, no power of veto in Brussels, and we will be wide open to a US-UK trade deal, regardless of who wins the US election. If anyone thinks that will be a win for Britain, they're deluded.

"But I wanted to kick Cameron out!", I hear you moan.

Yeah, about that. How is that working out for you, dear lefties? When Cameron quit, the glee was palpable on the left, even though at the time, it seemed to herald an inevitable Boris Johnson move to 10 Downing Street. When that fell through, and Andrea Leadsom revealed herself to be awful and inept all at once, Theresa May became prime minister by default. And she is embracing hard Brexit and pandering to the hard right Brexiters like a long lost lover. So much for the safe pair of hands. It is more like a stampeding pair of jackboots at the moment.

And if you are Lexiter who claims to care about the NHS or scientific research or access to the latest medicines, please hang your head in shame. You are part of the problem, contributing to a vote that will probably end freedom of movement and further compound NHS staffing woes, could cost us our European Health Insurance Card for medical treatment in the EU, the risk of lost research funding as part of the EU, and missing out on being part of clinical trials as part of the harmonised approach to medicines regulation. And you have pretty well lost the right to berate Jeremy Hunt about his ridiculous plan to grow more British doctors, despite making the medical profession less attractive than it has ever been to bright students.

Feel free to wave placards about hospital closures and cuts if you like, it's allegedly a free country, but do know that your vote to leave the EU will make whatever we have left of our health system even more precarious. You are just as absurd as anyone who voted to leave the EU because they genuinely believed Boris' bus of bullshit with the stupid "£350 million for the NHS" claim.

Sorry, Lexiters, but you have dropped a bollock. You have helped the hard right usher in a new era of awful policy and there are plenty of aspects of the Theresa May-led hard Brexit that are appealing to a wide number of people. On top of this, we're left with a hapless opposition with which the hard left is enamoured, even though peak Corbyn has been reached with a stacked and skewed inflated membership. Sorry, but this does not actually reflect what the wider electorate is thinking or wants for Britain. Theresa May is currently on a mission to out-UKIP UKIP and it is working. She is being very careful to find just the right level of UKIP-ness for the electorate to tolerate to keep the Tories in power for a very long time.

For those who voted Brexit because they wanted a hard Brexit with no access to the common market and no freedom of movement, congratulations on getting what you signed up for on 23 June. For everyone else who voted out with a completely different idea of what Brexit might look like, you've made your bed and now we all must lie in it. And for those who voted Brexit because they genuinely thought it would result in some sort of socialist revolution, you are genuinely dangerous and stupid.

If I have offended anyone, I really don't care.

Yours sincerely,

Georgia Lewis, militant remain voter







Photography by threefishsleeping/Flickr

The Rant Mistress takes a stroll along Theresa May's new cabinet

It's like taking a walk along a buffet at a cheap, all-inclusive resort. Some things look like they might be OK but you won't be sure until you take a bite. Some things are instantly repulsive. And some things seem downright weird. I refer of course to the buffet of astonishment that is Theresa May's post-referendum cabinet. Let's take a look at a few of the big appointments, shall we? Forks at the ready.

Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary: Theresa May is trolling Boris. She knows he doesn't want this job as he will have to look Europe squarely in the eye after spending the last few months talking absolute nonsense about the EU and convincing way more people than he ever expected to vote to leave. Did you see him as he walked out of 10 Downing Street after being told he got the job? He looked like a man who'd bitten into a cream bun only to find a lump of coal inside.

Boris is going to have to be diplomatic and not answer questions with a "What ho! How about a nice game of wiff-waff?" or a collection of swallow-the-dictionary words that don't necessarily have to make sense or be relevant. So far, he has managed not to soil himself on camera in response to the Nice terror attack and the Turkish coup attempt but only time will tell if he has the self-control to do this job for any extended period of time without being sacked or forced to resign in disgrace.

He will be forced to look squarely in the eye at the mess his shabby, simple-minded Brexit campaigning has caused.

As Foreign Secretary, he will not be able to be a naughty schoolboy troublemaker plotting away on the backbench. Of course, he may well do something to cause Britain to die of embarrassment but clearly this is a risk May thought worth taking.

Phillip Hammond, Chancellor: He has a reputation as a "safe pair of hands" and a grown-up. He didn't disgrace himself as Foreign Secretary. His appointment is no surprise. He was pro-remain and he has indicated that now is the time to scale back austerity and he is keen to work closely with Mark Carney, the excellent pro-remain Bank of England governor. This will all help him cement his reputation as a sane and sensible choice for the job. Like George Osborne before him, there is a cloud over his tax affairs. This will not be enough to cost him his job. Plus ça change.

Whether he will find enough money to make up for the many shortfalls that will happen as a result of lost EU funding, a flatlining pound and a shrunken economy where the appetite for investment has faded with post-referendum uncertainty remains to be seen.

Amber Rudd, Home Secretary: She comes across well on television, she was another pro-remain MP and she seems happy enough to have been handed the poisoned chalice that is the Home Secretary job. No matter what you do on the thorny issue of immigration in this job, regardless of where your seat is in the House of Commons, you will either piss off the left or the right and sometimes both at the same time.

Her record as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change was mixed. She was strong on moving towards shutting down coal-fired power stations but she misled Parliament on meeting renewable energy targets. She was correct in moving towards policy that does not rely on state subsidies - this is how the US is doing better than most people realise in terms of using renewable energy - but anyone in this role is going to have to deal with simpletons who are offended by wind turbines.

Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary: Everyone was convinced that this car crash of a man was going to lose his job in the reshuffle. Hell, I think even Hunt thought he'd get the punt because he wasn't humiliating himself by wearing his ubiquitous NHS badge when he walked into Number 10. But, lo and behold, after every NHS campaigner in the country was temporarily excited by rumours that he was going to be sacked spread like wildfire, the failed marmalade mogul emerged still in the same bloody job.

It would have been a golden opportunity for Theresa May to appoint a fresh face to the job, especially as this could have been a clean slate for the ongoing fiasco that is the junior doctors contract negotiations, not to mention the bursary cuts for nursing students. But Hunt remains in place like an incompetent barnacle. There are rumours that others were offered the job but didn't want it. Health, like the Home Secretary job, has become a poisoned chalice for the Tories. Nobody wants to deal with junior doctors, angry nursing students or have the balls to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 so the NHS stops wasting billions administering a corrupt marketised system or tackle the escalating costs of PFI head-on. Health has officially been consigned to the too-hard basket for this government and that is not good news for anyone.

Justine Greening, Education Secretary: Surely, she can't be any worse than Nicky Morgan, can she? While junior doctors will still have to deal with Jeremy Hunt, furious, demoralised teachers may have a chance to develop a healthier working relationship with the government.

Greening was pretty good in the challenging role of International Development Secretary, and she didn't set the world on fire with her brilliance or disgrace herself either when she was interviewed by Andrew Marr this morning. This is a case of wait-and-see.

David Davis, Secretary for Exiting the EU: Like giving Boris the Foreign Secretary gig, this is another of May's attempts to make a Brexiter clean up the mess they made. Today, Davis has already demonstrated he is too stupid for the job. He told Sky News that there may have to be a cut-off point if there is a "surge" in new arrivals from the EU before Article 50 is triggered. Except that until Article 50 is triggered, we are still in the EU and freedom of movement still applies. As a bonus, plenty of Brexiters support freedom of movement as a condition of our new relationship with the EU. So either way, there could be no difference at all in numbers of EU citizens moving to the UK.

Theresa May was criticised by Andrea Leadsom before she bowed out of the Conservative Party leadership contest after proving she was too stupid to be the Prime Minister for using EU citizens as a "bargaining chip" in negotiations. But here's the thing, Andrea. Freedom of movement will have to be a point of discussion in negotiations. To call it a "bargaining chip" is just a pathetic attempt to use semantics to try and appear clever. It failed. And speaking of failure...

Andrea Leadsom, Environment Secretary: And yet another surprisingly Machiavellian attempt by May to embarrass a Brexiter... In this role, Andrea Leadsom, who has already proved to have the intellectual rigour of a jellyfish, will have to face the wrath of Britain's farmers. It is going to be a hoot to watch her try and explain how it'll be OK without around £2.4 billion to £3 billion from the EU each year or what will happen if land prices crash, farmers go out of business and can't sell their properties. But don't worry, I'm sure she'll be great in this job because she is a mother.

Liam Fox, International Trade Secretary: Behold! The most useless man in British politics right now. We can't really do much in terms of trade deals while we're in this post-referendum limbo. And if Theresa May releases the hounds of Article 50, he will then have two years to try and stitch together trade deals with at least 35 countries currently in agreements with the EU. He does know how long trade deals take, right? If not, he is soon going to find out the sheer enormity of this task. Another Brexiter put in their place by May.

Priti Patel, International Development Secretary: Good Lord. The woman is an idiot and a nasty one at that. She is now in charge of a department she wants to abolish, she would support a return to capital punishment and she is on the record as saying that foreign aid should support British business interests.

While it is naive to think that foreign aid is not used to help smooth the wheels of commerce when developing countries start to prosper, it is also important to remember the scandals that this mentality has created. The Pergau Dam scandal, which had its roots in 1988 under Margaret Thatcher meant thousands of pounds of British aid was spent on a white elephant dam project in Malaysia in exchange for a major arms deal. In 1994, the aid project was deemed unlawful by the high court. If Priti Patel oversees a similar scandal, I would not be at all surprised. This is a terrible appointment.

It could be that May wants the Brexiters to see what an economically illiterate experiment they have created by giving them prominent, EU-facing jobs. It may take further economic strife for leading Brexiters to see what a ridiculous idea voting to leave was and this would pave the way for them to be the ones forced to come out and tell the British public that they're now all about remaining in the EU. This would then pave the way for May to use parliamentary sovereignty to not pull the Article 50 lever. Hey presto, we are still in the EU and, ironically, it would be a fine use of parliamentary sovereignty, that very thing Brexiters have been banging on about for months, even those who probably never used the word "sovereignty" before the Daily Mail told them to. This would be a big gamble on the part of May and she would have to be prepared to sit back as job losses happen on her watch, but they will happen in areas that voted heavily to leave. Some dark economic times may be the shock required to stop those who voted leave from deluding themselves.

But despite a few surprises, it is pretty much business as usual for the government. . Theresa May has had a purge with the likes of Michael Gove sent scuttling to the back benches while doing a good impersonation of magnanimity by giving Brexiters jobs, even though they're jobs designed to maximise their workload and their humiliation. We will probably see more schools forced to become academies, the NHS funding crisis will go unsolved and all this against a backdrop of post-referendum uncertainty.

We still have a Conservative government in place and this seems likely until at least 2020, even if an early election is called. If only we had something resembling a credible opposition, eh?







Image by rebloggy.com

Please quit telling me what a feminist victory looks like

Women of Britain! The middle-aged men have spoken! They have descended into my notifications and those of other women on Twitter to tell us that the Theresa May-Andrea Leadsom Conservative Party leadership challenge is a feminist victory. Phew. We can all relax. Thank you, men of Twitter!

Sure, the Tories have managed to ensure that our next Prime Minister will be a woman without setting quotas, lists or targets - although the male competition was not so much an embarrassment of riches as an embarrassment of embarrassments. Behold! Stepping up to the plate and then falling down a deep, ridiculous hole of his own creation was walking disaster area, Michael Gove. He and his wife, Sarah Vine, failed in their attempt to be the Macbeths. Instead, they were more like the Magrubers. And then there was Stephen Crabb, best known for believing you can pray away the gay until a WhatsApp sexting scandal broke alongside the already-notorious front page story in The Times on Andrea Leadsom's ongoing fetishisation of her own ability to make babies.

And once again, the men come out and tell us what to think about the Mum-knows-best brouhaha. Oh, and Louise Mensch who is naturally supporting a fellow incompetent by hitching herself to the Leadsom bandwagon.

"Being a mother gives me an edge on May - Leadsom" was the headline across the front of The Times. Leadsom was furious. She demanded the transcript of the interview be released. And then she demanded the audio was released. The Times duly released everything. It turned out that the article quoted her accurately. At best, she could complain that the headline maybe over-egged the pudding just a little but that is the job of the newspaper sub-editor, to encapsulate the essence of the story in a line that will draw in readers.

After the event, Leadsom is pouting that her passive-aggressively unpleasant words about Theresa May's childlessness should not have been the focus of the story. Bad luck, Andrea. You're the one who constantly mentions the fact that you're a mother as if it's an indisputable qualification for high office. Indeed, if anyone was playing drinking games during the last referendum debate, knocking back a shot every time Leadsom mentioned her own motherhood would be a one-way ticket to a thunderous hangover.

If you put yourself out there as a public figure and you make your personal choices public, you should expect scrutiny. It has also emerged that Andrea Leadsom had a nanny while she was raising her kids. I had the temerity to tweet that this means her call for small businesses to be exempt from paying women maternity pay was an example of "privileged ignorance".

Within minutes a couple of men decided to pounce on me. Hi guys! Nice of you to say hello! Charles Crawford, a right-wing former diplomat, passively retweeted me and one of his acolytes decided to respond by saying according to my logic, we may as well sack all the nannies and render them unemployed. That logic is on par with saying that if we let barbers cut our hair, the next thing we know, they'll be whipping out axes and beheading us.

Plenty of women use nannies and plenty of women make sacrifices to afford nannies so they can effectively combine work and motherhood. In the case of Andrea Leadsom, she was able to continue whatever the hell she was doing in her career in the City and as a politician, aided by her ability to afford a nanny. Good for her. Nobody should begrudge her that. She can raise her kids however she likes. But for the women struggling to earn a living working in small companies, the added burden of not being entitled to maternity pay renders them less economically active, can drive them into poverty and lead to them returning to work before they're ready just to be able to pay the bills. Did Andrea Leadsom ever give these women a second thought?

As for Theresa May, she is the least worst option, although that is damning with faint praise. She has only a slightly better track record on LGBT rights as an MP, although she was very smart to mention that she voted in support of marriage equality in her speech announcing her candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership. This instantly separates her from Leadsom's God-obsessed objection to gay people getting married. She also cannily hinted at dialling back on her urge to restrict human rights legislation. As Home Secretary, a poisoned chalice portfolio regardless of what party is in power, her work in the deportation of Abu Qatada was exemplary - she was able to demonstrate that that due process applies to everyone, even hatemongers, which is important if you are at all concerned about human rights.

And she is certainly smarter and more dignified than Andrea Leadsom. It was absurd that she felt the need to tell the Daily Mail in an interview that she and her husband could not have children and this was a source of sadness for them. Male politicians are never asked these sort of questions, but May handled it well and moved on. She has not turned this weekend's outcry over The Times' story into a woman-versus-woman slanging match even though it would be like shooting fish in a barrel to use it for political capital.

But as long as female politicians are asked about the contents of their uterus, and as long as female politicians themselves decide to make "I'm a mother, doncha know?" a central pillar of their campaigns, any victory for women in politics and public life feels decidedly Pyrrhic.

From a very basic "you cannot be what you cannot see" standpoint, it is good for girls and young women to see that being a woman is no barrier to being the Prime Minister but is that really enough?

In any case, no matter whether the next PM is Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom, we will still have an austerity-loving Conservative government in place and these policies tend to disproportionately affect women. But please, middle-aged men of the British right, do keep telling us what a huge feminist win this is. We need your penis-powered guidance and wisdom. It's much easier than talking about anyone's policies.