Since the Tories formed their own majority administration in 2015, they have given the country the worst period of fumbling, bumbling, government in modern times and perhaps ever in its democratic history. There is now something approaching national despair at the spectacle of every public service malfunctioning at some level, humiliations on the international stage, Brexit chaos and a future so uncertain as to become a no go area for anyone wishing to remain sane.
The Tory party knows this. Now on their third Prime Minister in four years, they have turned to Boris the Clown. But they have chosen a Ringmaster and a pretty brutal one at that. They wake up to a cabinet bloodbath of unprecedented severity, with more slaughter in the junior ranks. Suddenly the nation has a united government, ambitious, determined and energised. It matters not whether you like its polices or not, the fact that it is a pro-active government is the key.
A multitude of questions remain including the key questions already rehearsed in previous posts. But the change of style and tone is from one extreme to the other. The opposition parties are caught off guard and in need of immediate re-tooling to respond. Especially Labour. It must end its internal quarrels and sharpen up its act. Labour has the best policies for national renewal, but Boris and his team will steal the popular ones and adopt them as their own.
Corbyn can still win, but not unless the entire Labour movement wakes up from its self indulgent conversation with itself, in which there are several self destructive rows, and shows, as it did in 2017, that in the end it is the ordinary people and their problems who decide who governs Britain. Boris is determined they will chose him and he cunning enough to make it happen.
Labour now has the fight of its life on its hands. Since Corbyn it has pulled back nearly five million working class votes lost by the Blair government’s acceptance of Thatcherism, as a done deal. Corbyn and his team have moved far to the left and, as is always the case with a strong migration from the centre ground, the centre itself is dragged along. Thus the centre has moved to the left. Which is exactly where Boris wants to be. Not all his party do, for sure. But for the moment Boris has it firmly in his grip and it will have to roll over and do his bidding or roll away to electoral oblivion.
The potential for a political earthquake is higher than at any time since 1945.