And that is not just because most of it was leaked in advance…

What an earth did commentators think Labour was going to do? It was obvious from the start of this government, hidden by all parties during the General Election, that better public services or even maintaining them as they are would involve higher taxes.

It was a brave (many might say high risk) budget. Nobody likes higher taxes, but the shortfall in public finances merited them.

Asset price inflation after years of quantitative easing has made many people better off than perhaps they expected. The last few years exacerbated by inflation have made it tough for those at the bottom of the ladder. Add in covid and the impact of the Ukraine war, and there was always going to be a reckoning.

The Tories should never have cut employees’ NI, and now employers have to make up the difference. It is quite simply a tax on jobs, and this is where this blog parts company with the government. All parties blather on about small businesses being the backbone of the economy, yet both parties have stuffed them in recent years. Labour shouldn’t have boxed themselves in and reversed the Tories’ cut. Both parties are as bad as each other.

However, one hopes the Chancellor sticks to her guns and keeps the budget intact from whinging pressure groups. The pain might as well be felt now.

The real reckoning is whether the government spends its revenues competently, whether economic growth accelerates accordingly, and whether there is room to cut taxes selectively in 4 years’ time against the backdrop of improving public services.

Umm… We had better hope Labour succeeds because there are few alternatives. The Tories will be weak opponents. In the most inconsequential election of the year, they will almost certainly vote Kemi Badenoch as Leader tomorrow and the odds of her surviving  through to the next election are only a little lower than Labour getting the economy right.

Fingers crossed, but Hobson’s choice indeed.

A reader kindly suggested I stop writing about the Tories. They will be irrelevant for years and there must surely be more interesting topics to explore said my friend.

Well, I sort of agree and disagree. They are the main opposition to Labour hegemony and in this sense are an important political force to assess. On the other hand, in leaving Jenrick versus Badenoch as the final two right-wing leadership candidates for members to choose from the Tories have diminished themselves, paving the way for an extended period in opposition.

Who really cares which one wins? They are both awful.

What were MPs thinking about in giving members this Hobson’s choice? No moderate or even centrist Conservative candidates remain, and the winner only has the support of a third of their parliamentary colleagues. Cleverly, the centrist front-runner on Tuesday who was eliminated yesterday by 4 votes, must be kicking himself for his complacency.

But who really cares which one wins the contest? They are both awful although, to be fair, Badenoch is the more authentic candidate. Jenrick has remade himself as the immigration warrior driven on by a ferociously ambitious partner. My only contact with Mrs. Jenrick was watching her patronise an LGBTQ+ audience at a Tory Conference fringe meeting by assuming all the audience needed to hear was Mr. Jenrick’s views on Eurovision. Oh dear indeed.

Then you have Badenoch, the cultural warrior, who clumsily tells it as it is. What a choice.

I hear some MPs talking openly that they will have about 18 months in office before they are ousted. Incredible.

And the real winners? Well, Labour and the LibDems of course, who are rubbing their hands with glee. Either Jenrick or Badenoch will mean not a single vote from the LibDems will peel off back to the Tories and more Tory voters may actually come their way. Labour will go for Jenrick on his dog whistle politics as he seeks to replicate Reform UK and Badenoch for her missteps in communication. The Tories are a gift that keeps giving.

This blog has predicted for some time that the Tories are likely to move to the Right before either blowing up or realising the error of their ways. Their only hope is that, hungry for power, they belatedly embrace the centre-right ground again. It will be a long wait.

Whatever the outcome I grant my friend his wish. This blog in striving for relevance is going to write far less frequently about the Tories now they have found their route to a right-wing cul-de-sac.

Returning from 24 hours at the Tory Annual Conference, I am adjusting to life back on earth. Party conferences are always slightly surreal due to die-hard activists gathering in one security cordoned space, but this one was particularly strange.

It was not too poorly attended, and most people had a spring in their step. The prevailing view was that the Labour government was blowing up and, with the right leader, the Tories would be back in charge within four years. Umm… Wiser heads know better including some Tory inclined journalists I spoke to. In denial that power is almost certainly 10 years’ away, they said reality would set in next year and the mood would be quite different. We shall see.

But back to the leadership issue. All four remaining candidates buzzed around the conference, flanked by groupies, excited they were the centre of so much attention. For three of them, it will be fleeting… They were given Q and A opportunities during the conference and then on the last day the chance to speak for 20 minutes. This part was expected to be make or break.

None of the above are likely to be the next Prime Minister…

It wasn’t really. Like much hyped presidential debates in the US, the speeches would have moved the dial only a little, at least at this stage. Remember the electorate is still 120 thoroughly unscrupulous MPs who would have largely made up their minds by now. The list is whittled down to two and only then does the membership have a say. The speeches were aimed at them.

All four performed well I thought although the content of speeches was mostly well delivered platitudes. But there were clear winners and losers relative to expectations. Robert Jenrick, the favourite, performed most poorly. A dark almost Trumpite speech with an obsession on immigration, it didn’t quite land. He wants the leadership almost too much and will be disappointed. Kemi Badenoch, once the favourite, performed solidly but no more than that relative to expectations. Badenoch’s problem was that she had had a bad conference in the run-up to her speech, getting embroiled in controversies such as levels of maternity pay which should have been avoided. The feeling amongst many is her ability to pick a fight with her own shadow may not be what you want in an opposition leader. Tom Tugendhat gave a good speech and is clearly a contender for a major role in a new shadow cabinet. His challenge is that he is a moderate. Need I say more…. The winner was the likeable James Cleverly who outperformed expectations to give a particularly well-received speech. He will be happy.

The conclusion? Cleverly may have done just enough to squeeze in to the last two and therefore perhaps his speech did matter. This will be at the expense of Tugendhat. So, it will be Cleverly versus Jenrick or Badenoch, probably the former. I could actually see Cleverly’s likeability getting him over the line.

But as a former Cabinet Minister said, none of the above will be the next Prime Minister and, as far as understanding that the bubble has yet to burst…

Why are they standing? Leadership of the Opposition is a thankless task particularly 10 years’ out… Hope is everything that the Tories’ fortunes may be restored faster, counting on a Labour blow-up, but the main reason is a belief that the country will accept the need for a viable Opposition at some stage in the future, whenever that is. One party governance in a democracy never works. Just check in with Labour (1997-2010) and the Tories (2010-2024).

Priti Patel: a well-deserved elimination from the Tory leadership race…

But the Tories’ current leadership candidates are a motley crew with one or two exceptions, probably not a surprise when the six candidates are drawn from a talent pool of just 121 MPs. In the first round of elections announced this afternoon, Priti Patel has been eliminated and good riddance. A very poor Home Secretary appointed by Johnson who put Party before office and danced with Nigel Farage on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference as he was destroying it. Need we say more…

Of the rest, Kemi Badenoch, the bookies’ favourite, has achieved little in her ministerial career except gaining a reputation as a cultural warrior and ruffling the feathers of her parliamentary colleagues. Robert Jenrick has dodgy property business links to his name and has turned right-wing on immigration after sulking he didn’t get into a Sunak cabinet. That looks like a positive favour granted to him now. James Cleverly is not known for being, well, clever, but is a decent person if very much a stop-gap leader. That leaves Mel Stride, decent, smart, but wrong image and little following. Not a hope in hell. The most interesting character is the never knowingly undersold moderate, Tom Tugendhat. He would be by far the best option except for blotting his copy book by potentially committing himself to leaving the ECHR. When will the Left learn that there should be no compromise with the Right of the Conservative Party if there is any decent path back to power?

The main problem is the Tory membership decides who of the last two candidates should be the leader. It is like giving the vote to pupils to select their headteacher. Inappropriate. The hugely diminished Tory membership is not remotely representative of Tory voters and, if many have not cleared off to Reform, would like to. Think of their judgement. Duncan Smith over Clarke, Johnson over Hunt, Truss over Sunak. Only Cameron over Davis was remotely a bright spot, perhaps not with the benefit of hindsight. Who knows.

Whoever wins the Tory leadership, announced in November (what a tedious slog!), will have little influence on politics generally. But they could have influence over the Tory Party by giving the final choice of leader back to MPs.

This US presidential race just gets crazier. A clearly declining, periodically confused president, a disastrous debate that sealed Biden’s fate, an attempted assassination of Trump, Biden stepping down, Kamala Harris stepping up, the new Democrat presidential candidate raising record donations in the history of a presidential race in the first 24 hours. Phew!

It is too early to say who will win the Harris versus Trump race but that is a huge improvement on last week when Trump looked the firm favourite versus Biden. The next few weeks will test whether Harris has a glass jaw, whether failed illegal immigration policies dog her, whether she is seen as too close to Biden and too left-wing, whether the American people are ready for a black woman to be their president. Harris has her frailties, but she has started confidently and charismatically, and the startling contrast of prosecutor versus felon must mean something. Her stance on abortion rights will also be a huge bonus, contrasting with the Catholic Biden’s relatively quiet stance on the subject.

Very early days but Kamala Harris has started well…

Some hand-wringing liberal commentators in the media criticise the fact there is not an open contest to prove Harris’s credentials. Nonsense. There isn’t the time. The Democrats need to find their backbone and ruthlessly drive Harris to victory now, not next week, not the week after, not at the convention etc. Do US voters really care about internal democracy in the Democratic Party? No. If Harris blows up, so be it. No other candidate could establish themselves in the time available and raise the necessary funds to win.

Trump is now the only old man in the race, and it already shows. He needed Biden and he hasn’t got him anymore. Bring it on.

But Trump could have been so much smarter since the attempted assassination and with Biden’s resignation. In his convention speech, he started well, in advance pledging to unite the nation. That’s when I thought it was really game over. But no, he couldn’t help himself. In a rambling address to his adoring audience, he went on the attack. Referencing war, weakness, chaos, referencing the killing fields of Washington, the invasion by criminal aliens, witch hunts, crazy Democrats, it was as divisive as it could get. Then there was the ‘drill, baby, drill’ comments and the boasts… wow there were so many, including ending all wars. The narcissism was breath-taking.

Compounding this tactical error when he could have risen above the fray was Trump’s response to Biden standing down. Just read this:

“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!… the Worst President, by far, in the History of our Nation.”

Not an ounce of grace. Preening, divisive, ungracious, quite frankly rude. Some might say barking. And it is that, former President Trump, that will hopefully do for you in the end.