During the 1983 general election I covered Mrs Thatcher’s campaign in the South West. We ended up on the Isle of Wight for a photo opportunity. The Prime Minister was standing on the bow of a hovercraft that was heading out to sea. The idea was that she was almost top, almost Britannia.
In this leadership campaign, Penny Mordaunt’s supporters are trying something similar, almost as if she herself won the Falklands conflict. (Featured in her campaign video.) Ms. Mordaunt comes from the Army and is a Navy Reservist. Her campaign line is: “It should become a little less about the leader and a lot more about the ship.” Her “backstory” may appeal to many party members who will vote in a runoff.
But since the leadership race should obviously be about the leader, it’s worth asking Mrs. Mordaunt more about how she would steer the ship. In some respects she is not exactly what the Tory electorate usually warms to.
In Greater: Britain After the Storm, a book she co-authored last year with Chris Lewis, an anti-Brexit writer who is now helping her campaign, Ms Mordaunt launches a surprisingly ferocious attack on various old British films and TV series. She complains that they promote the idea that “the past was so much better.” She places David Lean’s Great Expectations and Lawrence of Arabia as well as Michael Anderson’s The Dam Breakers in this category.
She particularly dislikes David Croft and Jimmy Perry because of the “nostalgic focus” of their “baked” comedies such as Dad’s Army and Hi-de-Hi! She describes It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum – their World War II comedy set in India and Burma – as “a complete bingo card of… casual racism, homophobia, white privilege, colonialism, transphobia, bullying, misogyny and sexual harassment”.
No doubt Croft and Perry wouldn’t stand a chance in the current era of serious disapproval, but most sensible Tory supporters are trying to resist the 21st century suggestion that being funny is a crime. Deafness to the past is exactly what they don’t like about the job.
Ms Mordaunt also spoke out on transgender issues. When she was a line minister, she pushed through parliament a ministerial maternity leave bill that only applied to “pregnant people”. The House of Lords noticed this and proposed in a maternity bill to recognize the existence of women. The government eventually passed a Lords amendment which deleted “pregnant people” and inserted “pregnant mothers”. Accepting this, however, Ms Mordaunt added gratuitously that “trans men are men and trans women are women”. Her remark left people perplexed. Does she think only biological women can get pregnant or not?
It was this question of what constitutes a woman that left Sir Keir Starmer almost speechless. Do the Tories want a leader who is in the same position?
The best candidate for the Tory leadership is not necessarily a Brexiteer
In asking difficult questions of the candidates, the two conservative electorates – one in parliament, one outside – should not treat the process as a catechism in which there is only one ‘right’ answer to each question. The purpose of the campaign is to find out what is really important to the candidates and whether they have leadership qualities.
This is relevant in relation to Brexit. While there is still much to be done to improve the post-Brexit situation, we Brexiteers would be making a mistake if we treated this as a war to be fought again. We won: the task is to make the most of the victory. It is not the case that the candidates who voted Remain – notably Tom Tugendhat, Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss – should automatically be excluded.
Indeed, it may even be that someone like Mr. Tugendhat, who is well versed in continental politics, could be more creative in guiding us through the coming battles than someone who thinks that it is still 23 June 2016 That’s the view of Anne-Marie Trevelyan, his main supporter in the Cabinet so far and a staunch supporter of Brexit from the start. The task, she says, is “to use all the tools that Brexit has given us”.
One of the points Mr. Tugendhat makes is that any attempt at rejoining would be a dead end. The EU would be wise to ask Britain: “Why should we trust you this time?”. This would impose even worse terms on membership than those he previously imposed and would put us at the end of a long queue.
It is much better to devote ourselves to the development of all other international forums that suit us better. The tragedy of the war in Ukraine proved to us an important fact that we tended to forget. NATO is the most important organization in the future of Europe and we are probably the most important European member.
An end to the College Green media circus
During the long Brexit debate, College Green in Westminster became a political booth and media circus. The deputies were brought in by the interviewers as they passed. This suited the TV companies, but it created a tedious, non-stop and noisy theater of the absurd that attracted ostentatiousness and bigots.
It was also a great annoyance to those living or working in the area because they were denied access to the normal path and thus forced to take to the road. Many, including this column, criticized the parliamentary bodies for allowing this. The show was eventually closed. Now, with the leadership elections, it all started again. Please, Lord – or rather, Speakers of both Houses and Black Rod – make it stop.
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