Paul Starling writes for 'The New Statesman' and if I'm not mistaken, he seems to have 'a bit of a downer' on the tory government at the moment, judging by his comments today:
Paul Starling. July 18th, 2017.
BE PREPARED. The Tory ship is holed below the waterline. Its crew fighting like rats. The sharks circling. SO BE READY!
"The simmering divisions in the Tory Party will shortly break out into open warfare". That was my forecast on June 10th. It is now happening. Theresa May is a dead woman walking, Boris Johnson is the big beast stalking, while the poisonous-toad Gove is the one briefing and talking. ("Poisonous-toad"? Just look at his puffy-faced pics ... yuk).
Today, Theresa May will call a crisis Cabinet meeting of her motly, botchly, crew. Don't be fooled as they hold hands outside 10 Downing Street afterwards. There is no honour amongst these thieves. Their thin smiles will betray them. No amount of sticky plaster will repair the hole. The rudderless Tory ship is heading for the rocks, and is doomed. It is now a matter of WHEN, not IF.
A GUIDE TO THE ROGUES GALLERY ON THERESA MAY'S GLUTINOUS, MUTINOUS GALLEON.
Cap'n T. May - leader in name only.
Fighting a desperate final battle to try to save her destroyed reputation. She can't and she won't. She is battered and will be broken. It is just a matter of time. Just as Prince Harry let slip the truth that no-one wants to be king, so I forecast now that deep-down no-one in the Tory Cabinet wants to be Prime Minister. No one, especially not Theresa May. Watching her limping now from crisis to crisis, weighed down by the weight of knives in her back, I genuinely feel sorry for her. History will record how she wrecked the Tory ship of state.
The butcher, botcher, Boris - don't be fooled by his buffoonish boyishness. A smiling, smirking, assassin is far more dangerous than a soft-spoken second-in-command like ....
Phillip Hammond. Being Mr. Swag-bag can be a blessing, or in his case, a curse. The more he says 'no' to provide cash to save his colleagues reputations, the more they will turn on him. The more he shoots them all in the foot by saying things like "public sector workers are overpaid" (this weekend's clanger), the more they will hate him.
'Traffic-lights' Rudd - malfunctioning. Stuck on red, Amber is going nowhere. Mrs. Ruddy-Nasty makes Cap'n-May look like candyfloss on the bad-ship-lollipop.
Michael puff-cheeked-snake Gove. The architect of the mutiny on board. His poisonous briefings and licey leaks have made that hole in the rudderless ship much larger. He will not be forgiven. For, after all, the Tory Party is not only the "nasty party" (as T. May herself admitted) it is, without doubt, the most vicious, merciless, crew ever to board the ship-of-State. Trust me, I have seen them up close and personal as a political editor.
The mutinous, motley, crew - a rag-bag of treacherous toads just like that old-cove Gove. They have managed to achieve the amazing feat of being sharks ON-BOARD a ship, not circling it.
"THIS GOVERNMENT RISKS COLLAPSING INTO CHAOS".
If you think I'm overstating the sorry state of the Tory Party, think again. The seven words above were uttered by former Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont this weekend. He was around and witnessed the brutal sacking, shaming, dumping of Margaret Thatcher.
I repeat, there is no Party in politics more vicious or merciless than the Tory Party which is prepared, at any moment, to sacrifice anyone in order to 'Conserve' its own self-interest.
Theresa May is there under sufferance. She doesn't want to be there. The Tory Party doesn't want her. They are split into feuding factions, and are too exhausted to stomach another election.
IT IS GOING TO GET WORSE, FAR WORSE, HOW BREXIT WILL BREAK THIS GOVERNMENT.
The dangerous divisions in the Tory Party make last summer's internal battles in Labour look like a kindergarten cake fight. It was Europe which broke Thatcher. History is repeating itself. The die-hard hard-English-nationalist-blimps still hold immense power in the Tory Party. Phillip Hammond's mistake this weekend was to demand a soft-brexit. You could immediately hear the rustling of the 'national' flag being unfurled in the leafy shires, and lousy country houses of England. When these old toads say 'Brexit means brexit' what they actually mean is "brexit-means-the-hardest-bloody-brexit-possible" and to hell with the consequences. No-one is safe, no-one, as that holed ship drifts towards the rocks.
One of these old dodderers wrote an article this weekend warning that anything other than the hardest of hard Brexits 'will lead to another 100,00 immigrants flooding into Britain every year'. Nobody loves a good caning more than the red-cheeked tories!
BE PREPARED. BE READY.
Theresa May will be crucified on the cross of Brexit. Every power taken back from the EU will be a power the Welsh and Scottish 'governments' will want for themselves (not the English Parliament). The Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, the Scottish nationalists the SNP will vote with Labour to wreck every move, issue, and vote by the Tories.
IT WAS THE 'WINTER OF DISCONTENT' OF 1979 which ushered in the Thatcher years. It will be this 'AUTUMN OF DISCONTENT which will do for this Tory regime.
Months and months of battles over every cough, spit, and fart of Brexit will break this Government. Battle, after battle, after battle in a long war of attrition will so wear down and weary these bloody people that they will be crying out for respite. Theresa May no longer wants the job. The Tories no longer want her. It's just that no one else wants the job either. The jostling for position now amongst other Tory Ministers is not to become the next Prime Minister .... it is to position themselves to be the next-Prime-Minister-but-one!
Beaten, bruised, mauled, Mrs. May will limp away, to the Lords or the political wilderness, her reputation in tatters. The tories exhausted by attrition and split from top to bottom will be hoping, begging for the Labour Party to take over the reins of power and that Labour, too, will be broken by Brexit.
Make no mistake the buffoon, the swag-bag, the puff-adder, the ruddy traffic light, and all those other red-cheeked tories are happy to position themselves for the general election after the next one.
So the message now for Labour and all who want a Labour government is ..... nothing comes without a struggle. BE READY, BE PREPARED ..... TO CREATE AN AUTUMN OF DISCONTENT TO BRING DOWN THE TORIES.
I wonder if he's got a bet on with Wm Hill....how confident is he really? Perhaps he is party to some inside information...Mmmm!
Tom