It's hard to care about the current Tory leadership contest. With Labour doing so much to despise, a normie might expect the Conservatives to provide "effective parliamentary opposition" and make political capital from the unpopularity of Starmer & Co. Rishi Sunak's chumminess with Sir Kier is there to show the reality of that expectation.
The warm lettuces currently positioning for the 2029 election are Badenoch, Cleverly, Jenrick, Patel, Stride and Tugendhat.
Tom Tugendhat sounded very Lib Dem and policy free: "James, Rob, Mel, Kemi and Priti are all good friends, good colleagues and good Conservatives... at the end of the day, we’re one united team."
The most heartening rhetoric has been from Robert Jenrick. He implied the party's woes resulted from its diversion from True Conservativism, and listed a set of Burkean ideas the party should adopt…
"7. We are a national party, serving the whole country
Disraeli called it One Nation; Boris, Levelling Up. Different words, but the same point: the Conservative Party is a national party or it is nothing. It’s a party of and for everyone in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, working to spread opportunity and tackle social injustice... Becoming a national party again means standing for forgotten Britain: the 30-somethings stuck in their childhood bedroom; the deprived towns Westminster neglects; the parents struggling with bills; the white working-class boys falling behind; the communities across the four nations whose patriotic unionism isn’t reciprocated. In short, we must become the trade union for the entire country."
…although you have to feel sorry for someone required to give Boris Johnson as a philosophical example. And “trade union for the entire country”… yeah.
Less convincing was Kemi Badenoch's stand against "Identity Politics" in the Daily Mail.
It is not surprising that she thinks her mixed-race kids have the option of not having to choose a side. This is a standard Davos luxury belief. Badenoch appears confident that the irresolvable conflicts of multiculturalism will not come for her comfortable enclave. She would be "hurt and outraged" should the obvious reality of the UK arrive at her door.
Like all other leadership contests, the context in which all this takes place is that, in politics, appearances IS reality. That is the currency with which votes are bought. There is no functional difference between a manifesto commitment based on sincere principle, and a transitory expedient lie that creates an advantageous impression. The grossest pork-barrel auction seems almost virtuous in comparison.
To anyone who cared to look, the Johnson and Sunak premierships made explicit quite how principle-free the Conservative Party is. Political parties in the UK are wholly-owned interest groups focused on control of the tax-trough; "Government" is whatever needs to be done to keep this going. The well-being of the country and the electorate are at best third or fourth level considerations.
As the Boomer generation exits the electorate, it's hard to see where the Tories are going to get their voters from in the next couple of decades. That said, political memory in the general population is short. Possibly someone will re-invent the Conservative brand when the current generation are forgotten.