Ep 43: The Tories in Lala Land with Nick Tyrone

The Lowdown from Nick Cohen

The political commentator and Tory observer Nick Tyrone @NicholasTyrone reports back directly to Nick Cohen from the Conservative Party Conference in a wet and windy Birmingham where four rather mediocre and charisma-lite candidates are vying to be - astonishingly - the 6th Tory leader in 8 years!

Nick found the Tories weirdly euphoric at suddenly finding themselves not in charge of sorting out the huge mess they have created and dangerously deluded about themselves and their policies. Neither the party leadership contenders strutting the light fantastic at Birmingham nor the dwindling and ageing party membership showed any contrition for the disasters they have visited on the country - mainly austerity, Brexit, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss - deciding instead to double down on their old batshit obsessions from leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights to their failed Rwanda scheme and busted immigration policies.

Seemingly buoyed up by Labour's current rocky poll ratings, the Tories seem eerily confident that their failed doctrines and continued lurch to the extreme right will somehow entice the electorate back into the fold by 2029. After all, it must be the voters who got in wrong on July 4th! However, the moderate so-called "one nation" Tory wing of the party are silent, apparently not yet prepared to hold the right wing Europhobes to account for the hole they all find themselves in.

Meanwhile, the far right is on the rise in the UK, as evidenced by the riots, and are hoping to draw in supporters disillusioned by the Tories and all too easily manipulated by the its lies and hate-filled narratives. The Farageist hard right even claims it can destroy what's left of the Tory party and replace it at the next election.

Nick Tyrone @NicholasTyrone writes for Substack as Neoliberal Centrist Dad - nick.tyrone.substack.com - a must read if you're desperate for the return of sanity to our national political discourse.

Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 regular Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond is another must-read.

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