by Raheem Kassam at Newsweek
Just 42 days ago I reported, here, that Liz Truss’s government would be laughable nonsense. Not a bad call, one might argue, given what has happened since then—especially within the past 24 hours.
To recap: Truss was Boris Johnson-lite, still managing to upset the vicious “men in grey suits” who, despite her being elected leader, maintain most of the power inside Britain’s Conservative Party. Between the “old guard”—the party donors, the 1922 Committee, and so forth—and a handful of other control mechanisms, there was never really a chance for Truss to get going. Arguably, that may have been a good thing.
But the past 24 hours is nothing compared to what the next week will bring Britain: the most undemocratic leadership stitch-up the nation has seen since the Caesaropapism of 1531.
Easier today, the Conservative Party board decided there would likely be just two candidates for the post of prime minister—still one of the most powerful jobs in the world. Once again, just as last time, the wider British public will have no say in the matter, though the dwindling number of dues-paying Conservative Party members will supposedly get a “say” of some sort.
This entire process—from picking the candidates to holding votes of members of Parliament to holding the membership approval—is supposed to unfold by next Friday. It will doubtless be riddled with more chicanery than the last, and give whoever takes the reins from Truss even less of a mandate than Truss had herself.
In the last competition,…
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