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HARRY COLE
The whiff of decay coming off the tired Tory party after 14 years will cloud Rishi Sunak’s premiership
I am told Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned pals the party could be heading to an extinction level event
WILL the Tory party have any MPs left by the end of the year?
With the number of by-elections of late triggered by bad behaviour, it feels like a General Election is happening in slow motion, one seat at a time.
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With Labour looking set to take back Blackpool South on May 2, as they have with a slew of other seats so far, the results are more than matching the polls.
With the latest astonishing allegations levelled at Mark Menzies — last heard from in 2014 cavorting with a Brazilian rent boy and attempting to buy drugs — the Lancashire MP becomes the latest to lose the Conservative whip and face calls to stand down.
The mind boggles at why he allegedly needed to give the “bad people” he had fallen in with £6,500 from party funds.
But whoever thought it was a good idea to appoint him the PM’s personal trade envoy to Colombia was clearly an idiot, or having a laugh.
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The story seems less from the 1990s-era of Tory sleaze and more from the Little Britain send-up of disgraced MP Sir Norman Fry standing at the bottom of his country house drive with his family, attempting to explain away his latest far-fetched misdemeanour.
But that stench of wrongdoing is starting to engulf the Government in a similar fashion to the end of the Major era — and history would suggest it is only going to get worse.
Desperate to talk about anything other than Angela Rayner, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer was quick off the mark to ask why it took Conservative HQ “so long to act and whether they’ve reported this to the police, who it seems to me should be involved”.
Which is some astonishing brass neck given how the party handled the disturbing allegations of criminality made about their former Chief Whip Nick Brown two years ago.
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Legal reasons prevent me from sharing the details yet, but they are of the most serious nature and there would be genuine public outcry were they to ever see the light of day.
At no point did anyone in Labour HQ pick up the phone to the rozzers, so spare me the faux outrage.
By-election blow as Labour wins victories in two Tory strongholds and Keir Starmer hails ‘fantastic result’
Instead, Labour hid behind an opaque internal process that resulted in Brown announcing he would stand down at the next election and allowing the whole sorry saga to be brushed under the carpet . . . for now.
Out of its misery
But when did hypocrisy ever stop a politician? Some 18 MPs remain suspended, with eight from the Tories and seven from Labour.
The sleaze was always there, but we should welcome the fact it is now called out
Plenty on both sides have already been booted out or jumped before they were pushed.
Yet is this a particularly rotten bunch of MPs, more so than another generation?
You could be forgiven for thinking so when looking at the number of suspended or ejected since 2019 for pinching, ogling, taking pictures of their own honourable members, snorting coke, lying or far darker allegations.
But I’m not convinced. The bad behaviour was always there, but standards are so much higher now.
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Clearing out the dung from the Westminster stables is never going to be pretty, but thankfully MPs are not able to get away with the bullying and seediness that I am convinced they did for hundreds of years.
The sleaze was always there, but we should welcome the fact it is now called out.
However, none of this helps Rishi Sunak’s premiership, as the music has stopped on the Tories’ watch.
Having lost the benefit of the doubt, the trust of millions of voters and any semblance of balance from broadcasters and commentators, expect every Tory wrong’un to get their name up in lights.
The whiff of decay coming off the tired party, 14 years in, will cloud everything.
That is the way power works, when you are on the way down, they queue up to give you a shove to speed things up.
Which is why I hear there is a growing drumbeat inside 10 Downing Street to put this government out of its misery.
Be in no doubt that the majority view in Team Sunak remains to go long, see what happens, let the economy turn and the benefit of tax cuts be felt in voters’ pockets.
October, or even late November, remain the PM’s preferred options.
But those contemplating June or July are growing in number — and stature.
I am told Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has vocalised this school of thought, telling pals the party could be heading to an extinction level event if things continue to go this badly for much longer.
Be in no doubt that the majority view in Team Sunak remains to go long, see what happens, let the economy turn and the benefit of tax cuts be felt in voters’ pockets
Fewer comparisons are being made to the Conservatives’ tonking in 1997, where they were reduced to a rump of just 165 seats.
Instead, more and more ministers mutter about 1993, where the Canadian Conservatives lost power and were whittled down to just two MPs.
Asked by some Tory MPs this week whether there really is time to turn things around, Sunak’s deputy chief of staff Will Tanner replied: “Only time will tell.”
If that’s the best even Sunak’s closest advisers can muster, then perhaps Dowden is right.
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Suella and Truss, besties again
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PEACE in our time? On the dying day of Liz Truss’s doomed premiership she fired Home Secretary Suella Braverman for leaking.
That prompted one of the cattiest resignation letters in modern history, with leaky Sue all but calling for Truss to walk as well – which she did some 24 hours later.
Braverman publicly accused the short-lived PM of “hoping that things will magically come right”, not being a serious politician and “pretending we haven’t made mistakes”.
So imagine my surprise to see the pair all smiles and hugs at the launch party for Truss’s score-settling – and surprisingly best-selling – tome Ten Years To Save The West.
“We’ve always been besties really”, Braverman told me through a fixed grin.
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ANGELA Rayner has been hiding from pesky hacks asking lots of awkward questions as the old bill probe her housing saga.
But I hear she is going struggle to avoid the spotlight on Wednesday.
For reasons that will become clear, Starmer’s number two, will be box office – next week’s PMQs is due to be a battle of the deputies.
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As Boris Johnson found out to his detriment, misleading the House is a career-ending offence.
Ange’s statements on the whole bizarre affair have opened up more intrigue than answers so far, so she will need to pick her words next week very, very carefully…
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