The past is a foreign country
We're watching the same failure loop.
Prosper UK, the new vehicle launched by Ruth Davidson and Andy Street to take the Conservative Party back to the centre-ground of politics, whatever you take that phrase to mean, has not been treated kindly by elements of the press. Juliet Samuel, in this morning’s Times, is gratuitously but enjoyably rude:
“Watching their promotional videos is like eating a Smint: you can just about tell what it’s trying to get at but as soon as the strangely disagreeable morsel is swallowed, you wish you hadn’t bothered.“
But the prize for the most concise and telling comment on the whole enterprise goes to @JCS_H94 (or ‘Joe’), who summed up the published list of its initial supporters as “Former UK”.
Now the Conservative ecosystem in the wake of the 2024 election consists mostly of ex-whatevers, so it might seem unfair to hold this against them. But there is something undeniably nostalgic about Prosper UK; a collection of old names, selling old nostrums. Not least of which is that damn saw about competence, which remains utterly without meaning once you think about it for a few seconds.
Few of the revenants rallying behind Prosper UK’s grave-linen standard need much explaining. The process of becoming a reactionary is quite natural, and requires only that the world moves, at some point, faster than you can accommodate. Most of Prosper UK’s supporters were backers or beneficiaries of David Cameron’s ‘modernisation’ efforts; they were, almost definitionally, the future. Now they’re not.
Not only does the new future arc, from their perspective, along most unpleasant trajectories, but tracing those trajectories back through the period leading up to them invites a critical re-evaluation of the revenants’ period in power which they, who define themselves so much by their competence, would not welcome. With past and future under threat, the instinct to retreat into the eternal present is understandable, if not pardonable. Somewhere, in some sunny place, it is always 2005.
The two leaders deserve more consideration. Both Davidson and Street are indisputably accomplished Conservative politicians; more impressively still, both made their names in territories which are not Tory heartlands (back when this distinction meant something). The challenge posed by their leadership of this movement deserves an answer.
But that answer is, I suspect, that there is simply very limited read-across from devolved politics to national. Politicians, pollsters, and journalists are all wont to latch onto a popular provincial figure and hold them up as an antidote to the failures of Westminster. Yet as the Conservative Party is now extremely well-qualified to testify, the stuff of a successful mayor and of a successful prime minister are not quite the same thing.
Devolved politicians …
We're watching the same failure loop.
Prosper UK, the new vehicle launched by Ruth Davidson and Andy Street to take the Conservative Party back to the centre-ground of politics, whatever you take that phrase to mean, has not been treated kindly by elements of the press. Juliet Samuel, in this morning’s Times, is gratuitously but enjoyably rude:
“Watching their promotional videos is like eating a Smint: you can just about tell what it’s trying to get at but as soon as the strangely disagreeable morsel is swallowed, you wish you hadn’t bothered.“
But the prize for the most concise and telling comment on the whole enterprise goes to @JCS_H94 (or ‘Joe’), who summed up the published list of its initial supporters as “Former UK”.
Now the Conservative ecosystem in the wake of the 2024 election consists mostly of ex-whatevers, so it might seem unfair to hold this against them. But there is something undeniably nostalgic about Prosper UK; a collection of old names, selling old nostrums. Not least of which is that damn saw about competence, which remains utterly without meaning once you think about it for a few seconds.
Few of the revenants rallying behind Prosper UK’s grave-linen standard need much explaining. The process of becoming a reactionary is quite natural, and requires only that the world moves, at some point, faster than you can accommodate. Most of Prosper UK’s supporters were backers or beneficiaries of David Cameron’s ‘modernisation’ efforts; they were, almost definitionally, the future. Now they’re not.
Not only does the new future arc, from their perspective, along most unpleasant trajectories, but tracing those trajectories back through the period leading up to them invites a critical re-evaluation of the revenants’ period in power which they, who define themselves so much by their competence, would not welcome. With past and future under threat, the instinct to retreat into the eternal present is understandable, if not pardonable. Somewhere, in some sunny place, it is always 2005.
The two leaders deserve more consideration. Both Davidson and Street are indisputably accomplished Conservative politicians; more impressively still, both made their names in territories which are not Tory heartlands (back when this distinction meant something). The challenge posed by their leadership of this movement deserves an answer.
But that answer is, I suspect, that there is simply very limited read-across from devolved politics to national. Politicians, pollsters, and journalists are all wont to latch onto a popular provincial figure and hold them up as an antidote to the failures of Westminster. Yet as the Conservative Party is now extremely well-qualified to testify, the stuff of a successful mayor and of a successful prime minister are not quite the same thing.
Devolved politicians …
The past is a foreign country
We're watching the same failure loop.
Prosper UK, the new vehicle launched by Ruth Davidson and Andy Street to take the Conservative Party back to the centre-ground of politics, whatever you take that phrase to mean, has not been treated kindly by elements of the press. Juliet Samuel, in this morning’s Times, is gratuitously but enjoyably rude:
“Watching their promotional videos is like eating a Smint: you can just about tell what it’s trying to get at but as soon as the strangely disagreeable morsel is swallowed, you wish you hadn’t bothered.“
But the prize for the most concise and telling comment on the whole enterprise goes to @JCS_H94 (or ‘Joe’), who summed up the published list of its initial supporters as “Former UK”.
Now the Conservative ecosystem in the wake of the 2024 election consists mostly of ex-whatevers, so it might seem unfair to hold this against them. But there is something undeniably nostalgic about Prosper UK; a collection of old names, selling old nostrums. Not least of which is that damn saw about competence, which remains utterly without meaning once you think about it for a few seconds.
Few of the revenants rallying behind Prosper UK’s grave-linen standard need much explaining. The process of becoming a reactionary is quite natural, and requires only that the world moves, at some point, faster than you can accommodate. Most of Prosper UK’s supporters were backers or beneficiaries of David Cameron’s ‘modernisation’ efforts; they were, almost definitionally, the future. Now they’re not.
Not only does the new future arc, from their perspective, along most unpleasant trajectories, but tracing those trajectories back through the period leading up to them invites a critical re-evaluation of the revenants’ period in power which they, who define themselves so much by their competence, would not welcome. With past and future under threat, the instinct to retreat into the eternal present is understandable, if not pardonable. Somewhere, in some sunny place, it is always 2005.
The two leaders deserve more consideration. Both Davidson and Street are indisputably accomplished Conservative politicians; more impressively still, both made their names in territories which are not Tory heartlands (back when this distinction meant something). The challenge posed by their leadership of this movement deserves an answer.
But that answer is, I suspect, that there is simply very limited read-across from devolved politics to national. Politicians, pollsters, and journalists are all wont to latch onto a popular provincial figure and hold them up as an antidote to the failures of Westminster. Yet as the Conservative Party is now extremely well-qualified to testify, the stuff of a successful mayor and of a successful prime minister are not quite the same thing.
Devolved politicians …
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