A waste of two quid

+Towards the end of the last Tory government a number of Tory women were compelled to release their inner (self-deprecating) accounts of life with their clueless husbands/party, accounts which necessarily had to include a certain degree of setting the record straight (i.e. bitching). Among these were Sarah Vine’s (Michael Gove’s ex) How Not To Be A Political Wife, Sasha Swire’s Diary Of An MP’s Wife and Andrea Leadsom’s Snakes and Ladders (whose leadsome prose prevented me from buying it even off the sale shelf). One must add to this list ‘Mad’ Nadine Dorries ‘Downfall’ published shortly after the Tories’ defeat in 2024. This, which I confess to obtaining from the remaindered pile relies almost entirely on anonymous sources so one wonders whether any reliance can be placed on it. It may be of use to a psychiatrist more than a political analyst. How disappointed I was as I skimmed its novelistic pages looking for amusement. Can you get your money back on remaindered books? So what’s my point now? Well, there’s one thing that reminds me, when people talk about the ‘radical centre’ what it actually means. Dorries writes of Kemi Badenoch’s desire to appoint Sue Gray as her permanent secretary. The book’s anonymous source says
 
‘Sue Gray has big fans. Lord Francis Maude, the big moderniser was at his happiest when we were in coalition, who was in a business relationship with Nick Boles, also Gove’s friend. When Gray joined Labour as Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff, he said she was a woman of great integrity. Boles is now working for Rachel Reeve’s office, obviously trying to work his way into the Lords and Maude said at a speech recently, he’s open to working with Labour.' (p.203)
 
I read today that there are still pols at the ‘centre’ looking for a role with Andy. They may have been Tories once but these days who cares?
 
+In his resignation speech Starmer had the effrontery to claim that the party he ‘inherited’ was morally and financially bankrupt. He lied multiple times to get the leadership—how moral is that? And the party after Corbyn had £13 million in the bank. Maybe if that had been spent a different result would have occurred in 2019. Why wasn’t it spent? Yet Starmer can't stop lying.
 
+Building society elections—and I generally vote in a few—are notable for the non-engagement of their members. My most recent opportunity to participate was billed as ‘Have your vote and make a difference.’ Translated this means ‘we know that 99% of you aren’t interested so just leave it all up to us.’ This year, members of one building society (I won’t mention the name for security reasons) have the opportunity to vote for a member nominated candidate. The board don’t like this at all! They’ve produced a wishy-washy explanation why this person is not qualified. They don’t say it, but the said person hasn’t worked at McKinsey or PwC and clearly isn’t a member of the corporate executive director pool of talent. I wish I knew how one gets into this pool, but that’s by-the-by. So in the spirit of a member based organisation I have voted for the outsider. Pity the poor sod if he wins.