Back from a break? Then it’s back to ‘business as usual but better’ please

The reluctance my 6 year old showed last night to accepting half term was over might I suspect be matched by MPs returning to Westminster.

Back into the lists to either defend controversial or knock holes in that defence. Said like that it would seem to be a simple mission for the Conservatives but unless any loyal to the party have been abroad and under a rock for ten months it is not proving simple at all.

“One of the things driving me mad, is we are saying things, and they are not only right, but often proof that predictions we made are coming true, policies we said would deliver results are doing, and people turn round and say ‘you didn’t do anything in Government and you aren’t saying anything no’w – and you think no, that’s just not true”

This popped up in a message from a Tory MP who admitted they were having to really rouse themselves to get back into the fight, and who watches the polls just like very colleague.

I suspect Churchill might have resorted to one of his infamous retorts when things seemed set against him, or he was suffering a bout of “The Black Dog” as he called it.

“K.B.O.”

I won’t alarm the faint hearted with the vulgar ‘B’….but basically ‘just stick at it’ was the gist. Frankly the Tories don’t have a choice but that doesn’t make it the wrong tactic. With Farage to the not-so-right of them, and Starmer to the Left into the fire need to stride the one hundred and twenty one.

The gaps are there to exploit and expose, and consistent punching of the bruise is actually what effective opposition is about. Right now there’s a lot of room for the combination punch – pointing out where things are going wrong, and any credit taken for things going right doesn’t belong to the Government, but the one they love to blame everything on.

This past weekend has seen more boats with illegal migrants cross the channel. A daily record broken again, and the numbers are rising, 30 per cent higher than under the Conservatives. John Healey, tied to blame the Tories for this reversal but had to admit they’ve lost control of the borders.

This is no surprise to the Conservatives: smash the gangs was never going to work on its own, and specifically without a deterrent in place. The new raft of measures being proposed will not stop the boats. Healy went on to suggest new ways of the French police working ‘in shallow water’ should help – well they will, but Labour didn’t sort that agreement.

The last set of proposals for stopping small boats from Reform were either unworkable, illegal, or not even explained.

A few smuggling gangs have been broken up since the election. All from investigations started before Labour came to power. Albania doesn’t want the asylum processing deal Starmer wanted and the Government are still scrabbling to secure the ‘returns deals’ they glibly claimed would be the answer to scrapping Rwanda.

On legal migration, as fully anticipated, Starmer tried to claim credit for it being ‘halved’ in 2024 when he’d opposed all of the Conservative measures that are really responsible for the reduction. Yes, the numbers are still too high, and the Tories need to repeat that they accept it was the Johnson government that were responsible for that peak, but they started to tackle the issue two years before Starmer set foot in number 10.

On spending, having decided they’ve settled the Tories’ hash already, Reform are tacking left with breath taking speed. If you really care about ballooning numbers take a look at the welfare bill. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap would help that edge even higher but apparently is part of Reform’s assault on Labour from the left.

Meanwhile having suddenly and vaguely reversed on the Winter Fuel debacle, Starmer and Reeves will now be lobbied by their backbenchers to nibble away at welfare cuts and edge closer to the Angela “I-honestly-didn’t-leak-it-at-all-but-hope-you’ve-all-seen-it” Rayner tax plans.

You may be disappointed with him, but Rishi Sunak literally said: “it’s in their DNA – you name it, they’ll tax it.”

Then as Priti Patel explains in her article today there’s the Chagos deal. Nobody can convince me that the arguments against doing the deal changed to ‘necessity’ since the election. They haven’t, this is a Labour Government choice.

It’s hard to argue giving billions to Mauritius and at the same time explaining you can’t afford things at home. Indeed in an insecure world and a need to boost defence spending this was a deal the bill for which Britain did not need. Ignore the tribal chatter, the Tories did not do the deal, and they weren’t going to.

Remember despite the Labour promise to raise defence spending, a bit, the significant rise won’t happen ‘in this Parliament’.

Farmers, businesses, the hospitality industry, care homes, indeed employers of all kinds are still unhappy about a Budget delivered months ago, but the reaction to which hasn’t diminished at all – and the pre-Budget winners who got a pay rise with no productivity requirements are looking for more, with strikes as a back-up – now THAT is an omnishambles Budget.

To claim all that is ‘fixing the foundations of the economy’ is just bizarre.

So the targets are there, and I haven’t created a comprehensive list – and they don’t stop being strong targets because other parties are hitting them.

KBO and strike harder.

However, as I think Kemi Badenoch’s team are now privately accepting, the party wants to see some clear pilot lights, at least, on the direction of travel as to how the Conservatives would tackle these difficult and complex problems. Full policy no, but pathways and directions? Yes please.

Time to ‘boldly go’ where no-one’s gone before?

Did anyone who kept their seat in 2024 expect any of this to be easy? Leader of the opposition (whatever the party) is a really hard job. Doing it off the back of a horrible defeat makes it doubly so, but that’s the job six people vied for and if I hear another MP or shadow cabinet member tell me they are a bit demoralised or ‘tired’ – my small bucket of sympathy will evaporate at speed.

It’s your job folks and you wanted it. There are still people who will work incredibly hard to see the Conservatives ‘renewed’ and contending but they a looking for the vigour and the hunger in the Parliamentary party.

The scenario for not picking up tomorrow fully reinvigorated for the battle ahead is quite clearly signposted. The polls are doing the pointing. Irrelevance is still haunting, but despite the gleeful cheers of those who have already switched and so are vested in saying the Tories already are, that fate is neither inevitable nor unavoidable.

However I told my son as we put him to bed, “it’s a school day tomorrow, back to business as usual”

Business as usual for Tory MPs and the party leadership? Yes, up to a point.

But members, volunteers, donors party staffers and would-be candidates have a message, and it’s one they tell us a lot:

‘Business as usual – but better.’