The Murky world of Tory Party Politics

Everyone is expressing surprise at the outcome of the tory leadership election , with two apparently right wing candidates going through to the final round for the party electorate to decide which one of them should become party leader. The initial reaction was and probably still is that the parliamentary party has cocked a snook at the membership by voting down Cleverly. The Labour Party are joking as to whether they need to record the decision as a gift and the press seem to think that the tories have committed an act of gross political stupidity. 

There is an alternative analysis, one that I have not seen presented elsewhere, but goes like this. Cleverly actively encouraged his people to vote for one of the alternative candidates, as the reality is that unless the Labour Party commits a colossal error of gross incompetence or becomes mired in scandal after scandal, perhaps not so impossible too consider after their first 100 days, the tories will be in opposition for at least ten years, so whoever becomes leader now, is most likely to lose the next election and therefore would in all probability stand down as leader of the party. Cleverly who wants shot at the main prize, would not want to be that guy, so by dropping out now he places himself in a far better position than if he were to win now and become leader, only to lead the party to defeat at the next election. But then I heard that Grant Shapps was running his campaign and the cockup theory seemed more likely than the semi conspiracy theory that I have outlined above. 

The lake was deserted

It was a lovely autumnal morning, so after a brief foray into to the murky world that is tory party politics, Lilly the Collie and I spent an hour or so walking around the old nearby quarry.  The quarry Lake was deserted of birds, and apart from a flock of gulls in one of the fields, there was very little about. I used to go there almost every day and in the summer sometimes twice, in the main to keep an eye on the badgers and especially the injured one that we trapped and treated during lockdown. No easy task as the disused quarry was crowded with people, up to 500 on one day. But we succeeded and Morse, as I named him survived for another 2 years before falling victim to the cull in September 2023. In fact all the adult badgers that lived in two main setts up there were taken that year. Of course we only have circumstantial evidence but it all seemed too much of a coincidence. So now I go up sporadically which means that I miss out on the small flock of Whooper swans that use the lake as a stopping off point on their long migration to and from Iceland, I rarely see the kestrel that lives and raises a family every year in the quarry cliffs, and I only get a glimpse of the two or three pairs of lapwing that try so hard to raise a family every summer but lose out to often to the dogs that folk allow to run free or to the off road bikes that have discovered what was once a little patch of peace and harmony, and never so I never get to see how their story ends, like I used to. For me what was once a sanctuary, a place of happy memories and experiences has for the moment anyway become a place of sadness and of despair at the way we humans treat the natural world. I hope one day that it will be different, but as we seem to become more selfish and social media uncovers these special places it seems unlikely. 

SF 12th October 2024.