Humza and Rishi are losing for the same reason

This will be the week from hell for Rishi Sunak and Humza Yousaf. Rishi’s begins with the defection of an MP so anonymous, even he had to google which constituency he represents. Dr Dan Poulton of Toryshire and Suburb has left the Tories for Labour, claiming the Tories are too Rightwing. Well, that’s what happens when you pack your backbenches with liberals. The moment their conscience is compromised, which usually coincides with a dip in the polls, they’re off.

But May 2 was always marked in Rishi’s calendar with “Arghhh!”, because it’s local elections day. The loss of hundreds of councillors is a given; three mayoral contests are the most interesting barometer of Tory decline. London is a goner. Susan Hall is my kind of conservative – basically Dirty Harry in drag – but the capital is so loony Left now, the only party that could beat Labour here is Hamas.

The Tories have more faith in Andy Street, who wisely pretends he isn’t a Tory, but loss of the West Midlands would be in keeping with a Labour swing. So it’s Tees Valley the Conservatives absolutely must hold: Red Wall country, the last stand of Brexit populism. If Labour wins there, allies of Penny Mordaunt – united by their admiration for strong women – apparently threaten to trigger a leadership race, which Rishi might see off with a July general election on Rwanda. This will guarantee Labour a whopping majority, and Dr Poulton a seat in the Lords.

It’s tempting to put this chaos down to the unique ridiculousness of the Conservative Party, except that something similar is happening to their ideological opposite at the other end of the country. Both Tories and the SNP are drowning in scandal; both are juggling factions to stave off defeat.

Doe-eyed Humza lost his parliamentary majority after the Greens swanned off and is negotiating hard with Alba, which has only one MSP, Ash Regan, who joined the party solely because she hates Humza Yousaf. A no-confidence vote is scheduled for mid-week. It’s a good bet he’ll lose.

The simultaneous collapse of unionist Tories and pinko nats suggests it’s difficult to govern across the spectrum – money is tight, voters are angry – and time is against all incumbents. The SNP long ago realised independence isn’t on the cards, so flipped to pursuing a Leftwing agenda, much of which has flopped. They have u-turned on schemes for recycling, family relocation, alcohol advertising, fishing, named persons.

It was slowing down on Net Zero that annoyed the Greens, as did the Scottish NHS pausing puberty blockers: developments that find parallel in Westminster, where Left and Right have decided a serial killer in a tutu isn’t a woman after all. Governments seem to have lost sight of their fundamental purpose, sidetracked by progressive causes they’ve latterly discovered we dinnae want or cannae afford. As one disgruntled nat put it on GBNews, “the SNP forgot about independence and the Greens forgot about the environment.”

And the Tories forgot about conservatism. Explaining his defection to Labour, medic Dan Poulter cites the waiting list crisis and recalls that the NHS had “radically improved” under Blair and Brown. So why did he join the Tories to begin with? In fact, the Conservatives have poured cash into a health service debilitated by a lockdown that was supported by Tories, SNP and Labour. Devolution was meant to be a “laboratory of democracy”, yet it’s striking how administrations elected on vastly different prospectuses have wound up doing many of the same things. They all love taxing, spending, meddling.

As pencils linger over Labour on Thursday, the worry that “I have no idea what they will do” is balanced by what they’ve said they won’t do – dropping their borrow-to-invest in net zero and joining the rats abandoning HMS Trans Rights. Poulter can read himself into the Starmer’s party because it stands for nothing except winning, and will probably govern much like the Conservatives because the Conservatives govern like socialists.

My guess is that this isn’t the lowest point for the UK, not by a long shot. We have to sink much deeper, more painfully before the elite acknowledges things aren’t working and try something genuinely new.

Anti-Semitism is rife

The protests continue in London; the anti-Semitism is palpable. I find myself in the unusual position of opposing both the war and the demonstrations against the war, having a low view of human nature. I think Netanyahu is disgraceful. I also know that the world is rife with anti-Semitism and will take any opportunity to express it.

I’ve been listening to the YouTube lectures of John Merriman, late of Yale, on the history of modern France. I had no idea how small the celebrated French resistance was. In reality, Vichyites were so keen on fascism that they extended it to parts of their empire where there were no Nazis to insist upon it.

According to Merriman, in faraway Vietnam there were all of 27 Jews, yet French officials were “desperate” to find them to send them to death camps or kill them themselves. “They collaborated. In the end, a lot of them got what they wanted.”