In news you could be forgiven for missing, David Cameron has resigned as MP and George von Osborne has re-emerged from the family crypt. I was never a huge fan of the former, but I feel that may have been down to the fact his premiership was almost a job-share with the latter. A man I’d describe in my more charitable moments as a malignant cane toad.

Cameron throwing in the towel was pretty much a given, for a number of reasons. There’s certainly truth to the one he gave, which is that he didn’t feel he could be just another backbencher anymore. Usually that sort of claim is just transparent hand-wavy fantasy, but I imagine such a large step backwards genuinely would be hard for anyone to cope with. It’d also give the media an absolute field day. Any time he disagreed with the frontbench on anything it’d be blown out of all proportion.

This is, at least in part, because Remain vs. Leave aren’t just views on whether the UK should have stayed in the EU or not. They’ve developed into full-blown political positions, sub-ideological belief systems that have their own dogma. Any nicely simplified playing-out of this new polarity in national politics would be too much for the press to resist. They’d go into meltdown every time there was even a hint of disagreement.

More cynically, he also might be feeling a tad exposed if a local election were called. Witney – like me – is in Oxfordshire, which – like me – voted overwhelmingly to Remain. There could well be some bitterness towards the man who not only called the referendum when there was no need to do so, but then proceeded to bungle it in the most heroic of fashions.

That’s not to say I think Witney is suddenly going to stop voting Conservative, as that seems extremely unlikely. It’s a Tory safe seat by 43% of the vote. Not with 43% of the vote, but by a clear 43% margin. It is staying blue. However, if there were another Tory candidate running then Dave might find himself being punished by the electorate. Since punitive voting was arguably a large part of what led to Brexit in the first place, I can hardly blame him for wanting to avoid going through it again.

But there’s a less realpolitik reason that might be equally – or more – significant. If Cameron were to have to run against another Tory and then lose, it would play into a narrative that would be ideologically intolerable to him. Any likely challenger would probably be of the New Guard, as part of May and the more aggressive right of the party trying to consolidate their position. To lose under such circumstances would give all-too public a manifestation to the battle taking place within the Tory party; Cameron’s Fabian Tories vs. May’s Neo-Thatcherites. So Cameron has robbed those opposed to his side of the chance to win that important – if purely symbolic – battle.

Which brings us back to George. As the other half of what was effectively a binary Prime Ministership, he has remained in play. After a very quiet summer – the only public comment of note being ‘on message’ for Tory progressives – he is now getting into position to oppose the new cabinet. I suspect the plan had been to bed in and wait a while for some hot topic to pop up, then to pounce and try to rally support in order to swing the party back a bit further to the centre. What he may not have planned for was finding himself in a position to do so this soon.

With May taking a larger-than-expected jump rightwards and starting the year with the grammar schools announcement, he had little choice. This may be a considered ploy by the cabinet to try and identify, then deal with, any rebellion sooner rather than later. Or possibly to force its hand before it can get properly organised. Not so much because Osborne himself is seen as a major threat, but because knowing who is likely to work with him is of value. Ahead of the budget review – due in November – it could be that there’s some nervousness about contentious details being leaked by treasury staff sympathetic to their old boss.

If there’s one fight that May really doesn’t want to have to pick with the remains of the previous cabinet, it’ll be on the economy and with George Osborne. I thought he was a terrible chancellor, but because I disagreed with him rather than because I thought him incompetent. He is well-placed to tear apart the budget review, if details are leaked to him in advance and thus giving him time to compile an informed and detailed response. So while he’s probably not seen as a leadership threat – he has all the charisma of septic gout – he could still be very damaging if given the opportunity.

I say ‘probably not’ because there is one route I can think of that would lead to him getting the required support. If Corbyn cements his leadership hold over the Labour Party – which looks likely – then there is going to be an exodus amongst the Blairite vote. Centrist Tories might see making a bid for this base as too good an opportunity to miss. They could even pick up a few migratory MPs along the way, bolstering their cause inside Westminster, as well as out.

Not only would this support give them back effective control of the Commons, but it would potentially do so to such an extent as to re-trivialise the new right. This would be seen as a massive victory, especially at a time when the right-wing of the party is otherwise only going to grow, as UKIP single-issue supporters drift back to their spiritual home. A leadership contest could be forced, a General Election held while Labour are busy eating themselves, and Project Camborne is back in business.

So George Osborne is trying to do what David Miliband attempted with Gordon Brown. Only he’s trying to do it in a more logical place: The Conservative backbenches. Just as D-Mil tried to win back control for the Blairites after Brown tried to make Labour much too Labour-y for their liking, Osborne is doing the same with May’s new era.

As is always the case after any huge disruption to the status quo, things are going to oscillate around for a while trying to find a new normal. Expect to see a tug of war between those who want to see a continuation of the Cameron-Osborne agenda and those who want to return to 1980 Bastard Politics. I’d rather have neither, but given the state of the non-Tory opposition and the continual creep further rightwards of the new establishment, I’ll take the ‘Compassionate’ Conservatism any day.

The schools are finally back. After nearly two months without forced cognitive labour to tire them out, the kids are back at their desks. They’ve been on holidays, they’ve had and then wildly embellished a million adventures, and they’ve totally forgotten what it was they were doing before the break. I am now woken by my alarm at 06:30 instead of my child at 06:00. Work is once again where I use my brain, rather than where I try and preserve it for a hundred million questions when I get home. Why is my leg itchy? What’s a larynx? Why do we have toes? Can you explain nuclear physics to me in terms my 8-year old mind will understand?

And it’s on a similar note that parliament has returned to business. The pre-summer, end of season finale of Brexit left half the country in shock and all of it wondering how things will play out. The various starring roles made lots of announcements, then vanished off on their holidays. Presumably to Europe, while the exchange rate is still just about manageable and before they need to pay for visas.

But now they’re back and the story can continue. Only apparently the director walked out and nobody knows what order all the words go in. Like the kids, it seems parliament have totally forgotten their lines and have decided to ad lib. Many, it seems, have even lost track of what role they’re supposed to be playing.

For example, take David Davis, the man entrusted with heading up our negotiations to leave Europe. He has been a vigorous Leave campaigner and, prior to that, a bit of a loose cannon. His approach in the past has taken him so far as to leave parliament to try and shake things up. Not always a bad thing and, as I constantly hear at the office, a disruptive approach can often be the most beneficial in the long term. I do think, though, this time he may have gone a bit too far.

As his first major public move in making sure we have the strongest negotiating hand possible, he has said British businesses are fat and lazy. That, as an economy, we’ve become too dependent on Europe for an easy ride and can’t operate properly on our own. I’m not sure what message this was supposed to send, but what it says to me is:

• We were better off in the EU because it gave us lots of financial benefits that otherwise we’d have to work really hard for.
• We’ll bend over and accept whatever deal is offered because without Europe we’ll run our businesses into the ground and not be able to afford our golf memberships anymore.

Which I can only interpret as “I was wrong and this looks really hard, so I’m switching sides”.

But Davis has always been a bit of a loon, so taken in isolation that wouldn’t be entirely surprising. However, he’s not the only person who has apparently forgotten which team he’s playing for. Ken Clarke has gone on record saying the referendum isn’t legally binding and that parliament can vote to ignore it. But Clarke has also always been willing to stray from the party line, so maybe he’s another outlier?

Seemingly not. None other than our new Prime Minister – an equally avid Remain supporter – is also a turncoat. While going no further than parroting tautologies when asked to define Brexit, she is apparently determined to force it through. Setting an entirely new (not to mention legally questionable) precedent, she intends to trigger Article 50 without consulting parliament or allowing a vote on the matter. Aside from my personal stake as someone who desperately wishes the referendum had never happened in the first place, I’ve a few concerns about this.

Firstly, it will set a precedent and that is the foundation upon which our legal system is based. It enables the government to (legally) misinform the public over any old matter, hold a quick referendum on it and then enact the outcome. All whilst shirking any responsibility, because the buck has been passed to the electorate. Who they spend lots of money lying to. Money that they took from the electorate. We are literally paying them to misinform us and then ask us to do their job for them.

Secondly, we live in a parliamentary democracy. Either MPs have a job to do and responsibilities associated with that or they do not. If we’re moving to a direct democracy, we need to do so properly and make the structural changes necessary to make it work. This would include not wasting a fortune on parliamentarians who are no longer relevant to our political process in the way they once were.

This isn’t the only thing May seems to have forgotten her previous position on. Initially, she surprised many – myself included – with lots of progressive-sounding promises about fairness and unity. Pan-socioeconomic restructuring to reinvest the disenfranchised and introduce accountability to the bloated 1%. It warmed my tiny collectivised heart. Maybe things weren’t going to be so bad after all. Feel free to laugh at my naivety. I certainly have done.

As a way of opening parliament to the new year, she has announced a plan to bring back grammar schools. It’s a potato so hot that even Captain Starchy himself, David Cameron, saw fit to distance the Conservative party from it. It is one of the most divisive topics of recent political history, seen by many (including pretty much all the experts and the entire academic community) as regressive and classist. To counter this notion, the Prime Minister pointed out that most of government got where they are today – I think she means the gravy train – thanks to grammar school educations.

But Herculean flip-flopping is best enjoyed with friends. To add insult to injury, May has made Justine Greening Education Secretary. This was another of those “oh, this could be worse” moments I had as the shock of Brexit wore off. Greening was someone I had hoped would get the role. She seemed fairly good and relatively forward-looking. Now she has the dubious honour of being the first Secretary of State for Education with an entirely comprehensive school education and the first Secretary of State for Education in the 21^st century to try and re-implement selection-based grammar schools.

It isn’t just the Tories who’ve lost the plot, though. Corbyn gave an unusually popular performance in response to grammar schools, gaining praise even from some of his critics. The Parliamentary Labour Party – who mostly went to grammar schools – still hate him, but at least his grammar school education prepared him to tear apart the idea of more grammar schools. Which they hate nearly as much as they hate him for supporting people who, historically, have been the most disadvantaged by the existence of grammar schools. A group which happens to overlap quite heavily with the Labour vote.

This is, I think, a symptom of the fundamental problem with Labour: they have no idea who they are or what they stand for. At the moment, they don’t even seem sure who was arguing with who, over what, why or which side of the argument each of them were on six weeks ago. Owen Smith’s challenge for the leadership seems to be based on a platform of “I stand for exactly the same things as Jeremy only I also don’t”. The leadership contest results are due within the next week or so.

I think as a party they’ve realised it’s a lose-lose situation. If the PLP element win, they lose the people they’re supposed to represent and need to vote for them. If the people who vote for them win, the PLP will have to actually represent them. An absurdity that hasn’t been seriously considered since early 1997 and an affront to their privileged Fabian sensibilities.

So basically we’ve got 600+ people who were for either leaving the EU or staying in it. The former got what they want and now have buyer’s remorse. The latter have reached the point in the cycle of bereavement where they’re trying to make the best of the new world in which they find themselves. And everyone – inside and outside of Westminster – is still entirely in the dark as to what Brexit actually means. Other than, of course, Brexit.

It’s no wonder political pundits have such a hard time making accurate predictions. The entire process is insane.