It’s probably no longer interesting – let alone contentious – to say that western secular democracy is undergoing a bit of a crisis. There are pressures, both internal and external, which are trying to force a fundamental change.

There’s several examples of such pressure; the resurgence of post-Communist authoritarian countries like China and Russia, the rise of the far right, radical Islam. The characteristic that these all share is they don’t play by ‘our’ rules. They don’t respect the conventions and niceties which define secularism. This makes us, the reasoning goes, ill-equipped to defend ourselves against them.

According to many, the correct response to this is to not tolerate these things. On the surface of it, this is an argument I agree with. I’ve argued before that if you properly analyse the concept of a tolerant society, it can only be understood as one where intolerance isn’t tolerated.

That sounds contradictory, but it isn’t. It’s like saying that existence is everything that exists, except all the things that don’t. Our language makes it foggy, that is all. Possibly an example of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. It isn’t clearly coherent or true until you step back and look at it as a meta-condition of the system.

But that’s as far as my agreement goes. The many who say we shouldn’t tolerate, for example, radical Islam, actually mean we should wage war on it. Their justification for this is that if we don’t, it will destroy our society. It’s a flaw inherent to the lint-brained version of secularism that race-traitors like me adhere to. So we should be quasi-secular, only tolerating ideas that we like enough to be tolerant of. When being tolerant is easy.

This also sounds somewhat plausible. Until you really think about it. Because when you do, it becomes clear it’s just victim-blaming on a cultural scale. The problem isn’t that ‘my’ idea of secularism – which is, obviously, proper secularism – can’t protect itself against these threats. No. It’s that these threats are what you end up looking like if you aren’t properly secular yourself. The problem is with them, not me.

So are we doomed to give up on the idea completely, being forced into some compromise? Maybe. But not necessarily. I think we’ve already proved the system to be far more resilient than the critics give it credit for.

The reality is, our society is nowhere near as sanitised as we believe it to be. Secularism hasn’t been a success because it eradicated racism or sexism, but because it adapted to them. It undermined the force of their arguments. When they spoiled for a fight, it didn’t give them one. At least not in the sense touted under the guise of ‘ethno-culturalism’ or Making America Great Again. It didn’t wipe them out, it suppressed their ability to compete on a memetic level. They have been cornered, re-shaped into detrimental traits, and are now fighting to survive.

Yet these other ideas were there from the outset. Not only that, but they were the dominant norm. They dictated the environment within which the pattern of concepts we call ‘secularist’ evolved and against which it had to compete. Now those other ideas are on the decline, while ‘ours’ have delivered the greatest technological, ethical, and cultural successes in the history of our species.

That doesn’t mean further adaptions to the way we implement secularism aren’t needed or won’t happen. They most certainly are and will. But the terms in which we couch them should be carefully considered and limits on them clearly drawn. This includes recognising the threats – internal and external – for what they are. First and foremost is the realisation that authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism are displaying a problem that lays within them, not within us.

We have to be alert to these threats. Radical Islam must be addressed. Russia represents a tangible threat to the western way of life. But the greatest threat to those other ways of thinking is secularism. The thing we seek to defend is also the best weapon in our arsenal for doing just that.

Which is exactly why those things attacking it are trying to make us retreat from it. It’s the antithesis of blind faith and absolute control. It’s actually the most dangerous idea there is, because it is capable of out-competing all the others. It can adapt to them in ways they cannot adapt to it. They seek to change it because they know that, if they do not, it will change them.

And while we’re on the topic of the opposition, the situation is no rosier with them. I’m hesitant to say it’s actively worse, but only because I find that hard to imagine. However…

Ken Livingstone. Some people love him. Other people don’t love him. His time as mayor of London was mostly carried by blatant “London First” pandering and maintaining a Galloway-lite “quirky outsider” chic. And like Gormless George, he has a penchant for befriending dictators and regularly engaging in Antisemantism.*

So here’s a lesson in politics: act like someone’s weird but charismatic uncle and no-one will raise questions about you being mates with Hugo Chavez.

But without the sheen of populist support, Livingstone doesn’t fare so well. He’s certainly less odious than Galloway, but then so is everyone. That doesn’t excuse his schmoozing with dictators. The offhand racism and infantile word games that follow are fuelled by the same underlying need: narcissistic supply. He wants to be a champion of the left. The left wants a champion. So whatever offensive nonsense parped out of his face, a blind eye was turned.

But that’s just Ken. Nothing I say will change the mind of his fan-base, nor harden the resolve of his critics. The point is, he’s now quite clearly a political liability, stuck in a different era, unable to connect what he says to the world around him. Sound familiar? So the sensible thing would be to jettison him into the credibility-vacuum of space.

Yet this is a man that the Labour Party refuses to expel. He’s a holy relic, one of the few to have been genuinely popular and held significant elected office. They’ll censure him for his stupid attention-seeking soundbites, but they won’t get rid of him. It’d be like the Vatican getting rid of the Turin Shroud. Anyone with more than half a brain knows it’s an obvious fraud, but the church can’t let it go. It’s the best substitute they have for real evidence. It helps sustain the pretence their beliefs haven’t been trodden into the ground by the march of history.

So if willy-waving the Royal Navy at Spaniards tells you all you need to know about the Tories, Ken’s stay of execution should do the same for Labour. Corbyn harks back to when the left had something definite to rally behind. Something easy to articulate. Livingstone is a reminder that votes are there to be won if it can then be so articulated.

I can only assume that the natural progression of this is He Who Must Not Be Named shall be brought back in from the cold. This would be tantamount to the Labour party not only digging its own grave, but then dancing on it. What they really need to do is strip themselves of this nostalgic baggage.

Unless they stop living victories past, stop fighting battles long won – or lost – and start dealing with how the world is now, they will become increasingly irrelevant. Allowing that to happen will cement the shift of the political centre. That’s currently somewhere in the middle-right of the Tory frontbench and drifting further rightward.

So time to grow a spine, disown the likes of Red Ken, and redefine left-wing politics in a way that’s both morally coherent and relevant to the modern world. Over to you, Tom Watson.

*noun. – being openly antisemitic but then playing silly semantic games when people call you out for being a horrible bigot

I’m apparently now one of those screaming lefties who just can’t be happy for the owners of the Brexit bus. The rowdy victory chants and excitable voices of the elderly/credulous/racist have been building to a crescendo for a few months now. With the cliff in sight and the Prime Minister’s foot pressing pedal firmly to the metal, the extremist ideologues can no longer contain themselves.

So the hooting loons are now sounding off, gloating about how we can walk away without paying a penny, patriotic fingers up to Brussels. In a classic bit of incremental up-selling, we’ve gone from being ‘sensible’ (i.e. not maximally stupid) and preserving the best bits to burning the whole house down with our stuff still in it. Because it’s our house.

We were always assured this had nothing to do with race, just migration. Now they’re admitting we can’t do anything about migration, but there’s been an increase in xenophobic attacks on foreigners. Which to my mind sounds a lot more like “this has nothing to do with migration, we’re just racist”. And it was never going to be at any cost, although lately hardliners have been pushing for WTO defaults as a matter of principle. Which is literally the worst possible outcome and, incidentally, nowhere near as simple as it’s made to sound by its promoters.

But if you want one example to really underline exactly what kind of attitudes are informing the government’s Brexit strategy, look no further than Michael Howard. Always one of the hootiest of loons anyway, the frenzy around our nationalistic self-destruction has been too much for him to bear.

Perhaps life is lived at a higher intensity on his home planet, wherever that may be. Maybe years of onanistic Thatcher-worship have left him with self-inflicted tertiary syphilis, his brain a rotten, disintegrating mess. Who knows? It is not for me to speculate. But whatever the reason, he decided it time to threaten we declare war on Spain if we don’t get everything our way with Gibraltar. They might have voted 96% to stay in the EU, but Mr Howard is damned if we’re not taking them over the cliff with us.

Expect more of this over the course of the year. I’m ever-so-slightly optimistic with what will happen longer term than that. Broadly speaking; we’ll humiliate ourselves on the global stage and then humbly accept a less insane deal than the one UKIP & Co. are howling for. But in the short term, expect the honking to get louder and dumber, as the lunatic fringe whips itself into some sort of orgy of imperialist, flag-based gloating.

Because the reality is, only those mad enough to drive us off the cliff in the first place have any sort of plan for this outcome. Everyone else considered it an option too stupid to choose, so didn’t bother. This means we’ve got two camps guiding this: the mad and the clueless.

Still, at least there’s always the opposition, eh?

It has happened again. As years in politics go, this one is going to take some beating. We now have a man who represents everything I despise leading the most powerful nation on Earth. He was put there by… it’d be all too easy to say morons. And having seen some of his rallies and the kind of people who attended them, that’s in part true. Many of them are so stupid it makes me wince.

But that’s not the whole picture, nor is it a fair one. ‘My’ side has our own idiots, they’re just of a different type. The people who think we should accept Islamic extremism as just another set of views. The ones who’ll compare NATO to ISIS with a straight face. People like Jessica Valenti, who recently wrote an article for The Guardian expressing her surprise that some men aren’t sexual predators. The more-liberal-than-thous, the one-issue movements that have more in common with the crusades than they do with suffrage.

Those views aren’t ‘progressive’, although you can bet your arm the people holding them call themselves ‘progressives’. They’re idiotic. Just as much so as those held by the honking rubes who were Trump’s loudest advocates. Valenti’s faux-feminist antagonism is no different from the squit-so-hard-it-hurts incoherence of Ann Coulter. Both undermine equality and tolerance, harming their own purported movements, just from very different positions.

So while we can’t and shouldn’t ignore these groups, we can for the moment discount them. They’ve always been there. They’ll likely always be there. But they don’t win elections on their own. So how the hell do I explain – to myself, let alone anyone else – how we’re where we are now?

The demographics of ‘The West’ are very far from what I believed them to be. People like me are clearly in the minority. The liberal secularists, the moderate progressives. My innate perspective bias toward thinking myself typical of the norm was just that; a biased perspective. It is well-intended, motivated by fairness and compassion, but perhaps fundamentally lacking in some way. Of course, I believe it is better thought out, more moral and nuanced than that of the angry tide we’re seeing now. And I think I’m justified in believing that – but then I would, wouldn’t I?

What I’m coming to realise is I’m just another kind of Fabian; I sympathise, but I don’t understand the depth of the anger because, quite simply, I don’t ever bear the brunt of the burden. My view of anti-establishment reform is more that of an academic. My disgust at exploitation and inequality is moral, aesthetic. It is not that of someone who directly suffers those injustices. My anger is more indignance than outrage. It is from a position of relative safety and privilege.

I can afford to see taxes taken from my pay cheque and think it fair enough, because I am still left with enough to live. Not just survive, to scrape by, but to pursue interests and hobbies. How resentful would I be if that were not the case? How angry would I be if I worked all hours doing something I hated, just to earn barely enough to continue doing so? And how would I act if, in such a situation, I realised I had nothing much to lose in tearing everything down in the hope of ending that cycle?

But it’s more complicated than simply different values and opportunities. Many of the people with whom I differ most strongly share my values. I doubt most people vote with a mind of racism or hate to motivate them. I imagine they, just like me, also want to see more fairness, less exploitation, an equality of hope. It isn’t that they wouldn’t do things ‘nicely’ if that was an option. It’s that it isn’t an option for them at all. They don’t have the luxury of patience that is born of moderate comfort.

So yes, we can disregard the opinions of bigots and lunatics, but we must still account for the rest. What I suspect will turn out to be the ‘shy Trump voter’, the people who voted for Brexit because they’re just sick to death of how things are going. They may only have got over the finishing line with the support of the racists and homophobes and morons, which is sad. But then perhaps ‘my’ side of things only ever get over that line with the same sort of assistance, just from our own variety of deplorable.

In all this, what we must not forget is that as it is for the details, so it is for the bigger picture. Western society has rebelled against the injustices of its elites, its 1%. With this fervour on the loose, why should we think the rest of the world will not follow suit? Because, in the eyes of much of the world, we are the privileged elite. Russia cannot be happy with feeling side-lined after the fall of the Soviet Union. China cannot enjoy being lectured on social ethics by people who did the same things to get themselves into the position to lecture in the first place. Africa and South America still bear the wounds of exploitation, both by traditional colonial imperialism and the more modern globalist kind.

So what does all this mean? In some ways, this may offer the best hope for my anti-establishment beliefs seeing some sort of realisation. Do I accept where we are and get behind the general sentiment? Should I hope that, whatever seismic shift and hardships along the way, we will see a restructuring of the world for the better? I don’t know.

And I don’t know because it’s not just about accepting where we are. It’s about how we got here. That’s a more complex question, because it’s about action and reaction. Has there been a spate of populist nationalism, rich with fear and anger and resentment? Yes. But that was grown in the fertile dirt of an unfair system that disenfranchised huge parts of our society. And, if we’re honest, being nice about it got us nowhere. The whole Occupy movement made a peaceful stand and, other than a few headlines, was ignored. It achieved nothing.

Given this, is it a surprise that many of those who’d usually have been there to oppose Brexit, to vote down Trump, decided they were powerless or that doing things nicely wasn’t working? No. Because that’s an entirely rational response to trying those things and achieving nothing. So it would be equally rational to expect others, on the big-picture scale, to take similar steps if they see the chance.

Perhaps we should take some solace in the fact that the vanguard of social change was civilised, morally-minded people. As a society, our first reaction was to seek to open peaceful dialogue and reasoned debate. But that won no battles and now the cavalry have arrived. They’re not as nice. They’re not peaceful. They aren’t interested in doing things the civilised, morally-minded way. They just want much-needed change.

So just as much as we can take that solace, we must also accept with regret that it carried a kind of respect that wasn’t reciprocated by the elites. It has apparently taken a much more primal approach to shake the foundations. But this is trying to address the wrong things. Instead of enforcing a more accountable socio-economic system, it fears the outsider and shuts us in on ourselves. We may win our change, but it risks being a change away from one kind of injustice to another.

It may be that I am one day left with guilty gratitude towards what is happening now. Maybe it will make things more fair, less top-down and divided. But what cost will we pay for reaching a point where this was what it took? Because the truth is, whatever ends we reach, I cannot in my heart accept the means we seem to be using to get there. Nor the fact that was what it took to do so.

I am left thinking of two famous comments. The first is Gandhi’s beautiful moral call to “be the change you wish to see in the world”. It is a wonderful, concise, easily understandable expression of the Golden Rule, to treat others how we wish to be treated ourselves. The second is a variation on this, from Sartre’s brilliant lecture Existentialism is a Humanism, given in the wake of World War 2:

When we say that man chooses himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men.

The way we choose to act – not just the ends towards which that action is oriented – is a kind of vote. In fact, it is the most important vote of all, the most absolute realisation of democracy we can ever engage in. And right now, I fear we are choosing very poorly indeed.

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.

By the end of today, we will have a new Prime Minister and it will be Theresa May. It says everything about the pace and direction of modern politics that this isn’t the worst news we could be faced with. At the rate the – already hilariously low – bar is being lowered, by next week we’d have seen Donald Trump, an undead Pol Pot and two-thirds of a badger carcass joining the race.

I have never been a fan of May, who strikes me as an authoritarian introvert with a dangerous moralistic streak. However, all sewers must have a shiniest poo and in this leadership race she is it. As mentioned in my previous comments – not dreadfully inaccurate, although Crabb and Leadsom swapped places– she was up against:

• Liam Fox, who couldn’t even win his own vote.
• Evil Pob.
• Stephen Crabb. A man who thinks you can cure gayness but not being a creepy hypocrite.
• Andrea Leadsom, who cut short her promising career writing fantasy fiction in order to dive on the grenade that was her own jaw-dropping inexperience.

The first three weren’t really a worry, but the news of Leadsom dropping out of the race was a welcome relief for a number of reasons. Firstly, the idea of a grassroots uprising amongst the membership wasn’t completely fanciful, so it was plausible she could have won. Secondly, that happening would have been absolutely awful. Not least because she’s a buttoned-down, moral-majority bandwagon type, a British Sarah Palin-lite.

But now, 24 hours on, the relief is gone. We need to accept that our new PM has previously called for us to ditch the European Convention of Human Rights & Fundamental Freedoms so she can fully realise her dreams. These particular dreams are unfortunately of a police state with no respect for privacy. I realise she did something sensible about Stop & Search, but not because it was totalitarian. Just because it was racist. We all (hopefully!) agree that racism is bad. But if it’s someone’s only objection to Stasi-esque police tactics then I’m probably not going to invite them to babysit. Certainly not to run my country.

So it’s something of a disappointing victory, in the sense that while it could have been worse it could still have been much less worse. Unworser. More good. But what shall this new era bring? At the moment we can only guess at details, but we can be fairly confident of a few things.

First and foremost is that the new government has no intention of holding an early election. There are a couple of things to mention on this. One is that Theresa May is on record for criticising Gordon Brown for not calling a General Election when he inherited the gently steaming corpse of the Labour Party. There’s more than a hint of hypocrisy in her not doing the same even as she dances on the Grave of Dave.

Another is that it’s almost certainly not true. Labour are tearing themselves apart, the Lib Dems are still cleaning bits of Nick Clegg off the walls of party HQ, and UKIP have lost their prize dickfigurehead and are yet to settle on a replacement. The Brexit vote is still mobilised and likely to vote for a Tory government that’s apparently determined to force the issue through. In many ways, now would be a great time to call for a general election. The only reason it would make sense to claim to not call one is if you’re planning on doing so and don’t want anyone else to try and sort their act out before you do. Either that or we’re about to see a political move known as The Callaghan, in which case invest heavily in placards in the run up to 2020.

Related to that is the mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. I’m not entirely sure I buy into the sincerity of that, especially as Phil Hammond is already setting the scene for an extended negotiation and exit process. 7 years has passed? Best have another referendum! However, it does also tell us two other things about how May wants the start of her premiership to be perceived. First, as a continuation rather than a revolution, following through (in both senses) on the foundations and commitments of Cameron’s run as PM. Second, as someone who can bring the UKIP swing-vote back into the fold to vote for the Conservatives in the next General Election in 2020. Or February next year. Potato/potato.

We’re also hours away from finding out who will be what in the new cabinet. Hammond, Greening, Rudd, and Grayling (urrgh…) are all tipped to do well. Bloody Stupid Johnson might get a cabinet role somewhere relatively harmless. George Osborne my find himself somewhere like the Foreign or Home Office, if he’s booted from the Exchequer as seems likely. Crabb may have netted himself a minor cabinet role, as suggested previously and now I’ve said it twice, I really need to be right about it, even as I hope I’m not. Priti Patel is unfortunately in with a chance of a more important role. Fox is likely to be ignored completely, despite his Brexit campaign credentials, and Gove may or may not be stripped of Justice Secretaryship. And/or ground into paste and used to fertilise the garden at No. 10 as an object lesson in how not to run a political career.

One thing I will be very interested in seeing is who will be heading up Brexit negotiations. Common sense would dictate that will be a post all in itself (BSJ, maybe?) as otherwise the Foreign Office is going to get very little else done for the best part of the next decade.

Other than that, all we’ve got is a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises. More social justice, less economic disparity, more accountability, a fairer Britain, a Winston Churchill for every home etc. etc. For those of us with a more cynical bent, that translates to empty gestures to appease the credulous even as there are more and more punitive cuts made to vital public services.

Addendum

The above was written yesterday, 13/07/2016. However, due to important business involving standing in a field drinking beer while admiring laughably expensive motorbikes, I didn’t get around to uploading it. In the time since, there have been a few updates.

• There apparently will be a Department of Brexit, although it’ll likely be called something like the Department of Making Our Bed And Sleeping In It.
• Liam Fox still hasn’t been deported to the bottom of the sea and might even get a token frontbench job.
• I’d somehow completely forgotten that Theresa May has a personal dislike for Michael Gove. Of course, everyone does these days and that’s only right and proper, but May really hated him before it became cool. Don’t expect much mercy, but if he does keep his job us Justice Secretary then it should be seen as an indicator that the unity/continuity cards are being played in full force.

The Tory candidacy race is only into day two of around sixty and it’s already questionable as to whether anyone will survive to the end. The first big casualty was Boris Johnson, who decided this one looks a bit rough and got a taxi home to rest up for the next race. Of all the candidates who’ve got bounce-back, he’s the best equipped to reinvent himself over the next few years.

Michael ‘Pyrrhus’ Gove, on the other hand, has exploded onto the scene only to find his target – and therefore his impact – nowhere to be seen. Without Boris to grapple with, he has just ended up looking like a treacherous windbag. He puts me in mind of the vulnerable kid at school who decides to try and impress the popular kids by one day turning up to class with a gun. Rebellion is one thing, but there’s a line.

Likewise, Conservative politics is a vicious game where respect is earned by playing by the – admittedly rather scant – rules. For this game to operate, there needs to be at least some basic sense of stability, which includes knowing exactly who the players are. The reason Gove is now finding himself friendless and vilified is not because he hamstrung Boris on the starting block. It’s because he didn’t have the decency to let anyone else in on the plan beforehand.

This has thrown a bone out to the other three, as every race needs someone to come second. It’s now looking like Andrea Leadsom is favourite to lose least badly to Theresa May. However, with all the shenanigans going on at the moment, it’s possible she’ll drop back. Stepping aside in 3^rd out of choice can net you a top cabinet job and avoids the disgrace of being seen to lose. With Liam Fox still determined to be the least popular man in parliament, that means Stephen Crabb could appear as the surprise sacrificial lamb in the final two.

What does look certain is that Team Brexit have managed to take themselves out of contention. Gove declared war and Boris, being who he is, suddenly declared he was bored and sodded off. A cynic might say he suddenly saw his side-line in journalism as a way to rewrite history as it happens, preparing the ground for future battles. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Meanwhile, over in the Labour camp (not yet that kind, but the situation is deteriorating fast) the Benny Hill theme music is still stuck on loop. Jeremy Corbyn has received a bit of support from Scottish Labour, albeit nearly a week after the only Scottish Labour member to actually hold a seat resigned in protest. He’s also got the deputy leader of the party telling him that, seriously now, maybe he might need to give it a rest.

However, tens of thousands of new members are signing up to the Labour Party, so Corbyn may end up carrying an even greater popular mandate. Currently he needs it, because nothing short of a miracle is going to keep him in his job much longer. The biggest problem is if he runs again and wins again. There simply won’t be enough humble pie to go around the shadow cabinet. Austerity truly has hit us all.

This sudden influx of members may also be why Angela Eagle continues to hold off declaring her leadership bid. Until anyone knows what the demographics of these new members are, that makes sense; standing against Corbyn just as he gains another 60,000 open party votes would be futile. That said, this is Angela Eagle we’re talking about, so assuming her decisions are based on facts or logic isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Tom Watson is also reportedly in the running. Or will be once there’s a running to be in. Until then he’s trying to find a way to send the words “step down” back to about 1986, where it’s believed Jeremy’s attention was last seen. He’s showing more nouse than most of the rest of the party though, as he realises that no confrontation is about the only thing that will leave the party standing.

Yvette Cooper could make a showing. She’s been consistent-ish in wanting to close the wealth gap and is a big supporter of more public spending, affordable housing and being married to one of the worst people to ever enter parliament. So can we accept a leader who has Ed Balls dripping poison into her ear each night? I don’t know. As a possibly mitigating factor, she stands out as being one of the few Labour MPs who I’ve ended up thinking more highly of the more I’ve read about her.

Also of interest is Dan Jarvis. MP for Barnsley, which had a 68.3% Leave vote, he would be a credible man to try and re-engage the voters Corbyn tried and fail to connect with. In terms of political position, he seems moderately progressive, supporting economic and gender equality, as well as being quite passionate about the NHS. He’s a bit light on experience, but making a run of it and then stepping aside could win him a more interesting shadow cabinet role. Perhaps Defence, which would play will with his military background. However, all this is rather sensible for Labour and is therefore almost certainly not what will happen.

I have to admit to knowing very little about former shadow business secretary, Owen Smith. From what I can gather, this is being seen as a benefit to his potential leadership. I’ll leave the implied statement about the Labour MPs we do know a lot about just here… But apparently he’s another one with good left-wing history, so maybe all isn’t lost.

The only other potential name of any significance is John McDonnell. Until yesterday, I’d not even have considered him a possibility, but now Michael Gove has redefined “definitely not, never ever in a million years” to mean “sure, why not!” it seems feasible. My gut instinct is he’d be better off hanging around for Corbs to cop it and then stepping into the role by inheriting the popular vote. However, lunacy abounds, so he might get impatient and press the matter more aggressively if things don’t look like changing in the next couple of weeks.

All of which points towards both parties attempting to return to somewhere at least close to their pre-referendum status quo. Labour are conceding that they need to be a bit more left wing than under Blair (i.e. at all), while the Tories are conceding that they’ve ruined the country far faster than they’d intended and should probably do something about it. Like squabble.

This raises an interesting possibility and one that, depressingly, was so unlikely I’d not really considered it. If the Tories are set to bicker amongst themselves more at the same time as Labour realising that it might be a good idea to bicker amongst themselves less, we may end up with a more balanced House of Commons.

I feel completely ridiculous even suggesting it. But… maybe?

Today has been probably the most entertainingly bizarre day of British politics in living memory. As a terrible junkie for politics in general, I’ve been so enthralled that I’ve managed to put aside the horror of what caused it all. I woke up expecting to find Jeremy Corbyn a naked, limbless torso, deserted by even his appendages and clothing. Something to look forward to at any time, but an unambitious non-event compared to what actually unfolded as the day went on.

Taking a detached view of it all, it’s been surreal and entertaining in equal measure. I’ve laughed, I’ve groaned, I’ve been absolutely fascinated. So what has actually happened and can we draw any conclusions – or at least predictions – from it? Of course we can! They might be wrong, but they’re (mostly) worth thinking about.

First of all, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Conservatives had decided to follow Labour off a cliff. Whether this was out of some warped sense of parliamentary solidarity or just an acute case of folie á deux is hard to say. The case for a major upheaval to the existing party status quo that I hinted at in my previous update is looking stronger.

Not only have Labour gone into meltdown, but now the Tories are stowing their monocles and engaging in righteous fisticuffs as well. Quietly, lost in all the noise, a major financial supporter of the leave campaign is looking to ditch UKIP and form a new, Farage-less alternative. Nobody seems to know what the Lib Dems are doing, which suggests they’re currently bucking the trend by continuing with business as usual.

The headline act has been Tory party leadership contenders. It’s an update in its own right, so you can read it here. But what about the big picture and what all this means?

As mentioned, amidst all the smoke and gore, UKIP looks like it might be in trouble. Arron Banks, who has pumped a fair few pennies into the leave campaign, is talking about replacing them. I suspect this actually translates to “wooing a few Tories from the far right and burying Farage in compost”. By the standard of the times, that’s almost good news. It certainly points to a re-drawing of party lines and possibly the political landscape in general.

With the SNP rendering the rest of the UK helpless against Tory-dominated politics, such a schism does make sense. There’s room for another party, with a left/centre-right/very-right arrangement emerging. Exactly where the new borders will be drawn is hard to tell, but I think something like this is on the cards.

Then there’s the future of Boris Johnson, who is now free to pick where he lends his weight. I don’t think it impossible that his side-stepping of execution today might be a nod towards Theresa May. There are people worse-placed to add perceived unity to a Remain-led Brexit government, certainly. It would also give him a shot at a proper cabinet position, which further bolsters his inevitable future bid at party leadership however many years down the line.

Moreover, with May’s statement that “Brexit means Brexit”, Johnson could have a degree of plausible deniability in heading up negotiations that eventually leave us still part of Europe. It would look less like an establishment stitch-up, ignoring the democratic wishes of the electorate, if such a ‘failure’ were led by a man who fought hard to leave. He’s also the flip-floppiest person in parliament, so scruples wouldn’t get in the way of such a stunt.

There’s been one other particularly significant bit of news that might tie in with the above. This is Standard & Poor’s downgrade to the EU’s credit rating forecast. While Britain is taking – and will continue to take – the brunt of the pain from all this, it shows there’s still plenty to go around elsewhere. The reason for the downgrade was ‘continued economic uncertainty’. If the UK government were to drag its feet in implementing Article 50, this uncertainty will go on and on. The longer it lasts, the worse it will get. We may then find ourselves playing chicken with the EU: give us what we want or we’ll trash your credit rating even more.

That, combined with the May/Johnson scenario outlined above, could feasibly – but not yet probably – give us the bartering chip we need. Ever increasing pressure on an already bruised EU might put an unexpected concession on the table. We have to say we’re very, very sorry and give up part – or all – of our rebate. In exchange, we get to stay in the EU and are given some concession on freedom of movement. This would most likely be along the lines of limiting it only to those who have already found work before they arrive and/or restricting the right to bring family members with them.

It is, admittedly, a long shot at this stage. However, based on the fact that the UK Conservative Party is home to political chicanery par excellence, I don’t think it entirely impossible. It is, if nothing else, a reason to hope the outcome won’t be as dreadful as seemed certain just a few days ago.