Westminster is la la land right now. The scale of the dysfunction and decay is mind-boggling. MPs aren’t voting on anything meaningful. The government has a notional majority in the Commons of three and is incapable of putting up a Queen’s Speech not only because there is nothing to put in it. The legislation that is supposed to flow from that mainstay of the constitution, with the monarch opening a new session of Parliament, would probably not pass. Number 10 clings Downfall bunker-style – or did until today, when Labour pulled the plug – to the fantasy of a deal with the opposition that will get Brexit delivered. Meanwhile, the Brexit party that was only established in February is in the process of smashing, perhaps destroying, the Conservative party.
In the Westminster mad house, backbench Tory MPs talk to observers like stunned survivors who have just walked away from an air crash. With their brains scrambled they burble feverishly and all manner of weird theories and strategies are posited.
The strangest idea of the lot, that I have now heard multiple times from MPs, is the notion that the new leader of the Conservative party will somehow avoid holding an early general election once they take over from Theresa May.
