“Be in no doubt, it is time for a change and we are out.” Oh, sorry, what Rishi Sunak actually said at the conclusion of his speech was: “It is time for a change and we are it.” Right, so, some malignant entity has been messing up the country for thirteen years, but the Tories have arrived to sort it all out.
This was the speech of the leader of an incoming party, in the immediate aftermath of a general election, who has found the country in an appalling state due to the incompetence of the previous incumbents and is devising a wide-sweeping programme of recovery. Its highlight is an ultra-statist, Orwellian ban on smoking, under which the nanny state will eliminate the noxious practice entirely. You could not ask for more potent evidence that the totalitarian mentality engendered by lockdown has become the default position of the Conservative Party.