In thrall to one capricious character with few deep beliefs, the Tories are abandoning once-cherished convictions and trashing traditional allies
The Conservative & Unionist party is no more. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-party.
It has been replaced by the Boriservative & Johnsonist party. This is the conclusion I draw after observing the worshippers at the Borisfest in Manchester. It was all about him. Even when he wasn’t visible, he was omnipresent. He was there in the devoted eyes of the activists prepared to queue from six in the morning to secure a seat for the triumph of the Boris that concluded proceedings. He was there in the twitchy eyes of ministers who referred to him as “the boss” or “the king” even when they weren’t on camera. The tone was set on the opening day by Oliver Dowden, not so much the party chairman as the prime minister’s representative on Earth. “We are all just bit players,” said Mr Dowden, telling everyone else that they were irrelevant, before referring to the principal player as “our prize stallion, our rampaging rhino”. Animal worship has been a feature of religions since primitive times. In Mr Dowden’s imagining, the divinity that is Boris is a composite super-beast with (I’m guessing a bit here) the horn, hide and bulk of a rhino and the mane, legs and possibly another appendage of a stallion.