The latest reminder of what's gone before #14YearsInTory

This thread has 84 points and covers 2018 1. Chris Grayling was made Tory Party Chairman for as long as they could trust him not to screw up

2. It turns out this was 27 seconds – his appointment was cancelled half a minute after being announced on Twitter

As we enter the final week of the election, I’m dong #14YearsInTory, with a thread for every year

This is what they did in 2017.

If you care, all of this (and lots more) is covered and fully referenced in The Decade In Tory (by me), with more jokes etc.

100 points thread 👇 1. The Tories began 2017 by announcing 200,000 new homes

2. They’d also announced 200,000 new homes in 2010, 2011, twice in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015

3. They skipped promising it in 2016 to have a referendum

4. Didn't matter: none of the homes had ever been built

As we approach the End of an Error (hey, that's a good name for a book!) I'm doing #14YearsInTory

There will be a long thread for every year they've been in office, with 2016 split in two.

This is part 2 of 2016, picking up immediately after the referendum. 1. The Brexit referendum was held on a Thursday

2. By the next Monday, total stock market losses were £2.17 trillion. TRILLION

3. That’s enough to pay our EU membership for 241 years

4. Shares in UK banks fell 30%

5. The pound fell to its lowest level for 30 years

I’m doing #14YearsInTory, with a thread for every year they’ve been in office.

This one is for 2016, up to the referendum.

And it has 104 points. Sorry!

I'll do another for 2016 AFTER the referendum later today.

Follow the hashtag #14YearsInTory to see previous years 1. Every single Tory MP in parliament – 309 of them – voted against a bill to ensure rented homes are fit for human habitation

2. A quarter of Tory MPs were private landlords

3. Geoffrey Cox, earned £820,000 in on year from second job while being a full-time PM

This week and next, I’m doing #14YearsInTory, with a thread for every year they’ve been in office.

This one is for 2015, and has 69 points.

Don't say I didn't warn you... 1. Deputy PM Nick Clegg called David Cameron a “twat” on live television

2. Steve Baker, a complacent cyborg with the ever-so-pleased look of somebody desperate to be asked if they’ve ever completed a Rubik Cube, filmed a man beating him up by the bins.

3. Twice.

Any day now, this bunch of self-serving masturbators, crooks, xenophobes and spivs will fuck off for good.

In case you’ve forgotten why they’re so unpopular, #14YearsInTory will remind you.

Today is all about David Cameron, with one thread for each of his years in office… 1. Let’s begin with top recidivist Mark Menzies, who hired a Brazilian sex worker, gave him an illicit tour of the Palace of Westminster, and then asked him to procure a big bag of amphetamines

If you hated #TheWeekInTory, you’ll hate this even more. It’s #14YearsInTory, and every day I’m covering one PM. A separate thread for each year in office.

This is Part Four of David Cameron ... 1. Waxed polyp David Cameron did a mid-term review in which he boasted “The economy is balancing”

2. Our national debt had grown from 62% to 79% of GDP, and 2.5 million were unemployed

For the next few days I’m doing #14YearsInTory, cos #TheWeekInTory was a bit too short and didn't annoy
you enough

Today is all about David Cameron’s beshitting of the national bed.

This is Part Three, all about 2012... 1. Michael Gove, the precise physical intersection of Gordon the Gopher and Jeffrey Dahmer, was discovered to have a secret identity, Mrs Blurt

2. Under this alter ego he discussed plans to privatise all state schools

As we count down to them these fuckers finally fucking the fuck off, I present #14YearsInTory, a slightly more sprawling version of #TheWeekInTory

Today is all about David Cameron, with one thread for each of his years in office.

And now: 2011

Thread ... 1. Let’s start with banking, and at the election, varnished skin-tag David Cameron had promised to limit bonuses for banks rescued by the govt to £2000 per employee

2. A year later the boss of RBS got £963,000

As we enter the final week of the election, I’m going beyond #TheWeekInTory

Today, each of the years Cameron was in Downing Street. Look for the hashtag #14YearsInTory

Other PMs will be covered in the coming days

Needless to say: this is a 52-point thread! 1. Let’s kick things off with the non-election of David Cameron, a thumb with a mouth-slit who did prime minister impressions

2. Most of the world responded to the 2008 crash with stimulus packages. Cameron and his pet sadist, George Osborne, implemented austerity

He won't, obvs, but if I was Starmer I'd spend 3 months in office, then say "the economy is even worse than the Tories told us, and we need to rejoin Single Market", then call a snap election to get a mandate. He'd win >

theguardian.com/uk-news/articl… > Naturally, Tories / Farage would kick off, but Starmer will not have broken his pledge - he'll just have asked for a remit to go further. It would be The Will Of The People.

He won't do it, of course. But it would be a huge boost to the economy. And 100% democratic >

Farage doesn't care about 2024. He cares about 2029. His strategy is to divide the right, destroy the Tories, and then replace them.

Many Tory MPs want to return to something like the centre - a party recognisable to John Major or Rory Stewart. Farage wants to ... ... make sure the Tories lose even more seats so he can either make a pact with whatever is left (essentially take over) or make Reform the home of the right - either way, he wants to pull the right endlessly towards the far right.

And he'll have help. The...

I've sat with this for 24 hours, and for what it's worth, here's what I think is the strategy behind Natalie Elphicke.

Tribal politics hides policy. If you ask Tory voters, a majority oppose Labour, but a majority back (most) Labour policies.

But if Starmer can send ... ... a message that ANYONE is welcome in Labour, it bypasses that tribalism.

He reckons (I think/hope) that if he can get the Tory right to vote Labour, he'll be able to do Labourish things that they agree with, but which they hate if you stick a red badge on it...

Here's what's gone wrong for the Conservative party.

They didn't adopt austerity in 2010 because the economy needed it. They adopted it because it allowed them to do an ideological shrinkage of the state, while blaming Labour. Austerity wasn't economics, it was pure politics. Austerity fucked the country for the simple reason that if you starve the economy of money and hope, you end up with a hopeless economy and no money. Investors knew this, so abandoned us. OECD average investment is a third higher than it is in the UK. We starve ourselves.

It's a perfectly designed torture for Tories.

Sunak won't call a GE cos the results predict a disaster. Any Tory winners had distanced themselves from the party, so nothing to boast about. He did *just* well enough to kill any rebellion and *just* badly enough to pause a GE... So Sunak will remain in office, but not in power, his right wingers making his life a misery, his left giving up and resigning.

His Brexit voters flee to Reform. Moderate voters flee to LD or Labour. New voters repelled by the bigotry. His five pledges unmet.

Here's why I think there should always be a by-election when an MP defects, like Dan Poulter did.

1. MPs (except independents) stand on a party manifesto. Those are the policies the constituency electorate voted for. Now, without a vote, the MP's policies have changed. 2. Research shows 75% of people can't name their local MP. Tragic, but true. So quite clearly they are voting for a party, not a person. It doesn't matter what the official version of events is: voting for a party is self evidently the reality.

Things that Dan Poulter was ok with:

Brexit
Partygate
Illegally proroguing parliament
Lying to the Quern
Unlawful PPE contracts
Austerity
Dominic Raab
Chris Williamson
Dominic Cummings
Mark Menzies
William Wragg
Owen Paterson
Chris Pincher
Scott Benton
1/2 Windrush
Tripling tuition fees
Tripling national debt
Trillions of gallons of raw sewage in our rivers
Banning onshore wind
Hundreds of scandals involving party donations
Lee Anderson
Frank Hester
Priti Patel's secret meetings with Israeli security services
2/4

In my book The Decade In Tory I recount reports of Mark Menzies hiring a Brazilian sex worker, showing him around the palace of Westminster, and asking him to buy them amphetamines.

And then another time, the police being called cos Menzies had ...
thetimes.co.uk/article/28f948… ... been accused of getting a dog drunk, then engaging in a massive street brawl. He wasn't charged cos he persuaded police he hadn't fed the dog alcohol - he'd just stood by and taken photos. So that's ok then.

My point is: this guy's behaviour is not new. He's been a ...

A step-by-step guide to why saying "I want my country back" is inherently racist, sexist and homophobic.

1. Logically, "back" means there was an earlier time when the country was "ours"

2. The same people wanted it "back" from the EU in 2016 too, and won. Well done you! 3. So logically, the latest demand for "our" country "back" cannot mean "back from the EU". We've already left. So it must, logically, mean back from a time BEFORE we joined the EU. And that means going back to some time before 1973. So ... when?

How mad is UK infrastructure (outside London)?

I'll tell you.

A friend lost her job before Xmas. She has no car - never needed one before. But now she does, cos there are no jobs nearby.

She just landed a job. In a car, it's 12 mins away. By public transport, almost 3 hours. Cos (obviously, in a major economy!) there's no direct bus or train between 2 large neighbouring market towns in Cheshire. So she has to take 3 buses to another town, 20+ miles away, and then back again. Twice a day.

But she can't refuse the job, or she gets no benefits. And ...

This (71-point) #TheWeekInTory is the last for 2 weeks, cos I'm away doing a book tour for Four Chancellors and a Funeral (published next week)

25% off if you order this week from Waterstones



Anyway: pop on the galoshes of despair, and let’s dive in…waterstones.com/book/four-chan… 1. Let’s start with Jeremy Hunt’s budget, which had 4 requirements:

- Make us forget Liz Truss's unfunded £45bn borrowing
- Differentiate Tories from Labour
- Please voters
- And unite the party