It’s becoming increasingly hard to write a political column that is current, considering we all file these about a week ahead of publication.
What is there left to say about the Conservatives? It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash, but one during which there is also a competition to see how many clowns can squeeze into the crashing car and pick up a ministerial salary. Who is left to have a go driving it, before it utterly wrecks itself, and the country with it?

Stuck in the boot of this tragic farce is you, dear reader. Maybe you’re struggling with an increase in your mortgage. Perhaps you can’t afford to put the heating on. Or you’re worried about the security of your pension. We are the hostages in this unfolding calamity.

Back to clowns – I wonder if West Dorset’s Chris Loder feels like a clown now, after he backed Liz Truss stating: “I am certainly of the view that Liz is good news for rural Britain.” Was she good news for your constituents, Chris? Do you still think ‘she has an exceptional track record of delivery’ after her whole economic philosophy was rejected by the markets, gutted by Hunt and she was unceremoniously dumped out of office?
What about another Dorset MP and Liz Truss backer, Christopher Chope of Christchurch? He stuck his neck out to defend Truss’s tax policies as the pound crashed and borrowing costs spiralled. Mr Chope is so unpopular in his own party – remember when he blocked the members’ bill against upskirting? – that the whips didn’t even send him the memo to stay away from the media as Truss’s tax U-turns were imminent.

Now he has conceded that the Tory party is a ‘laughing stock’ and that the Conservative economic agenda is ‘trashed’, adding: “I don’t know where to go from here, frankly.”
And that’s the key point. Our local MPs have no idea where to go from here. I know many people are fed up with Simon Hoare’s introspective, dithering radio appearances – even his own party members. The arrogance with which he repeats phrases like ‘the natural party of government’ as if the best the country deserves is him and his colleagues’ parlour games cannot be stomached.
I put it to you, Tory MPs of Dorset, that your party has lost the plot. That some of you want to bring back a proven, unrepentant liar as leader is a case in point. It’s time for a General Election, to bring in a party that is united, has a plan for government, and can restore the UK’s economic
and international credibility. It’s time for a Labour government.