The Decade in Tory: The Sunday Times Bestseller: An Inventory of Idiocy from the Coalition to Covid

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narcissistic, bullshitting nincompoop who went on Have I Got News For You and was unable to correctly answer the I thought it was the most thoughtful speech I’d heard from a prime minister for a very long time - possibly since Thatcher - in the sense it was intelligent, it was insightful. If you want a deep dive into a decade of mismanagement, corruption, and putting self/party interest over nation, then this book is for you. Perhaps it's fatigue - either the reader's or the author's (or both?) - but it did feel like the "snort out loud" moments that feel like they are almost one-per-sentence at the beginning atrophied somewhat towards the end (perhaps surprisingly, given this is where the project started online - with the simply brilliant #WeekInTory threads) but on reflection this is entirely appropriate given the thousands of deaths per week we were living through as the 2010s finally came to an end. It also perhaps helps that the disasters of the coalition and pre-referendum feel more distant and almost forgotten, so utterly have they been superseded by the insanity that followed that fateful day in 2016.

Decade in Tory by Russell Jones | Waterstones The Decade in Tory by Russell Jones | Waterstones

At the centre of this decade of disaster lies the Brexit vote, not so much the nadir as the point of inflexion at which the collapse in government competence, honesty and standards in public life abruptly accelerated. As Jones puts it

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For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. Recently, even here in Scotland, I've heard people espousing sympathetic views towards the Conservative government as a result of the unprecedented hurdles they faced due to Covid. However, Russell Jones' The Decade In Tory argues that Conservative rule has been a shambles since 2010, long before Covid, and really, the government didn't need the pandemic as an excuse to showcase its incompetence. As a History graduate, it occurred to me that books like this are actually quite rare: a meticulous, conscientiously-cited account of basically every awful thing that a Conservative-led Government did over a ten-year period. Normally, such corruption and mendacity would be summarised in a few sentences or at best a couple of paragraphs of a book trying to cover a longer period or make more sweeping points about an era or macro-trend. As such, I think that behind its sarcastic exterior, it's actually a really important documenting of a disastrous decade when Britain's body politic, society and public discourse were dragged to depths from which the country as we previously knew it may never properly recover. A Friday night in the control room with Bedfordshire police told the same story of services stretched to breaking point. Mental health and domestic violence dominated the calls. A neighbour reported a man next door banging on his wife’s window, threatening violence. A man called as he chased his son across a dark park, terrified he might harm himself. The chief constable, Jon Boutcher, had just written to his MP recounting a typical night of rapes, stabbings and a lethal traffic accident involving young children. “I run out of officers regularly for 999 calls,” he said. Having performed 4 cowardly U-turns during her own endless leadership campaign, Truss now seems to now think was is the key to her success

Decade in Tory: An Inventory of Idiocy from the Coa… The Decade in Tory: An Inventory of Idiocy from the Coa…

But I think smoking is fundamentally different for a couple of reasons. Firstly, unlike lots of other products that may not be good for you there is no safe level of smoking. It can’t be part of a balanced diet. It is also obviously highly addictive and it is responsible for one in four cancer deaths in our country.” Noughties babies to flood unis – The baby boom of the early 2000s is about to flood UK universities and colleges with tens of thousands more school leavers a year, according to a report out today co-authored by David Willetts, the former universities minister. It means the government’s efforts to cut spending on higher education by limiting the number of young people attending will be doomed, Willetts says. The demographic increase in young people is an opportunity to reshape the British labour market towards the “high-paid sectors of the future”, he says. “Across advanced countries there’s a hunger for more education. Looking at how Britain is going to invest and pay its way in the world in the next decade, a growing higher education sector looks to be part of it.” The report was written with Maja Gustafsson for the Resolution Foundation. Once her aggressive battle against punctuation choices was out of the way Coffey – part of a govt that inherited an NHS guaranteeing 48 waiting time for GP appointments – promised a grateful public they wouldn’t wait longer than 336 hours As pointed out by elections guru, professor Sir John Curtice, Tamworth is the safest seat lost by any governing party - ever. Then he had what seemed to be a bit of a breakdown, and wrote the tweet again, this time denying any such event had ever happenedJohnson was not the only influential politician to drop into Lebedev’s opulent townhouse at 20 Park Square East for the 2017 Christmas party. The first guest of note was an ex-prime minister, Tony Blair. Blair came between 6.30pm and 7pm, before the event began, his office said. He spent 20 minutes talking to Lebedev in the Stalin room.

Review: The Decade In Tory, by Russell Jones | Dominic Minghella

Raheem Sterling has admitted he is contemplating a future away from Manchester City and would consider moving abroad. Kenyan police say they have arrested the husband of the distance runner Agnes Tirop, a two-time world championship bronze medallist who was found dead at her home. US Open champion Emma Raducanu has pulled out of this month’s Kremlin Cup, citing a “tournament schedule change”. Cameron Norrie rose to the occasion in one of the biggest matches of his life, obliterating Diego Schwartzman, the 11th seed, 6–0 6-2 to reach his first ever Masters 1000 semi-final at Indian Wells. Other politicians came by at about 8.30pm. They included Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, the former Labour MPs Peter Mandelson and Tristram Hunt and prominent Conservatives such as the then health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. And, of course, Johnson, foreign secretary in May’s faltering government. The witness is not the first person to have made such a point about senior politicians and media proprietors. The 2012 Leveson inquiry found the relationship between politicians and the press over the previous three decades had damaged the perception of public affairs. It concluded that politicians of all parties had developed “too close a relationship with the press in a way which has not been in the public interest”. If I believed in God, I'd pray for an end to this. But God isn't listening, and not enough of the public are either. Until one or the other wakes up, a perpetual vortex of agitation is where we are all doomed to live." Both Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire were in the top 100 safest Conservative seats at the last election. Both saw swings of greater than 20% to Labour last night.Lightly amusing when appropriate, darkly scathing throughout- this book uses the scandals, corruptions, and idiocies of the past decade to tear down any existing facade of decency or competence within the tory party. All through their own quotes and verified statistics (see the extensive notes at the end of the book). As part of her ploy to replace Johnson, Liz Truss, ITV4 made flesh, claimed she’d resolve Brexit in a month, a prediction previously made by Despite the fact the new Advanced British Standard qualification will take a while to come into effect (see the post below at 07.33), Rishi Sunak insisted his other education reforms “will start benefiting people very soon”. The prime minister, meanwhile, looked to blame "local factors" for the results, saying "mid-term elections are always difficult for incumbent governments".