Amber Rudd has fallen on her sword, or Teresa May's sword to be more exact. The past few weeks have been a disaster for an up-and-coming MP who seemed to have her head screwed on and was well respected by the public. Lying to parliament or struggling to remember targets that you have set yourself (whichever the case may be) is the sort of idiocy that ruins careers and makes everyone involved look very silly indeed. As such, a once potential leader of the Conservative party has been consigned to the back benches until enough time has past that people forget this transgression... except that she only won her seat at the last election by a handful of votes and might not win it at all after this mistake. To be honest, she should have been more prepared for the inevitable scandal because the curse of the Home Office has taken down many a politician. Teresa May came through a long stint unscathed, but she was mean spirited and cruel and laid the groundwork for her colleague's demise with her heartless policies. Full disclosure, I have a non-EU wife and thus have a particular axe to grind when it comes to Teresa May, in addition to her complete incompetence as Prime Minister.
Usually a rash of scandals, resignations and leaks is the sign of a government's impending demise. These particular scandals should be more damaging than most as well due to their nature. Most of the time political scandals involve cash for votes, dodgy expenses and sex (either shagging a secretary/rent-boy or hosting coke-fuelled, Nazi-themed orgies). We've had a bit of the latter with porn on an office computer and some light knee touching, but mostly the scandals have been about shadow diplomacy, incompetence and pathetic cover-ups. It's mostly been tame stuff but at the pointy end of government. Couple all that with reshuffles that don't actually shuffle anything and defeats in parliament (and impending defeats on key Brexit legislation in the House of Lords) and Teresa May should be finished.
Luckily for Mrs. May, the opposition is in equal disarray. The antisemitism row just won't go away for Labour (as surprising as that is in a country without a particularly large Jewish community or a great deal of sympathy for them) and Jeremy Corbin is taking every opportunity he can to prove that he can't be trusted to protect the nation or its citizens if he ever becomes PM. The Lib-Dems have a strong and well respected leader, but he is handcuffed by the student politicians who make up the party's ranks and the daft policies that are forced upon him: the elderly, who vote in droves, will never vote to legalise marijuana and everyone sees through their self-serving calls for votes for children and proportional representation (which will provide a few more seats for them but also guarantee weak governments, and a larger disconnect between local communities and Westminster). Until Labour supporters rejoin the real world and Lib-Dems grow up, there is no opposition to the least capable and most divided government of my lifetime.
So, the UK is doomed to drift rudderless into the dark storm of Brexit (which could and should have been a huge opportunity for an ambitious nation of innovators and traders). The country stumbles along while others thrive and inequality between generations, classes and entire regions of the country grows and cuts through society like a huge chasm. There's no fixing what's broken until one of the two main parties takes decisive action to replace their toxic leaders (or the Lib-Dems stop going for easy votes and put together a manifesto that normal people can actually take seriously - a lot of their policies on taxation, the economy and support for business make a lot of sense, but get ignored because of the ridiculous ones highlighted above). The whole thing makes me glad I'm far away from it all. As The Sun once commented when New Labour rose to power: the last one out, please turn off the lights.
