One look at the the list of candidates in the Tory leadership race is enough to send a shiver down the spine. It is so awful it makes you wonder how this will all play out.

Sunak and Truss

The fact that Rishi Sunak is the favourite tells you all that needs knowing. Sunak made a fortune out the 2008 banking crash and has overseen the haemorrhaging of cash during the pandemic that is incalculable. I just do not understand what attributes he has, I really don’t. He knows nothing about ordinary people and it would appear, not much more about controlling finance.

Another one tipped for the top job is Liz Truss. Truss doesn’t even know who Liz Truss is. The daughter of socialists, a Lib Dem, then a centrist Tory Remainer, and finally, a raging Brexiteer. Truss is so engulfed in her own blonde ambition, she barely knows what day it is. The Labour Party must be gagging for her to get the gig, as it will surely offer Keir Starmer a free pass into Downing Street. Getting the back of Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries tells you all you need to know about this nut job.

Braverman the Dangerwoman

One outsider that can’t be written off is Suella Braverman, dubbed by many as Suella Deville. Braverman, is a low tax populist who believes that the poorest in society need to have support withdrawn from them. With poverty already at record levels, it is chilling to what might be coming the way of the poor if Braverman upsets the odds. Workhouses, detention centres and deportation are all ideologies that make her salivate.

Ironically she is the ideal candidate for bar stool fascists who act on impulse rather than logic. She gives them the freedom to be racist, using her as an example of how they most definitely are not. “How can I be racist…I voted for Braverman!” I can almost hear some people I know saying those very words. That’s what makes her dangerous and in the eyes of members, a great candidate to maintain populism.

Populist Tax Cuts

Rishi Sunak apart, every one of the candidates is advocating tax cuts. It’s the old tried, tested and failed, trickle down economics. It’s a con. It makes them look great in the short-term as impulsively, we would all like to pay less tax. The truth is, it is less likely to work now than ever before, unless you are very rich. Inflation is already out of control. Tax cuts will merely fuel it and at the same time, starve public services of funding.

Tax cuts and increasing inflation will starve the poorest in society. It will cause crime to increase, and a surge in demonstrations and civil unrest. It’s happening all over the world, with Sri Lanka the latest example of a corrupt populist government trying to bribe citizens with low tax. Of Braverman already has Brazilian style plans for how to quash civil unrest. They include police violence.

The English Populist Party

There are no pragmatists left in the Tory Party. It has, in effect, shredded its Conservative roots and become the English Populist Party. For it to become a centre right face of conservatism again, it has to get battered in the next general election and retaken by the likes of Rory Stewart.

However, with a huge parliamentary majority, the populists are not looking at that scenario. They will look to change laws on voting, demonstrating and opposing. Anyone opposing them will be a snowflake, a lefty or a traitor. The likes of Patel and Dorries have already been doing this and getting an alarming amount of support.

Britain’s story is a repeat scenario of what has happened the world over. Corruption taking over government, followed by the government implementing populism to protect itself from the law. It changes laws by causing division and distraction. No one in their right mind would implement such a policy if they weren’t protecting themselves from prosecution. This nearly always involves the theft of public funds and tax evasion.

If the opposition parties want to stop this descent into madness, they need to call it out as it is.

Madness.