Is there a link between a country’s sporting success and its political success? You can see how they might be. Cheering on the Irish rugby team is the nearest many people get to feeling pride in their country – although the buttock-clenching “Ireland’s Call” is bound to have a counter-productive impact. Gaelic games perhaps come nearer the mark, and many in the north say it’s the only public occasion they have where they can unashamedly show their love of their country.
These thoughts and similar flooded through what are left of my brains as I watched the Tory leadership debate last night, while flicking back and forth to the England Under-21 soccer game between England and France. England, you’ll be traumatised to know, were defeated by a France goal in the final seconds of extra time. So was the Tory top boy contest similarly second-best?
No. And No again – it was far, far worse. You could blame the chairperson, Emily Maitland, for not being a lot tougher in her follow-up questions or insisting that candidates answer the question posed. Whatever the reason, Boris Johnson was allowed to ramble on about his Muslim great-grandfather when he should have been explaining his British arrogance in comparing Muslim women to letter-boxes and bank robbers. As to the backstop, he said he would solve it by leaving it for discussion during the trade negotiations – a strategy which the EU has firmly ruled out. Why didn’t Emily grab him by the lapels – she was right next to him- – and tell him to stop the bollix?
The other candidates were much as usual. Jeremy Hunt got in a warming little vignette about talking to a sheep farmer who’d be economically destroyed by a no-deal; Michael Gove reminded us again that he was adopted but otherwise talked like a machine-gun and looked like the smart-arse kid in school who regularly gets a kicking from his less patient class-mates. Sajid Javid played the Muslim card unashamedly, and his call for an independent investigation into Islamophobia in the Tory party was about as good as he got.
Rory Stewart….As he did last time, Stewart was the Marcel Marceau of the contest. He looked around him when others were thundering their wisdom, he kept his feet on the floor rather than on the little metal circle around his stool; he stared at the floor in a dejected manner as his opponents tried to bite each other to death; and half-way through he removed the tie he was wearing. So he got extra attention without saying a word. When he did speak, he was OK but lacked the smile of amusement that worked so well in Sunday’s debate. But he did stand by his acceptance of Theresa May’s deal and he challenged the others to explain how they’d get it changed . Except that they weren’t listening and Emily allowed the cacophony (that’s a Boris word) to continue until you wanted to take a hammer to the TV screen.
The spin afterwards, on the BBC News channel, was interesting. All of the candidates or their spokesperson told the interviewer they’d done splendidly. Except, predictably, Rory Stewart. He said he hadn’t performed all that well and would have to figure out ways of doing better.
The response of the Tory party members to that last statement will be crucial. Either they’ll see it as civil and self-critical, or they’ll dismiss it as weakness and self-wounding. I’d like to think they’ll see it in terms of the first; I’m fearful they won’t and will interpret self-criticism as weakness. It’s what, as a rule, Tories do.
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