William Hague

Iain Duncan Smith

Michael Howard

David Cameron

Theresa May

Boris Johnson

Liz Truss

These are the succesive leaders of the Conservative and Unionist Party of the UK since John Major lost the 1997 General Election.

The first three thankfully did not get the chance to inflict mayhem on the country but got progressively more hopeless and right wing. (Though it is a toss-up between Smith and Howard for both those dubious accolades.)

As for the last four, words fail me. Each much worse than his or her predecessor, but all inflicting enormous damage on the country.* An accumulation perhaps unparalleled in its history.

And they say this is the natural party of government?

*In Truss’s case that is yet to be fulfilled but I have no doubt it will be.**

**Note: I composed this post in early September. The damage wrought by Liz Truss has come to pass much sooner than even I expected.

I heard William Hague’s voice on Newsnight last night. I don’t know what he was talking about as I was in another room but if it was Libya and I had been the interviewer I’d have felt tempted to ask him if he thought Colonel (can anyone else remember when he was only a lieutenant?) Gadaffi might now be in Venezuela.

Gadaffi has still not been found as I write and continues to spout defiance. It could be a long time yet.

Sometimes I feel that we live in a Chinese curse.

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and now Libya. Where will it end?

Of course I thought the world had gone to hell in a handcart when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas if you prefer.) In my whole memory up to then the British Army had not been involved in a full blown shooting war. (Now it seems they’ll never be out of one.)

Then there was the fall of the Berlin Wall and all that followed.

I remember once seeing Enoch Powell on Parkinson and laughing at the old codger when he referred to the “Dutch East Indies.”

Now it’s me who is a bit of an old codger. I still think of St Petersburg as Leningrad as that was its name when I visited on a school cruise in the 1970s.

I have to scoff though when Mr Irresponsible and his sidekick William Hague stand up for the rights of street protestors.

That’ll be fine except when it occurs in the UK then, eh?

OK, arrest people who break the law by smashing windows or throw stuff and the like, but what is kettling and thumps on the head or back with a truncheon if not repression?

And kettles boil, do they not? Or is that the object of the exercise?