This Is Not Who We Are

Proper Conservatives, in the estimation of the brilliant Robert Buckland, stand for "bringing the country together and seeking to unify, challenging criminality and hate and extremism absolutely square on, and being honest and truthful about it – but bringing the country together, not dividing it" - as can be seen by the state of the country after a decade and a half of Conservative government. Accordingly Buckland, whose attachment to unity, tolerance and non-criminality is such that he served the National Johnson as Minister for Profitable Incarceration, did some huffing and puffing about the Muslim-bashing eructations of Fishy Rishi's chosen party chair, Lee Anderson, and the compromising appearance of Liz Truss in an interview alongside some Trumpster-trash. Buckland emphatically proclaimed the unconservative status of La Truss, whose brief yet eventful premiership was facilitaed in part by one Robert Buckland.

In a similar spirit, if spirit is a word one can apply to proper Conservatives, the almost equally brilliant Oliver Dowden burbled that Anderson had not intended any Islamophobia by reviving Zac Goldsmith's mayoral campaign propaganda equating Sadiq Khan with Islamists. Earlier a spokesbeing had interpreted Anderson's grunts as relating solely to Khan's disinclination for giving Islamist marchers (anti-genocide protesters, in Oldspeak) a whiff of grapeshot; and Dowden stated that Anderson might retain or regain the whip if he trotted out the usual apology for having been strategically misunderstood by a few non-native English speakers. Dowden also absolved Suella Braverman of moral equivalence to Anderson on the grounds that Braverman's comments were not aimed at any particular individual. In Dowden's estimation, apparently, it's fine to claim that the damned Jews have taken over, provided only that one does not apply the label of damned Jew to any potential libel plaintiff. It's easy to see why true carriers of the torch for the party of Winston Churchill, Enoch Powell, Norman Tebbit, Theresa May, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson might be shocked, shocked, shocked at hints of racism.