Tories on the Edge

Just when you thought that British politics couldn't get any more bizarre, the Tory leadership contest seems to have turned into some kind of contest between the candidates to establish which one of them is 'edgier' and taken the most drugs.  While I can well believe that Rory Stewart once smoked opoids (I mean, just look at him - the effects clearly haven't worn off), the idea that Andrea Leadsom, possibly the most anonymous and tedious person ever to have ambitions of being Prime Minister, ever smoked a joint, is utterly ludicrous.  But to top it all, we've now had the revelation that, twenty years ago, Michael Gove was a coke fiend.  OK, I know, he looks like he's on drugs and just listening to what pass for his policy initiatives should be enough to convince anyone that he is under the influence, but nonetheless, the mental images conjured up by these revelations - Gove snorting cocaine from the naked breasts of teenaged prostitutes - are just too disturbing to contemplate.  IN a move reminiscent of William Hague's attempts to turn his youthful drinking 'exploits' to his advantage by making himself look 'hard', instead of downplaying the drug-taking as some minor infringement while working as a journalist (Fleet Street is pretty notorious for booze and drugs), he's tried to claim his usage was hardcore.  'I'm lucky not to have done jail time', he tells interviewers.  Well, not really Michael, not if you were only using.  A rehabilitation programme and a suspended sentence at worst, perhaps.  You'd only have risked serious jail time if you'd been dealing and/or supplying.  Perhaps there's something he isn't telling us?

Of course, the speculation now centres around just how damaging to Gove's leadership campaign these drug revelations will be.  The media consensus seems to be that while it probably won't unduly harm his standing with Tory MPs in the elimination rounds of the contest, (because, apparently, they're all off their faces), it could hurt him if he reaches the last two, where the entire membership if the Tory Party will be balloted.  Bearing in mind that the party's rapidly declining membership are also rapidly ageing, insular and reactionary, he might well find himself punished for his 'moral turpitude'.  Which would be grossly unfair.  I mean, I don't even like Michael Gove, but the idea that, because of some misdemeanour twenty odd years ago, some bunch geriatric right-wingers might deem him 'morally unfit' to be Tory leader when, if he gets to this stage, his likely opponent would be Boris Johnson, is appalling.  Johnson might not, (for now. at least), be facing allegations over past drug use, but he is, nevertheless, morally bankrupt.  Surely his catalogue of extra-marital affairs, shagging other people's wives, links with right-wing extremists like Steve Bannon, his casual racism and record of telling bare-faced lies when employed as a journalist, should make him at least equally 'morally unfit' to lead?  After all, all of this stuff isn't historical, it is ongoing.  But he's Boris, isn't he?  The darling of the blue rinse brigade. He's like those annoying shits you knew at school who were utter bastards and wasters, but could get away with anything because they were 'good at rugby' and therefore the games master's favourites.  Anyway, I await the next revelations about the candidates as they jostle for 'edginess'.  What next, Esther McVey once had cocaine blown up her arse by male prostitutes?  Or perhaps Sajid Javid, who always likes to try and demonstrate his 'hardman' credentials will be telling us how he didn't take drugs, but single handedly beat up an entire inner-city drugs gang, instead.