Conservatives are blaming everyone but themselves - Yorkshire Post Letters

In his weekly piece Bill Carmichael states that the Conservatives could never choose a no-hoper as leader like Jeremy Corbyn. Leaving aside that Jeremy Corbyn led Labour very close to winning in 2017 Bill Carmichael seems to have a selective memory for Conservative choices.

Think of Boris Johnson, a man with a long record of infidelity and a casual relationship with truth.

His supposedly major speech to the CBI in 2021 went off into a weird spiel about Peppa Pig World, him making car noises and comparing himself to Moses. After that speech the writing was on the wall for him. But he was the man chosen by Conservative Party members.

Think also of Liz Truss, whose tenure as Prime Minister was record breakingly short.

Although brief it was still long enough to spook bond markets and came close to trashing the economy. Poor Kwasi Kwarteng took most of the blame, but the rot started at the top, again thanks to someone chosen by Conservative members who believed in the magic money tree theory of economic growth.

Watching Rishi Sunak and colleagues try to justify the Rwanda plan would be comical if it wasn't tragic.

Though giving large sums of our money to the Rwandan government, Rwanda will never take more than a few hundred refugees a year.

Despite Bill Carmichael's comparison with the Australia scheme there's little evidence that it will put any would-be migrants off, even if those migrants know about it. Most probably don't.

Conservative members are entitled to ask why inward migration is so high but they could also ask why the Conservatives are blaming everyone but themselves. Not a pretty sight.