Two things have happened in the last week that have taken up my time.
The first is that the UK prime minister has stepped down, having been removed from power by his own government ministers, following a tumultuous and somewhat ludicrous July 5 and 6. The other is that I have moved flat.
Shuffling cabinets and shuffling cabinets. The news of the chancellor and the health secretary resigning initially escaped my attention, being somewhat busy with the life administration that moving brings. When I caught up, the chaos that followed was well underway.
A record number of ministerial resignations. Three education secretaries in three days. Michael Gove, of upstairs at O’Neill’s in Aberdeen fame, energetically sacked by Boris Johnson, who was desperately trying to regain a sense of equilibrium.
Though he may have considered “lashing himself to the radiator” – Mr Johnson’s own words about Gordon Brown in the wake of the 2010 general election – by midday on July 7, Boris had stepped down. Kinda. Sort of.
He made sure to leave himself some wiggle room and most of a government, cobbled together from the scraps of his remaining support.
I spent time after Boris’s resignation speech watching those of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May as they left office. When freed from historical contexts, figures often come across softer and more humble (see the elder statesman incarnation of George W Bush).
There are genuine contritions and regrets in those addresses. A sense of being levelled with, by one who understands they have, to some extent, failed. None so last Thursday. “Infamy, infamy, they all had it infamy”.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
On Friday, I moved the last of my things into my new home.
One of the national newspapers had published an article about how it wasn’t immediately clear where Mr Johnson would live following his exit from Downing Street, as he had let out his residences in London and Oxfordshire. Pardon my lack of sympathy. I’m sure he’ll make do.
Most candidates appear to be ready in earnest to distance themselves from the most recent Conservative governments
I had to buy a new telly, as one had come supplied in my last few flats. Now set up, it has since been tuned to the rolling news channels, the Conservative leadership contest beginning in earnest.
Since then we’ve had, at the time of writing, more than 10 declarations of intent to govern. A few more may well be to come.
Most candidates appear to be ready in earnest to distance themselves from the most recent Conservative governments. Yet, the first debate they’ve applied themselves to is on trans rights, each falling over t’other to take the most “anti-woke” line, with Penny Mordaunt seemingly rowing back from a previously progressive position.
It’s exactly the type of tactic employed by a certain short-sighted, Barnard Castle-visiting former chief adviser. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
A clean start?
My new flat has lots of my old stuff in it – it turns out that I come with more baggage than I had thought. The Conservative candidates are already finding it hard to move forward, even with a change of linen – “a clean start, a clean start, a clean start” repeated Tom Tugendhat when doing the press rounds on Sunday.
The naughtiest thing he’s ever done? “I invaded a country once”. A bit harder-edged than running through fields of wheat, I guess…
Onwards and upwards. By October 2, at the very latest, we should have a new Conservative Party leader, who will then become the new prime minister.
There will be no honeymoon period. Straight into a cost of living crisis, an escalating war in Ukraine and a new winter of discontent, where rising energy prices will plunge millions further beyond the poverty line. Then, there’s a general election to think about.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson will have to come to terms, like me, with his unexpected move. As he said, the herd moved against him. Perhaps it was inevitable that they’d steer away from the bull in the china shop.
Now we wait and see who might glue the plates together and spin them for a few more months, at least.
Colin Farquhar is head of cinema operations for Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen
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