We now have the nearest thing to a communist government since Atlee was Prime Minister, which is exactly the person the current PM has suggested he wants to emulate.

How long will Keir Starmer last? (Image: Getty)

The actual outcome of the pursuit of Atlee is likely to be the equivalent of the 1970s; stagnation, joblessness, chaos and union rule but with an added dose of puritanical domination by the nanny state and a dollop of icy suppression of free speech. Truly communistic. Atlee only lasted one Parliament.

We see the direction of travel over a tortuous period of five years. Clamp-downs on pubs and smoking, on drinking hours all in the name of saving the sacred cow, the NHS. Bolstering and expanding the featherbedded state while squeezing the productive private sector, until the pips squeak.

There is also the spectre of virtue-signalling on steroids as Mr Milliband ramps up massive extra costs for consumers and taxpayers to fund uneconomic and unreliable wind farms, just as he places a ban on the sale of petrol cars in order to force on us expensive and totally unpopular Electric Vehicles (EVs). As if that were not enough he wants to tax popular and reliable gas boilers in favour of expensive, useless and impractical heat pumps.

Not many people voted for this, only just over one in three of those who went to the polls and one in four of the electorate. There now appears to be considerable voter regret, with the popularity of the Government falling already.

The tragedy of all this, as the Conservative Party Conference approaches, is that this total shower of incompetents have been allowed into Government not on their merits but largely because of the failures of the incompetent shower in the previous administration who are now about to choose a new leader, a potential PM in waiting.

A lack of strong, competent leadership has been a recurring factor of declining Britain. In particular there is a desperate need for a strong leader of the country. Someone with integrity, prepared to serve the nation because it is a privilege to do so, not so as to be given the keys to the sweet shop whether while in office or subsequent to it. Someone who has clear policy direction on which people can vote and who pursues these with determination, facing down the naysayers. This is what the country deserves, but unfortunately the politicians of today appear as political pygmies by comparison with the giants of yesteryear.

Those of today appear analogous to the nadirs of British politics; those of the interwar years and of the 1970’s. Full of self-righteous principle and virtue signalling, but unprepared to lead and beholden to vested interests.

Unfortunately the world today shows many characteristics of these bad times. We face huge dangers from potential enemies just at the moment we have poor leadership and are weaker than we have been since the end of the 17th century, the consequence of managed decline and defeatism.

Only countries with strong, growing economies survive in the long-run. It is economic growth that wins wars. Wealth creation pays for all of the public services and social support, including the NHS. Without wealth and growth nothing else is possible, except the pernicious creation of debt and decline. To drive growth and wealth strong leadership is necessary.

Think of the catalogue of those that Parliament have thrown up. The desperately weak Edward Heath and Jim Callaghan in the 1970’s faced down by the Trade Unions ruling the country in their own vested interests, an ambition they have now expressed for the present times. The vainglorious Mr Blair, following the Americans into war in pursuit of his dream to be President of the EU. The inability of Mrs May to put the national interest first, instead giving the EU what they wanted in exchange for giving the EU what they wanted was not exactly genius!

Mr Johnson cutting and running on the EU deal when he had the chance of a clean break and subsequently adopting an extreme and ruinous Net Zero agenda, allegedly favoured by those closest to him. Ms Truss unable to deliver her strong policies because of weakness in the face of challenge. Strong leaders in business surround themselves with the best, not with those who are friends or sycophants. Mr Clegg, remember him?, now working for a west coast tech billionaire, perhaps soon to be a neighbour of Mr Sunak.

There are many types of weak leader. Those who have narcissistic tendencies, who are intimidated by bullying, who volte-face and lie, blowing in the political wind, those who are self-serving above their calling, puffed up and full of hubris, and those who are dedicated to vested interests rather than those of the nation. Perhaps the most dangerous are those who believe their own propaganda, in business we used to call it “smoking their own dope”, but who have at the same time a tendency to control — a compensation for their own, inherent weakness.

As the Conservatives pick their favourite from a small Parliamentary pool, we have no certainty yet what the next five years and beyond will bring, nor what leaders await, but we do know that the country deserves better than many of the leaders we have had since our nation’s hay day.