Sam Ashworth-Hayes

If a country’s greatness can be measured by its enemies, Britain can set fears of national decline aside: we’re still doing pretty damn well. Now that the Queen’s funeral has taken place, the dignitaries have been despatched, and the corgis are in good hands, it seems like the right time to take stock. Most of the world's leaders, from president Biden to president Putin, have paid their respects to Britain’s late monarch, and sent their sorrow to Britain’s mourning people. The exceptions have been few, and noisily promoted by American media organisations desperate to make every world event somehow a commentary on domestic US politics.  The best response to this is simply to ignore it.

While Boris Johnson used his farewell speech to praise the ‘vital symmetry between government action and free market capitalist private sector enterprise’, the formerly free market Liz Truss was busy briefing out price caps on energy. There are only three possible explanations for this sudden change of heart: No. 10 is haunted by the malign ghost of Clement Attlee, the building is riddled with lead piping, or the electoral incentives facing the Conservative party are so perverse that when push comes to shove, even free marketeers are willing to abandon the free market in the race to expropriate from the young to pay for the old. Given that Truss has yet to officially enter her new residence, my money is on the last option.

Britain has a bold new plan for dealing with a winter energy crisis: ‘hope for good weather’. It’s hard to see what else is on offer; nobody seems to be seriously discussing what the government can do to secure energy supplies through the winter, how households will heat their homes, and whether we should rescue businesses driven to bankruptcy by soaring energy prices. The state is braindead until Boris Johnson finally departs. His potential successors are engaged in hard-hitting discussions over whether it’s possible to hold a budget without OBR forecasts, or whether tax cuts will drive inflation higher.

England is in the grip of its most widespread drought in 20 years. Water companies are implementing hosepipe bans. Half the country’s potato crop is expected to fail. Photographs of reservoirs show them drained, dry banks open to the sky. Another heatwave is here, bringing little prospect of imminent relief. Britain hasn’t built a reservoir since 1991. The population has grown. Hot weather has become more frequent. Water use has become more strained. The barriers to actually doing something about it remain in place. Take Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West. As late as March, she was doing the media rounds vigorously opposing the construction of a new reservoir in Abingdon; it would be unsightly, the population projections might be wrong, she said.

The combination of '40°C temperatures' and 'England' feels about as natural a pairing as 'English football' and 'winning'; God simply did not intend the two to go together as they did this week. And although it feels odd to have to point it out, there’s nothing conservative about believing climate change isn’t a problem. Turning England’s green and pleasant land into scorched savanna should not really be on the manifesto of the least important backbencher, let alone anyone with an aspiration to influence policy. This message has yet to penetrate the cranial shielding of some MPs. Sir John Hayes told the Daily Telegraph we found ourselves in 'a cowardly new world where we live in a country where we are frightened of the heat.

While Britain bakes in a heatwave, politicians in Germany are worrying about the winter. The Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom has notified its European customers that it can no longer guarantee the supply of fuel due to ‘extraordinary’ circumstances. In Berlin, politicians and regulators are preparing for an ice-cold Christmas, drawing up lists for rationing priorities and emergency plans to stop the population freezing. Entertainment and frivolities will be the first things to go, while newspapers and medical production will be prioritised alongside households and hospitals. Mothballed coal power plants are being prepared for reactivation.

The clouds have cleared, the fog has lifted, clarity has arrived. The first reaction to finding out Penny Mordaunt was well ahead in the polls and the favourite to win the leadership contest – ‘who again?’ – has passed. But after reading a little of her work, I am now convinced that Penny Mordaunt would make a great leader – of the Labour party. For the Conservatives, she would be a complete disaster. There is little in Mordaunt’s public record that suggests she is particularly amenable to Conservative views. The core thrust of her book (written with Chris Lewis) is that Britain needs to be ‘modernised’ – a word that to conservatives generally signals ‘made more amenable to Blairites’. The Houses of Parliament?

The Tory leadership contenders have set out their pitches. Rishi Sunak is the sensible but boring choice. Liz Truss is the candidate who will cut taxes and get stuff done. Kemi Badenoch is the wildcard. Penny Mordaunt has vowed to restore the Tory ‘sense of self’. And Tom Tugendhat will up defence spending. But what about another option: none of the above. In this dismal election, there are plenty of reasons to think that might be the best choice of all. Let’s start at the top. The word that best defines Rishi Sunak is ‘chutzpah’. The former chancellor packed his launch speech with fulsome praise for Boris Johnson, describing him as 'one of the most remarkable people I have ever met'.

Whatever else will be said about him in the days and years to come, Boris Johnson will leave No. 10 having achieved the full extent of his policy ambitions: become Prime Minister. After a little under three years in office, Johnson has been reduced to the status of squatter in Downing Street, pottering about with a cabinet consisting of Nadine Dorries and pocket lint, grumbling about leakers and betrayers. Having successfully weaned itself off foxhunting, the Conservative party meanwhile is preparing for another bout of its favourite triennial bloodsport.

Downing Street has come up with another cunning plan to fix the housing crisis: 50-year mortgages, passed from parent to child. No longer will your ability to afford a home be dependent on your earnings. Once the scheme is in place, you will be able to borrow against the incomes of your future children, in a heart-warming recreation of the age-old tradition of indentured labour. The reasoning goes something like this: young people can’t afford to buy homes. Not only can they not afford to buy homes, they can’t afford to save for deposits. While accommodation has grown ever more cramped – with space per person dropping a quarter between 1996 and 2012 – rents have continued to eat into incomes.