Tom Jones is joined by Critic editor Graham Stewart to walk through February’s issue of The Critic, an edition shaped by political currents swirling faster than anybody in Westminster can keep up with - except the Critic, obviously.
They begin with Graham’s leader on the Conservative Party’s accelerating fracture. defections, internal hostility to Reform, and the circling centrists, eager to take back control of the party that was once theirs. All these concerns will be rendered insignificant, however, next to the fundamental question. If the Conservatives are no longer the main right-of-centre party in Britain, what exactly is the case for voting Tory?
They also touch on Chris Bayliss’s column on Reform’s growing pains, asking whether the tension between recruiting “normal people” and finding candidates who can survive modern political life, and the overlooked problem of talent and governability that will continue to dog Reform.
The conversation then turns transatlantic with Kristen Zi…
