Get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen as he investigates a world that seems to get ever more crazy, with leading commentators, columnists and politicians.
Each week, leading commentator Nick Cohen talks to the country's leading movers and shakers - to cut the through much of the noise and commentary that passes for so much political discourse these days. Nick - a long-term columnist for The Observer and The Spectator - teams up with other commentators, journalists, authors and politicians to make sense of our ever stranger and troubling world. Nick aims to help keep you sane! So please get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen and subscribe to his Substack column - Writing from London.
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Get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen as he investigates a world that seems to get ever more crazy, with leading commentators, columnists and politicians.
Each week, leading commentator Nick Cohen talks to the country's leading movers and shakers - to cut the through much of the noise and commentary that passes for so much political discourse these days. Nick - a long-term columnist for The Observer and The Spectator - teams up with other commentators, journalists, authors and politicians to make sense of our ever stranger and troubling world. Nick aims to help keep you sane! So please get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen and subscribe to his Substack column - Writing from London.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nick Cohen and commentator Nick Tyrone discuss the rise of the radicalised right in the UK and ask why the Conservatives won't fight against the extremists in their midst and party. Instead, some Tories are have buckled to the siren voices of intolerance and extremism. They are dragging their party further to the extremes by trying to outflank Nigel Farage & Reform on the right.
Right wing extremism becomes ever more extreme
Nick Tyrone says, "We've come so far that Farage is starting to look relatively moderate compared to some of the stuff that's even happening within the conservative party now. That's how scary things have become."
Nick adds, "I have my doubts that however much money you threw at it, that a sort of a party that was sort of Rupert Lowe shaped like, was sort of that right wing could actually succeed to a huge degree in Britain. ... you could do it in a boiling frog sort of a way. I think you could get a, a government elected that on a much more moderate platform that, so that kept turning up the dial and got more and more right wing and, and if that government was producing, you know, economic growth and was eliminating some of the bigger problems they got the NHS working, they would probably be given leeway to do some fairly terrible right wing stuff."
Conservatives wont defend conservatism - inevitability of Jenrick leadership
Nick says, "Robert Jenrick is going to be the conservative leader unless Jenrick jumps to reform, which I don't think he will, but I can't rule that out. Yeah, it's gonna be Jenrick. And again, it's that sort of thing. Well, what do the moderates do? And the answer seems to be not very much. And just sort of go along and hope somewhere along the line everything works out. I think Jenrick could take them further to the right than reform. and what happens when that happens? I don't know. I mean, I can say, well, I don't think that'll work."
Possible malevolent force could take over the UK
Nick Tyrone says, "I can't really emphasise enough every time I come on how completely all over the place the Tories are and what a mess they are. So in the end it's totally possible that some real malevolent force could take hold in British politics."
Nick Tyrone is an author, activist, policy advisor and commentator and keen observer of the Tory party whose Substack column as Neoliberal Centrist Dad - nick.tyrone.substack.com - is a must read for those of us desperate for the return of sanity to our national political discourse.
Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.
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