Nick Cohen gets the end of the year Lowdown from author, historian and novelist James Hawes as both contemplate the prospects of a general election in 2024.

The last 13-14 years of Tory misrule has brought the successive disasters of austerity, Brexit, Boris Johnson, the Great Covid Bungle,  Lettuce Truss , the  so called Cost of Living Crisis, a crisis hugely exacerbated by Brexit. The list goes on and on - but Nick and James hope that won't apply to the Tories.

Nick is more hopeful of the electoral wipe-out the Tories richly deserve but James is more cautious,  believing that somehow the tribal English Tory vote will rally to the clarion lies of The Daily Mail  - despite the obvious weirdness of Rishi Sunak and the cataclysmic mis-governance .of the last 13 and a half years

Both agree the defeat of the Tories - now little more than an English nationalist party - isimperative  if the UK is to rescued from its dizzying descent to poverty and irrelevance or even saved in its current form.

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