A working-class hero pitch from the Tories' chief food bank apologist | John Crace

Esther McVey’s 15-min launch was hopefully the last we’ll hear from her leadership bid

The phoney war is over. Tory MPs have given up even pretending the prime minister is of any importance. Theresa May is now officially a non-person. Not even a disembodied, metallic Maybot gurgle. A woman without credibility. Her dreams of bringing back her withdrawal agreement bill not even treated as an indulgence. She is the joke that has long since stopped being funny. In Stalinist Russia, she would already have been airbrushed out of every politburo photograph.

May’s departure is seen as not so much imminent as hopelessly overdue. A zombie government being led by someone without even the vital signs of a zombie. Now it’s every Tory for themselves, with more than 20 MPs – and counting – having declared themselves as candidates for the party leadership. Even though there is as yet no vacancy. As tumbleweed continues to pile up in the Commons, no opportunity for a photoshoot or a “wide-ranging” speech – preferably both – goes unmissed.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2HDPhHr