In the latest episode of the long-running British sitcom known as the Conservative Party, we find our protagonists—if one can use such a term for people whose primary skill is professional failure—engaged in a spirited debate over whether the United Kingdom is merely 'resting' or functionally deceased. Kemi Badenoch, the newly minted leader of a party currently occupying the electoral equivalent of a shallow grave, has taken aim at Robert Jenrick for his audacious suggestion that the country might actually be 'broken.' To Badenoch, describing the nation as 'finished' is a morale-sapping faux pas, a bit of bad manners that 'drags people down.' It is the political equivalent of standing on the deck of the Titanic and insisting that the rising seawater is simply a bold new architectural choice for an indoor swimming pool.

There is something profoundly pathological about the Tory psyche that allows for this level of cognitive dissonance. For fourteen years, this collection of careerists, landlord-apologists, and hedge-fund hangers-on held the levers of power, pulling them with the grace of a caffeinated gibbon. Now, relegated to the sidelines by an electorate that finally realized 'austerity' was just a fancy word for 'starving the public sector to pay for a divorce from our neighbors,' they are fighting over branding. Badenoch’s philosophy is a masterclass in toxic positivity. Her argument rests on the assumption that if the British public simply stops noticing the crumbling schools, the twelve-hour wait times in A&E, and the fact that their currency buys roughly three-quarters of a sourdough loaf, everything will be fine. It is the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' mantra repurposed as a suicide pact. To Badenoch, reality is a choice, and she chooses to believe that Britain is a vibrant, sovereign powerhouse that is just one 'anti-woke' speech away from total restoration.

On the other side of this intellectual desert stands Robert Jenrick, a man who has suddenly discovered the concept of 'brokenness' now that he is no longer in a position to fix it. Jenrick’s sudden conversion to the church of realism is as cynical as it is transparent. He spent his time in government being a dutiful soldier for the very policies that led to the current malaise, yet now he wishes to wrap himself in the cloak of the 'truth-teller.' He claims the country is 'finished' in its current state, not because he possesses some deep-seated concern for the citizenry, but because it serves his brand of populist grievance-mongering. He isn’t offering a solution; he’s offering a post-mortem performed by the person who held the pillow over the victim’s face. It is the ultimate grift: burn the house down for the insurance money, then complain about the draft.

This internecine squabble highlights the utter vacuum at the heart of the British Right. They are not debating how to repair the infrastructure or revitalize the economy; they are debating how to gaslight the survivors. Badenoch fears that honesty will lead to a 'death spiral' of pessimism, seemingly unaware that the spiral ended years ago and the nation is currently at the bottom of the hole looking up at the dirt. She views the British people not as constituents to be served, but as a focus group that needs to be tricked into a better mood. Her refusal to admit that anything is fundamentally wrong is a breathtaking display of intellectual cowardice. It is the hallmark of a political class that has spent so long in the Westminster bubble that they have forgotten that 'hope' is not a substitute for a functioning sewage system.

Meanwhile, the British Left—if we are still pretending the current Labour government represents anything other than 'Tory-Lite with better PR'—watches this slap-fight with the smugness of a vulture watching two dying jackals fight over a dry bone. The tragedy of the Badenoch-Jenrick dispute is that neither side is actually interested in the truth. One wants to lie to you so you feel better; the other wants to tell you the truth so you’ll hate the right people. Both are equally useless. The country is not 'broken' in the way a vase is broken; it is ossified, stuck in a cycle of managed decline overseen by people who are more concerned with their standing in the Spectator's social columns than with the material reality of the people they ostensibly represent.

The debate over whether to use the word 'broken' is the final indignity. It suggests that the problem is linguistic rather than structural. If we just call the decline 'a transition' or 'a period of spirited recalibration,' perhaps the ghosts of the Victorian era will return to bail us out. But reality doesn't care about Kemi’s optimism or Robert’s doom. The potholes remain, the bills continue to rise, and the Conservative Party continues to argue about the color of the drapes in a house that has no roof. It is a pathetic spectacle, a funeral where the mourners are fighting over who gets the deceased’s watch while the body is still warm. In the end, it doesn’t matter if Badenoch wins the argument or if Jenrick does. The result is the same: a nation being led by people who wouldn't recognize the truth if it bit them in their heavily subsidized assets.