BY JON ALEXANDER

So here we are. 2019 is here. New Years resolutions are made and quickly forgotten, some will be making big changes while others seek to keep things going as they are. So what politically can we expect?

The answer is not very much unless the Tories can get their act together and provide the country with a much-needed Government.

So far, the Theresa May led minority government has pretty much been paralysed since the disastrous 2017 election. We now have a governing party that has manoeuvred itself into limbo, it’s scared to do anything in case it collapses itself. How long can this situation go on for?

Most Conservative MPs will say once Brexit has happened things will return to normal, but no one is massively convinced, after all these are uncertain times.

These didn’t need to be uncertain times but thanks to Mrs May they are. After the internal Tory no confidence vote in her in December things are even more uncertain, she has already had to concede that she won’t fight another General Election (although she never really fought the last one, hence the Tories’ problem). Still, May hasn’t given a firm commitment to leaving office yet either, which will still worry a lot of voters. Currently, May can only rely on 200 MPs to support her, 117 who may or may not back her depending on what she tries to do, and 10 DUP MPs who are already unhappy with her. Not a good look, is it?

May’s supporters are still vocal but have become a rapidly diminishing crowd, whereas Jeremy Corbyn’s core support has stayed the same. Theresa was brought in on a tidal wave of “safe pair of hands”, “Maggie Mark II” and “she’s the best woman for the job”, “nobody else will accomplish what Theresa can” and here she is probably regretting ever having decided “strong and stable” was the best campaign slogan she could have used.

May’s has been a pretty shambolic Premiership which promised so much and delivered so little. She and Corbyn are much more alike than either of their fanbases will admit to – both are out of touch, both have ideals not fitting with their own parties and both need the other to make them look better at their job – a bizarre political symbiosis. However, none of this benefits the voter.

May’s camp will constantly point to her “resilience” and her ability to come out of most damaging situations OK, but realistically none ask themselves why she’s constantly having these problems. Even if we were not experiencing Brexit she would still struggle to come across as competent. Sure, if there were no other issues going on in the world or domestically, if everything was running amazingly well and we required someone to just attend official functions then she would more than likely do an excellent job but anything other than that and we have a problem. Where is her leadership?

A friend of mine used to say – “you can teach anybody to be a manager, follow HR rules and guide others through their jobs…but you can’t teach leadership. You can’t teach someone to inspire others, you can’t teach someone to be a leader.” And this is so true.

May’s supporters will constantly bellow out the “but there was no one else” line, which is simply untrue. There are plenty of candidates, sadly however the party was desperate to play identity politics and bought into this new generation Margaret Thatcher. Now, we get to sit and watch the next twelve months as she tries to get her policies through Parliament, we get to watch her lose, her MPs sit and watch as it dawns on them that they can’t remove her until December of this year  – they are paralysed.

In June 2016, we had so much to look forward to, so much going for us as a country and we’ve slowly watched May trundle around the country flicking her hair whilst declaring “Brexit means Brexit”. Again, we were told how hard working she is, which reminded me of office workers at a Head Office I visited once for a building society – everyone trotted around shuffling papers and telling everyone how busy they were yet nothing ever seemed to get done and everyone was always missing deadlines.

The Tories still have a lot to offer the electorate, especially in a post-Brexit Britain. They can still win a majority and go back to being The Conservative Party not Blue Labour. They need to break this stalemate with Labour and offer a fresh vision for the future, fight back and be a proper, decent government.