SCAPEGOATS are very fashionable in modern day society.
On the football field, it is almost invariably the manager.
Things may be going wrong throughout the club – players failing to fulfil their potential, money being squandered off-the-field – but the buck almost inevitably stops with the public face.
So the manager gets the sack, a new person is appointed and everyone thinks things will turn out fine.
Yet, in truth, the club’s problems remain under the surface.
The same thing is happening right now to Prime Minister Theresa May.
Her ‘crime’ was heading a very poor General Election campaign – I’m not being biased by claiming that, it’s generally accepted on both sides of the political offence.
So now Mrs May is being blamed for the ills of the ruling Conservative Party and much of what is going wrong in the country.
And rather like when the knives are out for a manager, everything seems to go wrong when a person is on the slide.
Today Mrs May was accosted during her conference speech by a prankster handing her a P45.
It was a crass act in many ways and one she could not be blamed for – yet it highlights my point.
For all her words have now been lost compared with this poignant image that her time is up.
The Conservatives generally are a clever bunch – far more clever than any football club.
If she had been a football manager, she’d have received her P45 the moment the dust was settling on her disastrous election result.
But the Tories realise that they have not yet reached rock bottom.
In reality, they had three main barriers to ousting their leader.
Firstly, it wasn’t sensible to sack a leader who had just retained their grip on power. Had they done so, another General Election would have happened within months.
Secondly, they don’t have an outstanding candidate to put in her place.
I think we can rest assured that the current rumblings and bumblings of Boris Johnson are purely an entertaining, if distasteful, sideshow. His opportunity to become leader has come and gone.
And, thirdly, the country is in a highly unstable financial state.
Although they will not publicly admit it, the possibility of another economic crash – starting with either the banks or the stock market – is very high.
If they are going to hang out Mrs May as a scapegoat, they want her to take the brunt of further bad news – and not allow her successor to get off on the wrong foot.
So Mrs May is on borrowed time, there is no doubt about that.
But when she does go, we need as a general public to be more aware than the average football fan.
For the real problems in this country run far deeper than Mrs May’s limited vision.
The establishment would love to hang her out to dry and convince everyone that she rather than they have been leading us down the wrong path.
Mrs May is just a puppet. She has served her time and will be disposed of.
But the mess we find ourselves in now will not go away………..