In the poem To a Louse, he writes, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us. To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae many a blunder free us, An foolish notion.”

The world is looking in, and the US, being further down this path of political decline, has much to say that is relevant, honest, and timely. Prime Minister Truss and her fantasy free market fundamentalism has rightly been the focus of outrage. US coverage however points out that her policies had the support of a majority of Tory MPs and a totally unrepresentative group of party members and her Cabinet. This suggests a deeper crisis for the Tory party and government as they struggle to find a role in the world, a sense of purpose at home and a new political identity, which post Thatcher has eluded them: a political wilderness of their own making is the lesson from America.

We are too close to the insanity of Conservative behaviour in the UK, where anger and partisan prejudice kick in. A more rational discussion seems impossible.

The US coverage is insightful.

First, the Tory party in the House of Commons is beyond divided, with factions and fearsome hatreds creating instability and a lack of direction. As Abraham Lincoln said: “A house divided against itself, cannot stand”.

Secondly, populism dominates Tory thinking at Westminster. Power has become more important than purpose and people are mere election fodder.

And thirdly, amidst the divisions and the drive for populism, three other qualities dominate - ideology, incompetence, and idiocy. Rarely found in one political party, now they are in one place and at the same time.

The White House, Washington DC. Those watching the decay of democracy in the US have offered some valuable insight into the political farce at play in the UK, writes Henry McLeish.

Post-Thatcher, the Tories have been looking for a project. They found Brexit, described widely in the US as an act of collective suicide or insanity, and totally at odds with the UK’s long -term interests. Then “levelling up” went live and “never went beyond a slogan.”

Why has today’s Tory party and Government never looked at or learned lessons from other successful countries? It is a question often asked in America and answers are obvious. Our crisis ridden democracy and governance is firmly rooted in the past where memories of Empire, delusions of grandeur and simple conceit, conspire to rule out modernity and any new sense of purpose or new direction.

Respected journalist Eugene Robinson, writing in the Washington Post, said “Liz Truss’s fall is a warning to populists everywhere. The markets decided Truss and her cabinet were nuts, in one of the world’s biggest and traditionally most stable economies”, and “If you leave aside politics and her embrace of voodoo economics, the Conservative Party is in power because it embraced populism which turns out to be an effective way to win elections, but an impossible way to govern”.

In the US, there is a consensus that all roads lead back to Brexit. Robinson adds that Britain is having a harder time than the EU countries in dealing with the economic shocks of the pandemic and the Ukraine war. Completing his analysis of Conservative woes, he writes: “Keep in mind how easy it is to write a bumper sticker and how hard it is to govern in a complex, interconnected world. British Conservatives have pandered their way to ruin”.

Meanwhile, former Conservative Minister Rory Stewart, now teaching at Harvard, commented: “Only a nation which was gripped by pessimism and despair and no longer believed that there could be a serious response to its unfolding tragedies would want to take refuge in the leadership of a clown”.

Few in the US believe this shambolic Government is entirely the fault of Liz Truss. Heather Cox Richardson, an American Historian at Boston University and a blogger of some distinction, said Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy, the minority Republican leader in the House of Representatives, are fans of this “terrifying supply side economic growth plan” which looks like McCarthy’s “Commitment to America” plan and endorsed by MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans in the run up to the midterm elections now only two weeks

away.

In a further linking of Tory woes with Brexit, Cox Richardson argues that “many observers see in the Truss debacle a condemnation of the isolationist nationalism of the past decade, sparked by the 2016 Brexit”. Foreign affairs experts in the US blame Brexit for the instability in the UK, the internal disintegration of the Conservative government, and its bitterly divided parliamentary caucus. This begs the question, what is modern Conservatism?

Early talk of Boris 2.0, where party, populism and the lust for power is everything and governing is an inconvenience, just adds to the perception in the US that the UK, under current political management, requires “special measures,” to aid a recovery. Or like the Republican Party, is this Conservative party, only answerable to “God and history” and themselves? America is further down this path.

Journalist and commentator Fareed Zakaria, in his Global Briefing, talked about “an unstable Britain” and “welcome to Britaly”, with his comments picked up by the Economist magazine. He said: “The instability that used to mark Italy has finally infected Britain, just as Italy became the plaything of the Bond markets, so they are now visibly in charge of Britain and Britain’s low growth problem has become more entrenched.”

One decaying democracy is recognising another. Are Conservative MPs content to follow their Republican brothers and sisters in the US Congress or step back from the brink? Britain’s future will depend on their answer.

In the US, one decaying democracy is recognising another - Henry McLeish