Sajid Javid is trying to racist-tweet his way to the top – but new leadership would do nothing to fix the Tories' mess

My money, god spare us, is on Jeremy Hunt, with Michael Gove continuing his charade as Brexit reasonablist to balance the ticket as campaign manager and chancellor presumptive

If Javid imagines his racial and religious origins offer any defence to the charge of incendiary race-baiting, he must be out of his tiny mind (Reuters)

If anyone was befuddled before by the Conservatives’ time honoured nickname of “The Stupid Party”, there is no excuse for perplexity now.

To what extent its handling of Brexit hadn’t already solved the mystery, every day brings a slew of statements from MPs that belong to a fifth-rate satire on institutional political idiocy.

This weekend, an unnamed “senior plotter” against Theresa May advised her to “bring her own noose” to the imminent gathering of MPs at which she will plead for her life. Always nice to see the argot of the Deep South lynching get a run-out.

Another underlines the nostalgism of the Brexit ultra by comparing her to the predecessor who did so much to enable Hitler. “There is a view that the party would be regarded as irresponsible to replace her now,” opines this genius, “but we did turf out Chamberlain in 1940.” A brilliant analogy in all respects but this. Where, pray, is the Winston waiting in these wings?

As for Johnny “S*** Show” Mercer, the dashing ex-commando reflects on the febrile public mood: “Any disagreement is met by howls of personal abuse. MPs are expected to accept the abuse of their wives, children, homes …”

One day, if universal suffrage ever sets the ball rolling, we might elect MPs with husbands. In their absence, a man touted as the engaging face of Tory modernity mimics the judge who in 1960 asked a jury if they’d let their wives and servants read Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

I could go on, but space is short. So without further preamble, please give it up for Sajid Javid, the master of brevity, for trumping his colleagues’ combined nastiness and nonsense with a single tweet.

“These sick Asian paedophiles,” wrote the home secretary of the 15 men convicted on Friday in Huddersfield, “are finally facing justice.”

If Javid imagines his racial and religious origins offer any defence to the charge of incendiary race-baiting, he must be out of his tiny mind.

Only his mind can’t be that tiny. If it was, he’d be an amoeba. And you don’t emerge from a childhood like his, as a brown-skinned kid in a tiny flat above a corner store in a rough part of Bristol, to be Deutche Bank’s MD and soar tracelessly through the Tory ranks if you are one of those.

That said, even an amoeba, and not a smart one, would rumble his game.

Javid is the current favourite to succeed May, albeit by a whisker in an ante post market as tight, crowded and shifting as any Grand National’s.

But he is the front runner, and front runners do not last the distance in this steeplechase. Rab Butler (twice), Willie Whitelaw, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke (twice), David Davis, latterly Boris Johnson... never has the favourite won this race.

In that light, and ruling out a clumsy slip from such a cautious and calculating operator, there are two explanations for his insertion of the A-word.

Either he wanted lengthen his odds to escape that favourite’s curse. Or days before May’s moment of maximum danger, he was hoping to steal a few lengths on the field by sending the message that his party can trust him to be just as cynically unpleasant to people from his own religious and ethnic background as Burqa Boris and any other runner.

It takes something special to be properly shocked by a Tory as their civil war hurtles towards a full implosion. This is doubly special.

A Muslim man with experience of racism gratuitously snuggled “Asians” between “sick” and “paedophiles” à la Tommy Robinson. A home secretary responsible for preventing racist violence increases the risk of racist attacks more.

Until now, there were two reasons for contemplating Javid’s ascent to the top job with something like excitement. No bald person has been prime minister in the television age. And no person of colour has led a major party, let alone one as riven by old school racism.

Of the pair, the latter probably made most appeal to those of a liberal perspective, though possibly least to the geriatric rural and suburban xenophobes who dominate the membership that selects the leader from a shortlist of two.

If Javid’s A-bomb blows them away with admiration, perhaps enough MPs will recoil in shell-shocked horror to keep him out of the final two. It wasn’t guaranteed before that he’d make the shortlist, of course – but look at the choice when May falls.

David Davis, running on the: “I was a pancontinental laughing stock as negotiator for two years… so you know you can trust me as chief negotiator with weeks to go” platform.

Boris, whose name speaks as adequate rebuttal in itself. Moggy, ditto. Dominic Raab, Davis’s successor as Brexit secretary, and another no-deal nihilist at heart.

My money, God spare us, is on Jeremy Hunt, with Michael Gove continuing his charade as Brexit reasonablist to balance the ticket as campaign manager (well, he did such a bang-up job for Boris) and chancellor presumptive.

But then I know ‘nuffin, just as none of the above knows any better than May how to construct a deal to get past the EU27 and/or through the Commons.

This is not a rationale for sticking with her. The object now of spiteful derision to every wing of a party united in no other way, she deserves a swift exit.

That won’t alter the Brexit fundamentals an iota. We will remain utterly screwed so long as this abomination of a government remains in nominal control of the process.

But when the time comes, for the sake of common decency you have to hope that the Stupid Party has the minimal sense to know Javid’s wilfully obscene dog whistle for what it is, and run like a pack of startled whippets in the opposite direction.