PEOPLE have been saying to me "Bri, are the Tories really finished? What has happened to this great party that was created on the backs of the working class yet totally failed to bury them?" - writes Cllr Brian Smedley, Leader of Bridgwater Town Council.

And I say "I know. I’d like to help, I really would."

Because it’s something close to my heart - how has the party that has held the country by the throat for so long, reinvented itself so many times just to cling on to its money-given grip on power for nearly two centuries, fallen to the current state it’s in?

And that’s very, very, very, very sad. I’d add another ‘very’ but I’m clearly trying to be neutral here.

Of course, me, I care very deeply about what the Tory party does.

I mean I’ve seen what the little scamps have done, but it’s what they might do next.

And here in Somerset, land of the landed and home of the second homed, if it’s going badly here then watch out Windsor and Henley!

So, what has happened? I don’t think they helped themselves by calling that Brexit referendum you know.

Most Tories I know (that's one) didn’t want to leave the EU, yet the referendum handed their own party to the ones that did - or didn’t, but then had to pretend they did.

We all remember the ‘Brexit means Brexit (means Brexit)’ government, where they had to hand power to the Ulster Unionists to make sure they still had a moral compass, but that just meant the Tories would never really get it done - hence the rise of Reform UK.

Then the county Tories had a great idea for a new unitary county, which they won, and then lost.

They won the idea not by asking the people, but by getting their government to impose it.

But then lost the election, so now the Lib Dems run the Tory unitary, but don’t worry, still with the mess the Tories left it in.

And then…oh no, silly Tories! They also abolished the districts, which meant Sedgemoor, the last one that always went Tory. Silly, silly Tories.

And then…they lost every Somerset constituency…apart from Bridgwater…and they only just held that against a strong Labour challenge.

So, I’m trying hard to think of a role for the last Tory standing in Bridgwater, I really am.

They don’t have a government, they don’t have a county, they don’t have a district, they NEVER had the town, but they do have this one member of parliament. But with no influence at all.

What a sad, sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd.

If only Covid was still going on so I could have a massive party to celebrate.