The way ahead for the Conservatives

If we political pundits were truly blessed with the gift of accurate prophecy, we would not be writing about one of the most sordid subjects known to man. We would be earning shedloads of money as astrologers, with premium-rate telephone lines conveying our charlatanry to the masses, and conveying the masses’ money back to us. Since by the time you read this we will be having, or will just have had, the most unpredictable election of modern times, it is harder than ever to base any argument on its likely outcome. I had better risk humiliation, therefore, by stating that what follows is based on the unkind assumption that on Friday afternoon Mrs Michael Howard will not be measuring up for curtains in No. 10 Downing Street.

A third consecutive defeat is something that has not happened to the Conservative party since December 1910, when Asquith received a mandate of sorts to proceed with reform of the Lords in the face of the Upper House’s recalcitrance over the People’s Budget of the previous year. Even then, though, the Liberal government could rule only with the help of Irish Nationalists, a fact that itself would make the next few years fraught with difficulties, even before the Great War turned up. Perhaps a surge in support for the successor party, the Liberal Democrats, at this election will have helped let in dozens of Tory candidates. Perhaps Mr Blair’s majority might be drastically reduced or obliterated altogether. Perhaps. But with the party bumping along in the low to mid-30s in the opinion polls, and even when faced with a discredited prime minister and government, that overall Tory victory looks as far away as ever.

So what should the Tories do now? Irrespective of whether they have hardly improved their position at all, or whether they have made substantial gains, one thing is vital: stability.