How to lose elections

When a political party is in trouble, we see infighting, leak inquiries, resignations, mass loss of council seats, dismissals and botched attempts to depose the leader. But when a party implodes, something different happens: it loses the ability to defend or explain itself. An imploding party can and will lose any argument, no matter how strong its track record. The Tories entered this terminal stage under John Major after the disastrous local elections of 1995, which were followed by their landslide defeat of 1997. With the party now having had its worst set of election since 1995, it looks very much like they might be entering it again.

When John Major left, the economy was in such good shape that it took a typically overspending, over-regulating Labour government a whole decade to ruin it. Wages were at an all-time high, as was disposable income — and yet the Tories were still wiped out. Why? Because they came across as a feuding, disgraceful shambles; a sorry pantomime, which voters wished to bring to an end. Tories are yet again obsessed with their own party, more interested in settling scores than in governing or defeating Labour. They seem unable to work out what they got right, let alone where they are going wrong.

University reform, for example, has been a progressive success. It never made sense for the government to subsidise wealthy students — for as long as the huge subsidies existed, student numbers had to be capped. The fee was expanded to £9,000 and the cap removed. The result: vast expansion, more offers, and more students from poor backgrounds going to university than ever before. Graduates who don’t go on to earn much will never be asked to repay the whole fee. Yet all it took was an attack by Jeremy Corbyn for the Tories to put the entire policy under ‘review’.