James Kirkup James Kirkup

The Conservative party has ceased to be serious

Liz Truss is worst-placed to win over Labour voters. Naturally, she's the favourite.

I’m not sure that the Conservative party wants to win elections. Tom Tugendhat was knocked out of the leadership contest on Monday, and Liz Truss is now the bookies’ favourite to be the next Prime Minister. Any party that thinks the latter beats the former cannot say it is serious.

There are several reasons for Conservatives to ignore me on this topic. First, I’m not a Conservative. Second, Tugendhat and I are friends. Third, I take a view of party politics that seems to be utterly out of fashion these days.

That view is that politics works better when parties try to win the other side’s votes. When Conservatives pursue Labour voters, the worst bits of right-wing conservatism are muted. When Labour woos Tory supporters, the worst bits of the left are sidelined. In practical terms, this means I want Tories to be more compassionate towards the less fortunate, to care more about inequality, and be less starry-eyed about free markets. I want Labour to be more sympathetic towards business, to care more about taxpayers’ money, and be less starry-eyed about state provision of services.

But the Conservative party isn’t thinking practically: it’s talking to itself. The days of Tony Blair – whose priority was to make the other side as uncomfortable as possible – seem a long time ago. David Cameron once told me how much he hated the experience of facing Blair: ‘Every morning, I wake up thinking, “what’s that bloody man going to do to take away my voters today?”’

You can’t go far wrong if you always try to do the thing that your opponent least wants you to do

If the Conservatives had wanted to have a leader with that skill – the strongest popular appeal to the whole electorate – more of them would have voted for Tom Tugendhat.

One Tory friend contacted me over the weekend to explain why they hadn’t: ‘he’s more popular with Labour voters than [with] Tories’, they said.

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