The wonder of wine from the Mosel

Conservatives used to be good at inspiring a mass membership, underpinned by organisations. Before the first world war, the Primrose League had a million members. Shortly after the second war, the party’s membership, including the Young Conservatives, reached three million. This is partly explained by the social mores of the day. The range of available leisure activities was much smaller, there was no television, and parents were happy for their daughters to join the YCs, the assumption being that the girl would meet a nice type of young man.

It is easy to understand why German oenophiles insist Riesling is the greatest grape of all

All that is redolent of a vanished age. But this has consequences. Traditionally, local associations, including YCs, were the party’s foot soldiers. They did the canvassing, the knocking on doors, the patrolling of polling stations. But in recent elections, it has been hard to recruit the troops. The latest estimates suggest that the party has fewer than 150,000 members, and they may not be all that sprightly: better at reminiscing about Mrs Thatcher’s glory days than at pounding up the stairs in a council block.

There is a further factor. Recent decades have seen a tendency for the leadership to distance itself from the voluntary party in order to project a new image. This has been successful: look at the current frontbench. But there has been a cost. A lot of party members feel undervalued. There are hints that the hierarchy believes that too many activists are stale, pale and male. Some of those locals, who see nothing wrong with being pale or male, and be damned to the charge of staleness, are inclined to deliver a rude retort, while wondering if Nigel Farage is wholly unacceptable. At least he does not insult his members.