Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

Things can always get worse

[Getty Images]

As I was saying, way back in July, it is hard to love the Conservative party. Every time it tries to navigate another bend in the road it ends up causing a disaster even its most ardent critics could not have foreseen. ‘Things can’t get any worse,’ said rebels in the party while Boris Johnson was still PM, before the summer. Then we were introduced to Liz Truss. Now, within weeks of her taking office, you can hear members of the parliamentary party saying with vigour: ‘She has to go.’ At which point I feel the country wanting to place our collective heads in our hands, yell and walk away.

Does anyone have time for all this? Does the Conservative party just plan to hold endless leadership contests in perpetuity while the country looks on?

At such moments it is easy to wish the whole thing gone: the whole inefficient, complacent, forever infighting party. I find that watching the Conservatives in conference does not banish this thought. Yet of course our system does not allow for this. Were we Italy, the Netherlands or any number of other countries, the Conservative party would have gone the way that so many dysfunctional parties have. In our system it stays in place, primarily if not solely because of the alternatives.

Next election, as ever, there is the possibility of a hung parliament and some Labour-SNP pact, which carves up the United Kingdom by means fair or foul. Or there is the simple prospect of a Labour landslide. And it is this possibility that is becoming, by the day, ever less scary.

‘Your call for unity got a mixed response.’

In London in recent days there has been a constant refrain. People are saying that it is perhaps time for the Conservative party to spend some years on the opposition benches, if for no other reason than to stop the infighting and scheming and to help them realise that the price of political failure includes political defeat.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in