What is there left to say about the Tories?

Spare a thought for us political commentators. We stare into the void between now and a (presumed) decisive Labour victory in a (presumed) autumn general election, haunted by the need to say something significant on a weekly basis at least. Yet there seems so little left to say.

Readers don’t need to be told that the Tories are in an unholy mess, or that nobody likes them

Until recently we could perhaps speculate that the election might be next month but it’s surely too late now even for that surprise. So ‘autumn’, we say: no surprise there. We think we know the winner too: Labour, easily. I struggle with betting terminology but a glance at online odds suggests to me that if you bet £5 there’ll be an election in October-December 2024 and win, you’ll get £6 back. And if you bet successfully on the next prime minister you’d get £6 for every £5 you put on Keir Starmer.

That’s hardly even gambling. Nobody thinks these outcomes are interesting because they can predict them with such assurance. But – assuming that we commentators are tasked with writing a thousand or so words every week until (say) Thursday 21 November 2024 – we have another 32,000 words to write. This is the length of a small book. Whatever are we going to write about?

We’ll do our best to fill the void. There are various ruses. A favourite is what one might call the light novelist’s approach:

‘Glancing at his menu as the prime minister sat down for the Confederation of British Industry’s annual lunch last Monday – a smoked salmon mousse with cucumber and dill to start, then chicken breast with a tarragon cream sauce and herb-roasted potatoes, followed by miniature chocolate eclairs – Rishi Sunak could have been forgiven for feeling glum.