John Burn-Murdoch has one of his incredibly good data-journalism articles in the FT this morning. He is tackling a theme I have also addressed this morning when discussing the future of the Conservative Party.
As he shows, using data, it was Johnson who set the Tories on the path to their current electoral defeat. All that Truss and Sunak have done is compound the problem by tacking right, appearing incompetent, and failing to comprehend reality.
The graphs are useful in his argument, but this time the words are better.
To be clear, the split on the right has done considerable additional harm, amplified by the capricious nature of the first-past-the-post voting system. But that has turned what was already on course to be a top-five worst-ever defeat into what seems set to be the all-time worst.
He added:
Uniting the right is a necessary step on the way to the Conservatives' return to power, but it is far from sufficient to deliver it. At best it gets them back to where they were under Johnson: a dysfunctional party disliked and distrusted by most of the electorate, trailing some distance behind Labour in the polls.
He concluded:
The reason the Tories stand on the brink of a historic defeat is a slow, rolling competence shock that has alienated voters across the spectrum, not just a few months of insurgency on their right flank.
Is there a way back for the Tories from that? Not if they continue to move right. They have lost that ground to Farage, and he won't be giving it up in a hurry.
Electing Kemi Badneoch as leader when she is so obviously out of total touch with reality is not going to address that issue for them. It will instead alienate more people. So that can't work, although it would seem that many in the Tories think otherwise, which is precisely why they are in trouble.
But nor can they move towards the centre: Labour has become the party of the centre-right. There is no space left for the Tories there.
So, what options are there for the Tories? No good ones at all, I would suggest. The reality is that Johnson did for them, firstly by delivering a deeply flawed Brexit (or by delivering any form of Brexit, come to that) and by expelling the left of the party - where much of what competence it had was to be found. I can't see a path back for them within decades, and can happily live with that thought.
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Edited
Thanks
The re-emergence of Reform, and spotlighted as a functioning electoral Party (i.e., highlighted in Clacton – see C4 News, Thursday), has brought out the character of usually deeply buried element of Conservatism. This is a Conservative support well hidden since the 1930s, and has its roots in social and political prejudices inherited from the nineteenth century, and before. We are not surprised when we contend with three hundred year old british prejudices in northern Ireland, but the Conservative Party, hitherto has hidden its elemental tolerance of its own ancient prejudices, much, much more effectively – until now. I do not know how large that element is, but I hypothesise, 10%-15% of the British electorate?
We are at last discovering Britain’s political dirty washing. The FPTP Westminster Cartel has been the effective mechanism to hide it. Only Proprtional Representation will help ensure it remains flushed out in the open.
Agreed
Can we say the defining point was Johnson? The “euro-skeptics” ensured chaos and schism in John Major’s government?
We could go back further: Thatcher was spent at the end. She’d subsidised neoliberal chaos by nationalisation. Her “success” was reliant on cash injection and oil money. No/little investment since …… Only embrace of the market.
If, as you do, accept that neoliberalism is flawed, then the critical point was its embrace. Perhaps factionalism and the need to “do it harder” (a la Farage) as issues arise is just inevitable?
Johnson tipped the balance, undoubtedly
But it was not ‘balanced’ when Johnson was PM. We were already very far from being balanced.
We were already on the trajectory — perhaps a different analogy would be that the acceleration down the inclined plane just continued.
But in many ways its not worth arguing about the semantics.
On reflection, though, you could argue, as Adam Curtis does, the tipping point was in the 60’s with the Mayfair Club, Asset Stripping and control by the banks…. set the scene.
1st rate points, agree 100% & quite a lot happened in the 1960s – with Thatcher an enabler in the 1970s due to inflation/oil crisis and on becoming Tory leader due Heath’s unwillingness to give into wage demands (3 day week etc)..
The Tories are lost and rudderless and will leave office with the country in a dreadful state but there’s still millions of people who will vote for them regardless on July 4. There’s a story in the Times today interviewing people in Newark, Robert Jenrick’s seat, which is on a knife edge and may yet remain Conservative. Some of the comments defy belief and is depressing to read
“As he shows, using data, it was Johnson who set the Tories on the path to their current electoral defeat.”
In my arrogant Yank opinion the problem all started with Cameron. He knew BREXIT would be a failure as there was no way to deliver a BREXIT that would benefit the UK so he left office. Theresa May eventually realized the same thing that any BREXIT was a loser but I believe she tried to do her best, with respect to BREXIT, which could never be good enough. Johnson came into office with a promise to deliver the BREXIT the “people” thought they voted for which is a BREXIT that never did and never could exist.
COVID did not help but, again in my arrogant Yank opinion, the real nail in the Tory coffin is the reality of BREXIT.
It certainly did not help ….
Sunak is still claiming that he has turned round the whole British economic problem (inflation, taxation, everything), on the basis of a confection of selective slivers of very short-term economic random walks; but has nothing to say on the recent rise in wholesale gas prices, and the rise in Brent crude, and other oil prices; harbingers of higher energy costs for British domestic users this winter: because neither Conservative nor Labour intend to change the scandal of British domestic energy users paying world market prices, wholly unprotected by Britain’s ability (notably in renewables) to produce energy at a cost far, far below world prices. Conservative and Labour are protecting high profits for British network providers, and leaving the British people hanging out to dry.
There is no better illustration of the fact that Britain and Parliament is being run by a Single Transferable Party in the pocket of neoliberal parasites.
Has any of the political parties spoken about addressing the scandal of how energy is priced during this election? Pay-as-clear prices (every generator gets the price from the highest bidder necessary to fulfil orders) is atrocious. Almost as bad is Scottish consumers paying for higher transmission costs despite their nation producing a surplus of cheap renewables.
No one has addressed this in England
Scotland is another country, of course. It’s discussed there
Late Soviet Britain – a Single Ideology State with a Single Transferable Party electoral system delivering govt permanently to the right of most of its electorate.