‘Good morning, good morning!’ said the General
When we met him last week as he was walking towards the line…
“A jolly old card player,” Harry grumbled to Jack.
They were advancing towards Arras with rifles and bags.
But he did both with his plan of attack.
As the Conservative candidates battle through their constituencies in the final days of the campaign, they could be forgiven for keeping Siegfried Sassoon’s masterfully short and bitter poem in mind. As they line up in the trenches next Thursday, waiting for the day off, they know in their hearts that few will be back in Parliament in a week’s time. And as in 1917, it was the leadership that finished them off with its plan of attack.
When the election was called six weeks ago I called on Tory voters to return to their colours. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that we were planning to run a political campaign equivalent to the first day of the Somme. Powerful Conservatives, MPs who champion Brexit and conservative values, dedicated party workers, have all been thrust into a clumsily led and executed campaign that will never succeed, fighting on the wrong ground, based on the wrong issues. They are the ones who will pay the price.
For it is important not to fall into the self-delusion that has been the Conservative Party’s greatest sin in recent months. At best we are facing a 1997-style disaster – an outcome that would now be considered a victory against the odds – and it could have been much worse.
In a week, almost everyone will say this. But then no one will listen. Attention will have shifted to the Labor Party. That’s why I’m saying it now. After all, perhaps a sufficiently bleak and honest forecast might encourage some disgruntled Tories to stick their noses in, get out and vote for us to help limit the disaster. Don’t give Labor a huge majority – or what some have described as a “we’re beaten but please don’t be mean to us” strategy.
So let’s hope we can avoid the worst. But the situation will be bad and it is important to place responsibility in the right place.
Yes, Nigel Farage and Reform UK split our votes. But the Conservative Party has no God-given right to invade British politics. Reform has every right to stand up to us if it chooses. It is not up to them to look after the institutional future of the Conservative Party. That is our job. The only reason why Reform has done us any harm is because we are such poor representatives of real Conservative politics.
This brings us to where the responsibility really lies: party leaders, their advisers and ministerial supporters, deprived of the room for manoeuvre, surrounded by sycophants, unaware of public opinion, blind to the consequences of their decisions.
Since the change of command in the autumn, and the disastrous mistake of the return to Cameronism (including the reinstatement of the man himself), and the persistent failure to do what was necessary to control the small-boat problem, disaster was inevitable. The only remaining question was when our troops would be asked to come over the top to the machine guns.
A bad campaign, made worse by the terrible betting scandal and its heavy-handed management. I admit, as it spread, I seriously considered cutting up my party card. If, as it seems, the first reaction of some Conservatives to an election campaign is to think of making a quick buck out of it, perhaps some in the party are really as self-interested and unconcerned with the national interest as our opponents say.
My disgust has dissipated but my anger has not. The majority of 80 was wasted and the only real success was the referendum result of 2016. We are faced with years of self-righteous oppression, control and undermining by a Labour government and there is nothing we can do about it.
Well, almost nothing. We can go out and vote Conservative on July 4th. Then we have to rebuild from July 5th. The Conservative Party as we know it could be badly damaged, even largely destroyed. So to revive conservative ideas, to bring real conservatives together after the disaster, we will perhaps have to create a new movement, coin a phrase called “reform conservatism.”
It is not a new party, but a movement that revitalizes Conservatism based on conservative ideas and reaches out to everyone who wants to see them succeed again one day.
This movement cannot include the people who really should be in our Left parties. It certainly cannot include those responsible for the current disastrous strategy. What it can include is everyone who wants to rebuild real conservatism once again – wherever they sit at the moment. And what it can do is start working on a new Conservative programme with genuine national appeal, which can finally give the British people the real choice they didn’t have in this election.
So vote wisely on July 4. And let’s start rebuilding the next day.