The deluded Tories have brought the coming disaster on themselves

They are heading for a big defeat. It is little wonder given their shocking failures in government

It is time for the Conservative Party to get real: it is on course for a landslide defeat of historic proportions, brought about by its own cowardice and incompetence. There is too much delusion in Toryland, too much residual hope that Rishi Sunak will pull off a miracle, too little honest appraisal of public opinion. Poll after poll paints the same picture: yes, the Prime Minister is relatively well liked, but his party isn’t.

The current 17-point gap may narrow: Sir Keir Starmer may overreach, frightening some electors. But barring a major black swan event, it is overwhelmingly likely that Starmer will be PM next year, quite possibly without even needing the support of other Left-wing parties. There will be tactical voting, and he may win the most votes even in England, as Tony Blair did in 1997 and 2001. He will wield immense power.

Why am I so pessimistic? The Tories have failed in almost every way, and repeatedly betrayed their electorate, in wanton, even occasionally gleeful, fashion. They don’t seem to believe in conservatism any longer, and all of their old-anti-labour arguments now lack credibility. Even their most ardent supporters cannot list more than a tiny number of successes, or point to any reason other than “Labour will be even worse” for continuing to back them. Under such circumstances, why wouldn’t floating voters opt to give the other lot a chance?

There have been too many broken promises. In 1991, 1.6 million people in the UK were paying the 40p tax rate, 3.5 per cent of adults; by 2027,

7.8 million people will be paying the 40p, 45p or some even higher rate – 14 per cent of adults, the IFS predicts. Every Tory manifesto since 2010 pledged to cut immigration, yet, farcically, the latest net migration figures are expected to hit between 650,000 and 997,000, a record.

Which genius imagined that a rapid increase in the population, combined with building less, would be electorally successful? Housebuilding, already woefully low, is falling precipitously, partly as a result of yet more red tape (this time with a green tinge) combined with the imbecilic refusal to allocate massively more land to residential development. Reforming the state, breaking with Blair-brownism, delivering on manifesto promises, being truly conservative, it turns out, is too difficult, too costly, too unseemly: the whining is unbearable.

The Tories have presided over out-of-control inflation, mass public sector waste, widespread strikes, declining real wages, an explosion in the national debt and far lower growth. They have made Britain a less conservative nation than it was in 2010, undermined the work ethic, penalised self-reliance and promoted dependence on the state. They have shifted the climate of opinion to the Left. They have undermined capitalism, trashed competitiveness, introduced myriad regulations, waged war on enterprise, fuelled envy and jealousy, squeezed the City and normalised anti-free market prejudice. They are nationalising businesses and picking winners.

They have continued to undercut the family and presided over declines in fertility to levels far lower than women would like. The drive to reform welfare has stalled, with 5.3million stuck on out-of-work benefits. State education has improved, especially reading skills, but is back on a path of union-driven decline, and they have institutionalised a scandalous discrimination against private schools. The railways, roads and airports are a disaster, and they have launched a war on cars.

Energy policy is a calamity: they have embraced net zero with no plan, have taxed North Sea oil and gas to death, refuse to build enough nuclear plants, and risk horrific blackouts. If you are a suburban, aspirational, hard-working family, desperate to own your own home, to save money, to educate your children, to have two cars and to travel abroad, you are being hammered in every possible way and made to feel bad for your ambition and effort. What was the point of voting Tory?

The police’s flirtation with a zerotolerance approach is over. The Tories have done far too little to recapture cultural and educational institutions now totally dominated by woke revolutionaries. They have even passed laws that make this worse. They have empowered the Bank of England and other financial bodies to pursue anti-tory policies. School children are taught an atavistic, terrifying version of environmentalism as a secular religion, rather than balanced analysis.

The Government has failed to take on woke capital, and is content to see museums “decolonised”. The Tories have had some successes fighting extreme trans activists, but have failed to tackle critical race theory. They have allowed a malign ideology to take hold that depicts Britain as a uniquely evil nation: what hope is there for conservatism if this deranged viewpoint becomes hegemonic among the next generation? Set against that, a handful of mini-victories – new laws to crack down on motorway protesters, say – matter little.

Even though government health spending was 13.5 per cent higher in real terms in 2022 compared with 2019, the NHS is imploding. “Free” healthcare has led to a surge in demand, and encouraged irresponsible behaviours; a mental health epidemic is raging, partly because of lockdowns, and the number of beds has fallen to 2.43 per 1,000 people versus 5.73 in France and 7.82 in Germany, countries that rightly embrace private, competitive insurance in their health systems. The Tory paradox is that they are being destroyed by their absurd support for totemic Labour policies: Clement Attlee’s archaic NHS model, his socialist housing planning system, Tony Blair’s high-migration economic model.

Last but not least, Brexit, where the Tories seem intent on turning their one great triumph – albeit one imposed on them – into a damp squib. Why did they fail to work out how to ditch more EU regulations, including the ones their voters hated so much? Why can’t they design incentives to woo companies such as Vauxhall, and hopefully the likes of Tesla too? Why pursue a nihilistic semi-socialist tax, regulatory, fiscal and monetary policy that is delivering Eurozone-style 0.1 per cent growth a quarter?

The Tories are as bad as the Eurocrats they replaced. It has been a catastrophic record of failure, an unpardonable exercise in second-hand, pantomime conservatism. Voters don’t like being taken for fools, and their revenge will be savage.

If you are an aspirational, hardworking family, you are being hammered in every possible way