To beat Corbyn, the Tories have to get basic political tactics right

The Government’s bizarre ‘invitation’ to opposition parties signals an inability to manage strategy

the Conservatives’ political strategy, as if failing to win a majority in the election has to be compounded by failing to win the public argument – or even refusing to engage in it? Mrs May called it recognising the “new reality” as if she actually believed she was not entitled to govern. (Reminder: she is. Minority governments are perfectly constitutional.)

It is just conceivable that this particular catastrophe was an amateurish screw-up. The speech in which the notorious “invitation” was made had been billed in quite spectacular terms as a “relaunch” of Mrs May’s premiership. When it turned out to be nothing more than a dreary technical opus, the only vaguely headline-worthy line in it became The Invitation, so perhaps that was all that Downing Street had to brief to news organisations. But the more sophisticated account is that this was intended as a clever move designed to expose Labour’s own hopeless confusions and inconsistencies on Brexit which are, indeed, far more problematic than the disagreements on the Tory front bench. Labour are now running two utterly contradictory positions simultaneously, with much of the parliamentary party determined to oppose the Repeal Bill in solidarity with Liberal Democrat Remainers, while the others (including Jeremy Corbyn) cleave to the old Left Tony Benn model of Euroscepticism.

But if exposure of Labour’s inadequacy was the true target of Mrs May’s cod “invitation”, why didn’t the Tories pursue it? Instead of slinking away silently in the face of ridicule over the Government’s “weakness”, why didn’t they bang away at the dissension between the Labour leader and his own Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer? Did they think they were laying some trap for Labour that would, in the fullness of time, reveal itself to the electorate? Well, here’s the bad news: the electorate doesn’t stay focused on these matters long enough to get to the long-awaited punch line. They will notice today’s Tory humiliation but they won’t connect it with the Labour comeuppance two weeks

(or years) down the line. That was the lesson that lay behind the great strategic innovation of instant rebuttal (remember that?). If you’re going to play this kind of game, you have to play it hard – because the other side certainly will.

This paralysis is peculiarly infuriating because Mr Corbyn’s position on Brexit – pretty much like his position on everything else – should be so easy to attack. When he isn’t waffling and evading the serious questions about immigration policy and the customs union (which he barely seems to understand), he is making an open pitch for a trade union stitch-up of our future relationship with the EU. “Our strong links with our European [socialist] sister parties gives (sic) Labour an advantage in reaching an outcome that works for both sides.” This desirable outcome, he makes clear, will ensure that “workers’ rights and protections (are) the first priority in Brexit”.

That means what it always means in trades union-speak: putting the protection of existing jobs and the rights of those already in employment ahead of the creation of new jobs for those who are not.

The Tories in government have been remarkably successful at encouraging the sort of growth – especially in the private sector – that makes jobs. Liberating businesses – especially small

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion ones – from the morass of regulation that is generated by Brussels will facilitate this. What Mr Corbyn is advocating, whether he is aware of it or not, is the marriage of convenience which the EU has fostered between Big Corporates who love imported cheap labour and the sort of regulation that puts their small competitors out of business, and Big Unions whose own brand of job protection can be enshrined in law. The argument for entrepreneurialism and the dynamic economy are being lost by default because the Tories will not make it.

My soundings suggest that there is very little inclination on the Tory backbenches for replacing the leadership in spite of what the Friends of George Osborne (FoGO) in the media are claiming. If anything, there is more unity and discipline in the party at large than on the front bench, and there is not an inconsiderable degree of anger about Project Fear Mark II. There is still, contrary to the reports from FoGO commentators, a considerable degree of personal (and, if I may say so, quite affectionate) support for Mrs May whose courage and resilience are frequently noted in dispatches.

But if this is to go on, even for the expected two-year interregnum, then something must be done about putting out the message. Labour’s tax proposals are ridiculously dishonest: they propose punitive increases on the richest 5 per cent, who are the most mobile people in the world. When they escape, who will be hit? The next 5 (or 10, or 20) per cent? And how will that money be used? As ineffectively as Gordon Brown’s massive public spending increases? Are the Tories really ready to accept that this is what people want? Or are they just too disheartened to make a fight of it?

Why didn’t the Tories bang away at the dissension between Corbyn and his own spokesman?