How Jeremy Corbyn may split – and, thereby, destroy – the Conservative Party

‘Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?’ asked C.P. Cavafy in his poem ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’:

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

All through your and my life the Labour party have been at the gates of Downing Street, and often enough stormed them, only to be beaten back at a subsequent election. What might happen to the Conservative party if those barbarians disappear?

At first, Tories rejoiced at the Labour leadership election. The barbarians are fighting among themselves and no longer threaten us! Hurrah! And it is true that a Labour civil war or even disintegration would guarantee the Conservatives’ return to office in 2020. Shall I, then, live (d.v.) under a Tory prime minister until I’m at least 75?