How to lose elections

When a political party is in trouble, we see infighting, leak inquiries, resignations, mass loss of council seats, dismissals and botched attempts to depose the leader. But when a party implodes, something different happens: it loses the ability to defend or explain itself. An imploding party can and will lose any argument, no matter how strong its track record. The Tories entered this terminal stage under John Major after the disastrous local elections of 1995, which were followed by their landslide defeat of 1997. With the party now having had its worst set of election since 1995, it looks very much like they might be entering it again.

When John Major left, the economy was in such good shape that it took a typically overspending, over-regulating Labour government a whole decade to ruin it. Wages were at an all-time high, as was disposable income — and yet the Tories were still wiped out.