A melancholy anniversary recently passed virtually unnoticed: it is now more than a decade since the Conservative party fell behind in the polls. Never has a major opposition party been so unpopular, with so many, for so long.
If Conservatives are ever to govern again, they must do three things. They have honestly to appreciate why their party has come to this pass. They must eschew false comforts and snake-oil remedies, which will only prolong their agony. And, above all, Tories must transform the way they operate. Unless the culture of the party changes, it will never reconnect with a country that it now treats as a foreign land.
The scale of the Tory malaise is unprecedented. There have been more than 500 published polls in the past ten years. The Tories have led in only five – all in one week of September 2000 when the level of petrol tax was the issue of the moment.
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