Like Churchill, Michael Howard understands that an opposition is a guerrilla force

Pompous, lobotomised-Lutyens details strive to rescue it from banality. They fail. Conservative Central Office looks like just another bog-standard 1950s office block. The appearance is deceptive. It is far worse than that. Whatever ‘bad karma’ means, Central Office has it. The atmosphere sets one’s teeth on edge, while encouraging the inhabitants to stab one another with hat-pins. The safeguarding of bureaucratic enclaves becomes the principal business of the day. There must be a dramatic explanation for all that malevolence. If the building were torn down, something unspeakable might be discovered in the foundations: a plague pit, or the bones of murdered children.

In view of this, many sensible Tories have come to the same conclusion over the years: evacuate the place. Thus far, such resolutions have always been sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought. It was either too early in a parliament, with a new chairman still finding his way — or, once that chairman had been replaced, it was too close to a general election to contemplate an architectural reshuffle.