Not nasty enough

Simon Heffer believes that if the Tories are to have any hope of returning to power, they’ll have to stop tinkering and go for Labour’s jugular

In an impressive observation the other day, a Very Senior Tory Indeed said to me, ‘I don’t buy this argument that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. It’s a cop-out. We have to be better than that.’ With the spasm of activity in the last fortnight, the Conservative party appears to be acting on that view. First, we had Mr Howard making the moral case for low taxation. Now, we have Mr Letwin trying to outline how the moral position might, over six years or so, be reached. It has come not a moment too soon, because the overtaxed natives out there in Middle England are getting restless.

It has to be said, too, that after the prolonged honeymoon which Mr Howard enjoyed following his coronation last November, things were starting to look pretty rum.