Some Tories are far from optimistic about their party’s chances of defeating Corbyn

Sitting next to a former Conservative party bigwig at dinner, I ask if he thinks the Tories will be OK at the next election as long as they deliver a reasonable Brexit. ‘Not a chance,’ he says. ‘We’re totally fucked.’ What, even if May stands down once the deal is done? ‘Even then. The kids want Corbyn. The bloody 30/40-somethings want Corbyn. They don’t care or even understand about all that horrible IRA stuff, or Marxism, or nationalisation. After a couple of years of Corbyn government, they’ll get it. Too late by then. But at least the pendulum will swing back to us three years later.’

This is an extract from Richard Madeley’s Diary, which appears in this week’s Spectator