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[/audioplayer]The general election is now Ed Miliband’s to lose. This is not a controversial statement: the polls say it, the bookmakers say it and in the last week several of David Cameron’s own ministers have come to believe it. The confidence that seemed to envelop the Conservative party before the summer recess has been replaced by a sense of doom. On its own, Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip would not be seen as a body blow — but it hammers home the fact that the right is fractured and many Tory voters made the jump long ago. A party that should be readying itself for victory is now preparing to tear itself apart in opposition.
The Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, this week felt that she may as well say in public what her colleagues are saying in private. She assured Scots that her party is not ‘likely’ to win the next Westminster election. Even one normally ebullient cabinet minister tells me: ‘I struggle to see how we win now.’
Several Tory MPs are already planning their careers on the assumption that the election is lost. One cabinet minister concedes that in the current atmosphere, it will be very hard to prevent this year’s Tory conference from turning into a leadership beauty parade, as the relative merits of Johnson, Theresa May and the rest are compared. Some think that Ukip is here to stay, and can see why Carswell (who was under threat in his Clacton constituency after Ukip selected a candidate to stand against him) decided to join them, rather than fight them.
It’s likely that more defections will follow — and the hunt is on for the next Tory turncoat.
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