Between the revolution and the firing squad, there is always time for a bottle of champagne. In this case, it was Sky TV’s champagne at its summer party on Monday evening. Though a lot of Tory MPs turned up, I did not find one who was cheerful about his party’s prospects. There is a difference between the current outbreak of Tory malaise and its predecessors. On those occasions, even while raging and bemoaning, most Tory MPs thought that there was a solution: different policies or a fresh leader. Now, as one shadow minister put it, there are no new levers to pull.
Tory MPs would find all this easier if they felt that they were losing to a worthy opponent, but almost all of them are sincere in their belief that this is a bad government. They can cite plenty of support for that thesis. The Butler report could be subtitled ‘How not to run a government’.
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