What are the Tories for?

It’s an odd accusation to levy at Boris Johnson’s government, but the Conservative party feels grey. Flights of fancy suggesting a bridge to Northern Ireland or – a thought to make 19th century Royal Navy strategists shudder – to France have given way to a carousel of scandals and disappointments. The former is cheap or cruel; the latter marked mostly by their predictability.

This week confirmed a suspicion I’ve held for a while; the Conservative party, being neither meaningfully socially conservative nor particularly interested in using an 80 seat majority, exists for the sole purpose of keeping Labour out of office.

It doesn’t conserve; despite repeated pledges, immigration never came close to the promised tens of thousands until the intervention of a pandemic and Conservative MPs are mostly to the left of Labour voters on social issues. It doesn’t reverse; despite moaning in public about New Labour’s legislative legacy, very little is done to undo it.