Why are the Tories so obsessed with defending motorists?

Margaret Thatcher most likely never said that ‘anyone on a bus over the age of 25 is a failure’, but it’s handy for her supporters and detractors to pretend that she did. It encapsulates a certain view of the Iron Lady: that the individualism of cars was for the go-getters, a reliance on public transport for the life’s losers. Now, nearly three decades after she didn’t utter those words, it is becoming the de facto view of many Tories.

The Conservatives find little they agree on and often little to shout about, but the party has increasingly found its voice as the party of motorists. At both parliamentary and local level, Conservative politicians have become ardently pro-car at the expense of almost every other form of transport. Despite there being some logic in appealing to their voters, though, it has brought them into clashes with their own government and delivered uncertain electoral results.