The Tory Party: In Deep Trouble

All governments tend to be unpopular mid-term. The better ones cope because by mid-term unpopular policies are beginning to show signs of delivering positive results which will be at their booming best around the four year plus mark, when successful prime ministers have called elections and won a second or even a third term.

The present arrangement is complicated by the fact that there are two parties in government. Contrary to every expectation it is the policies of the Tory majority which are not working or are subject to the fatal political indulgence of a U-turn. This can be explained by the recognition that if the Tories could carry through all their ideas, unmodified by their Lib Dem partners, they would be even more unpopular than they are now.

Conversely the Lib Dems, who after tuition fees and the failed AV voting referendum, seemed down and out, are now enjoying a new lease of life as the party which keeps the Tory element of the government from following the worst of its ogre tendencies. Most of the time Lib Dem ministers promote policies of which Labour approves, but unlike Labour, the Lib Dems have the power to make a difference. This has led to surprisingly robust performance in local council bye-elections and the spectacular win at Eastleigh, in the face of various internal scandals involving misogyny, lies and sex.

Meanwhile the Tories are now splitting between right and left, pro and anti Europe and those who think Cameron should go now or later. Nobody expects the budget to be up the the challenge, the coverted and (over)lauded AAA rating has gone. Manufacturing is falling, growth has stalled, people are getting spooked.  Tory backbenchers, especially those from Tory marginals are the most spooked of all. This is hardly surprising when their erstwhile saviour and paymaster, Lord Ashcroft, who has now turned pollster, tells them they can expect to lose ninety, yes ninety, seats to Labour in 2015, unless they get a grip. The trouble is they have no unified comprehension whom, what or where to grip.

Now we come to the technicals. Every government which has run five years since 1935 has lost the general election which which then took place. Cameron and co wanted fixed term Parliaments, not of four years as favoured by the Lib Dems but five. Oh dear. Here comes the supreme irony. The Tories mounted a virulent campaign against AV because they thought they had the Lib Dems corralled, with the thinkers becoming Cameron style Tories and the protesters going back to their anoraks. AV votes might have saved them but without, all their southern seats would fall to the Tories and their northern fiefdoms to Labour. Well it has not quite turned out that way. UKIP votes will allow the Lib Dems to win all their own southern seats as well as gain all the Lib Dem/Con marginals.

Meanwhile up north the combination of Tory, UKIP and Lib Dem support splitting the anti-Labour vote three ways will guarantee a string of Labour victories, enough to cancel out their loss of seats if Scotland votes for independence. This is because, without AV, the winner does not have to have a majority of the votes cast, only just one more than the next in line. The Tory party is now not just looking at the strong prospect of defeat in 2015. It is looking at the increasing prospect of a massacre. AV voting would have saved them. What a funny end to the Tory revival, that like economic recovery, proved elusive in reality.

No wonder there is a growing feeling in the Tory ranks that something has to be done. To many of them that something is called Theresa May.