One Tory insider mused to me this week that the result was decided months ago, that their impending failure could be explained by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Partygate and the mini-Budget explain a lot. But CCHQ has done everything it could in the past six weeks to guarantee the party’s defeat.
This campaign will be remembered for the self-inflicted mishaps that became part of Rishi Sunak’s daily routine, from abandoning D-Day commemorations to his close allies gambling on the election date. One cabinet minister I spoke to a few weeks ago played down the chaos, remembering that the 1997 campaign, when one Tory MP was photographed with a 17-year-old Soho nightclub waitress and another had to resign over the cash-for-questions scandal, had a similar feel. Time was up. And that’s how campaigns are at the end.
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