As the Tories gather in Manchester on 1 October for their party conference, they can brandish Deltapoll numbers showing them closing the polling gap on Labour by eight points, from 24 to 16. That’s still some gap. But they face a deeper conundrum: how do they persuade the public, “Look at us again. Think about us again. Imagine a good future with us”?
Right now, the Conservatives seem less a party than a hubbub. Five successive leaders have left behind ideological rubble, an incoherent sprawl of ideas, factions and personalities. After 13 years of zigzagging policies and U-turns, there is no coherent, easily explicable Conservative philosophy left standing. And without that, how can its politicians imagine our future?
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