Like the Egyptian god Osiris, the Tories will rise again

The Conservatives have suffered a disastrous electoral defeat. There is no point in trying to sugar coat that. After 6 weeks of flaccid campaign, the electorate has finally delivered its verdict. What is clear is that a fatal split on the Right/centre-Right of politics has delivered Starmer a majority well beyond his wildest dreams and beyond, frankly, what he and his Labour Party deserve.

For many Tories, the anguish and soul searching will be painful and immediate. Hundreds of MPs will have lost their seats. Dozens of candidates who were hopefully expecting to become MPs will have had those hopes dashed.

But despite the gloom, I have little doubt that the Conservative Party will be back. There are a number of reasons for what might seem perverse optimism in the face of the electoral catastrophe.

Firstly, the Labour share of the vote will probably be less than 40 per cent. This is roughly what Corbyn achieved in his “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” heyday in 2017. He lost that election, though it was spun by his acolytes as a victory. May’s tories achieved about 42 per cent. This vote share suggests a wide but shallow support for Labour. On reflection, 40 per cent isn’t even that wide.

Secondly, the logic of first-past-the-post suggests that when the government becomes unpopular, as it surely will, the principal beneficiaries will be the opposition. The Tories , even after today’s debacle, are very likely going to be that opposition. They will benefit from this.

The third reason relates to the elephant in the room, the Reform party. The fateful split on the Right apes the 1983 where the SDP/Labour split lent Mrs Thatcher a helping hand to her landmark 144 majority. I’m old enough to remember that. Labour had suffered a disaster, but it was in that very year that two young MPs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown entered the House. If the party had no future, those two “bright boys”, as Alan Clarke described them, had not read that script.

There have been a number of disasters in Tory history. 1846, 1906, 1929, 1945, 1997 are all years heavy with fate and disaster. Like the Egyptian god Osiris, the party has gone through a number of deaths and rebirths. 2024 sadly will be another unlucky date. Yet the feebleness of Labour, its brittle support and the volatility of today’s voting public mean that the Tories can survive and return. I am confident they will.