It would help the Tories if they lost the next election

It is by no means hyperbolic to say that the politics of 2022 will be taught in Modern Studies classrooms for 50 years, and in History classrooms for another 150 after that. Three Prime Ministers. Four Chancellors. Extraordinary.

Notwithstanding the inability of commentators like me to accurately predict what might happen on any given day, it is probably fair to assume that (perhaps with the exception of the Home Secretary Suella Braverman, whose reappointment has caused Mr Sunak an avoidable headache) we are entering a phase of stable Cabinet government with a Prime Minister enjoying the loyalty of his party.

It is also probably fair to assume that the phase will last for two years. Labour, along with other opposition parties are demanding an instant General Election (why wouldn’t they, when they’re on course for the landslide of all landslides?), but they needn’t bother. They are not going to get one.

Rishi Sunak is one of eight Prime or First Ministers this century to have come to power by coronation, along with Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Gordon Brown, Jack McConnell, Henry McLeish and, yes, Nicola Sturgeon. Only two – Alex Salmond and David Cameron – have come to power by way of public election.

You may not like the way we change leaders (I don’t), but if you live in a glass house, best not throw stones. Mr Sunak has no constitutional, moral or political imperative to call an early election, and he is not going to.

Instead, let us move beyond that to 2024, when Mr Sunak will have no choice but to ask the people for their judgment. That election, two years from now, will give the Tories a golden opportunity to do what they need to do in order to preserve their long-term future: lose.

It is easy to assume that the Conservative Party is in its unenviable position in the polls because of Covid rule-busting parties in Downing Street, or because of proposed tax cuts, or because its group of MPs appear unable to avoid a variety of sex scandals. This is wrong. These are all symptoms of the central cause, which is that it is no longer a single political party, and because of that it has no discipline.

Mr Johnson’s stunning victory in 2019 came at a price, in that it obliterated the Conservative Party’s ideological foundation. His ability to simultaneously appeal to shipbuilders from Sunderland, dairy farmers from Dumfries and bankers from Berkshire has created MPs who not only represent, but also believe in, completely diverse philosophical and political positions.

In the good times, Mr Johnson was able to hold this together, but his house has since collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. You cannot be a left winger and a right winger; a high taxer and a low taxer; a spender and a saver; a borrower and a debt-cutter; all at the same time.

It is this – his much-feted grand coalition – which has made this party ungovernable. And it is because of it that the party now needs to lose. Mr Sunak’s ascension to Number 10 will help the party lose well, and lose with credibility, perhaps even some decency. Crucially, he is also likely to ensure that the Tories retain enough MPs to provide a base to rebuild.

The country does not need the Tories in the way that it did in 2019. Then, we faced the prospect of a Labour Prime Minister who frightened large sections of our Jewish community, and who appeared to instinctively give a hearing to our enemies, namely Russia, rather than ourselves. The biggest criticism of his successor, who has done a remarkable and ongoing job of purging his party of its most problematic people, is that he’s boringly competent.

So, the Tory Party can sit out a term or two while it rediscovers itself. The country needs a Conservative Party which is relevant to the Britain we are going to be for the rest of the 21st century rather than the Britain we were in the past. And, critically, that will require a consistent ideological strain.

It would be wise for them to build themselves around some key pillars. First, they would be both socially and economically liberal which, neatly, is the position that most people sit in, even if they don’t know it. Secondly, they would tackle the looming issue of intergenerational financial fairness, from tackling the mountain of debt to reforming and improving unaffordable public services. Thirdly, they would seek to be genuinely world-leading on tackling climate change, which is an absolutely critical prerequisite for any party hoping to attract the votes of anyone from Generation Y onwards.

Finally, the party should encourage and promote decentralisation. This is a significantly more important foundational belief than it may sound. Technology has given us immeasurably more control of our lives than we have ever had before, and this will only continue. However, the Conservative Party retains an emotional attachment to central control which is dangerously out of step with the lived experience of Britons, particularly those who live outside the south-east of England.

This matters, because it brews notions of an alternative future in the parts of the UK which lament this lack of decentralised control. It is, self-evidently, manifesting itself in Scotland, but will gradually become more of a problem in Wales, and will always simmer away in the north and south west of England.

Ironically, this would be a simple and fruitful change, but it is also rather difficult to envisage. This is a party which has always seen decentralisation as defeat. The post-2024 embracing of a "live and let live" would not only be electorally wise, and would not only help to put the UK’s nations and regions at ease with themselves and their governments; it would also be a sign that the Conservative party, finally, has grown up.

It is time for all of this. The Tory Party needs to lose well in order to rediscover how to win well.

• Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters and Zero Matters

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