At the recent Conservative conference, the Tories resembled a party under siege. After unexpectedly losing their parliamentary majority, they were struggling to come to terms with the electoral enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. “We thought there was a political consensus,” Theresa May admitted. “Jeremy Corbyn has changed that.”
Confronted by Labour’s 13 million voters, and its enduring poll lead, the Tories offered scraps from the table: a freeze in tuition fees at £9,250, a higher student loan repayment threshold and 25,000 more council houses. But while chasing Corbyn’s tail, the Tories simultaneously denounced him as a “Marxist” and a 1970s retrograde. They couldn’t decide whether they wanted to mimic Corbyn or to destory him.
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