After Michael Howard led the Conservative Party to its third consecutive electoral defeat in 2005, he made his resignation speech in the newly won constituency of Putney. Fourteen years and four elections later, Putney was the one seat Labour gained in the 2019 general election.
The man who led the Tory party between 2003 and 2005 smiles at the parallel. Relaxing into a scratchy armchair in a House of Lords side room (Howard has been a peer since 2010), he reflects on what went wrong in his day.
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