During the local elections campaign I wrote an article entitled ‘The Tory Myth of 1000 seats’. I wrote that the Conservative chairman’s assertion that the Tories would lose a thousand seats on 4 May was ‘ludicrous’. I further accused Mr Hands of peddling ‘nonsense’ and ‘fake news’.
Now that the Conservatives have lost 1061 seats, I would like to apologise to the Conservative Party. I had no idea they were so crap. Really, I had no idea that their electoral base was so fractured, and their activist base so tired and disenchanted, that they would do quite so badly in the local elections. The reality is that, far from a shameless and blatant attempt at expectation management, Mr Hands’ pronouncements prove him a prophet, a political visionary, a seer, the oracle of Chelsea & Fulham.
I now understand that the Tories were stuffed in Swindon, bad in Bassetlaw, hopeless in High Peak, broken in Bracknell Forest, done for in Dover, and massacred in Medway. They were rubbish in the Red Wall, and battered in the Blue Wall. With Labour now the largest party in local government, I finally realise Greg Hands was right all along.
To him, and to Rishi Sunak, I offer every encouragement to continue in their roles. I am sure the thousand former Conservative councillors who have been deprived of their seats, status, and allowances, will give them every opportunity to carry on regardless. I further trust that Mr Hands and Mr Sunak will pursue, to the letter, the brilliant electoral strategy that delivered to them the results they so accurately predicted.
Check out the blog this piece is a response to here: The Tory myth of 1000 seats.
