The Right needs a vision, or we're doomed to the horrors of Corbyn​

Conservatism is in crisis in Britain, and it will take more than half‑baked leadership plots to save it from calamity. The rot runs deep and wide; the Government’s pathetic inability to negotiate a proper withdrawal from the EU is merely its most immediate manifestation.

The appalling reality is that Jeremy Corbyn is on the brink of power and the Tories have only themselves to blame. They have failed, and disappointed, and failed again. Their party itself is a dysfunctional shell. Few understand what it stands for. Many of its own voters don’t trust its motivations; even the Brexit vote, which ought to have been its greatest opportunity for 30 years, happened despite, rather than because of, the Tory machine and establishment.

In the absence of any distinctive philosophy – the days are long gone when its ideology was a fusion of Whiggism and Toryism, a creed capable of inspiring and enthusing – the party is a coalition of convenience, committed to power for the sake of it.

Mayite Tories thus market themselves as slightly better managerialists, mercenaries capable of implementing the fashionable nostrums of the moment – and also, because they have to, some version of Brexit, presumably adulterated beyond recognition. We, too, will cap prices to stop those nasty “profiteers”, the Government promises us, but it will be more sustainable than if Mr Corbyn does it; we, too, will put up taxes, but only because we care about the public finances; we, too, will ban and restrict and chide and scold, because that is what TV celebrities like Jamie Oliver are telling us to do.