The best outcome for the next election will not appear on the ballot paper, and is already the target of a hostile and escalating press campaign. It hardly needs to be said that a renewed mandate for Tory rule will be an obvious catastrophe for the country. No government in British democratic history can be considered such a devastating failure, whether on objective measures – weak growth, an unprecedented squeeze in living standards, declining life expectancy and crisis-ridden public services – or on its own terms.
To its critics, Margaret Thatcher’s administration represented a nightmare, but its cheerleaders can recite a long list of what they would consider proud achievements: mass privatisation, smashing trade union power, slashing taxes on the rich and flogging off council houses. What would an equivalent score card look like for 13 years of Tory rule? Brexit is its defining innovation – and who even pretends that’s going well these days?
