And so ends a unique failure in British democratic history. Any political incumbent can expect to have passionate detractors. They can normally count, however, on having equally committed champions. Not so for this Conservative reign. The party will leave government with even the most tribal Tories struggling to champion its successes. This era will be recorded by history as one of failure, whatever political standpoint you look at it from.
No other party has left office so lacking in true believers. Take New Labour, which claimed to marry social justice and market capitalism. The criticisms of its record practically write themselves. Public services were undermined by the private finance initiative, which saddled NHS trusts with lasting debts. There was the bloody turmoil in Iraq, the rolling back of civil liberties, and what Gordon Brown later admitted was a “big mistake”: the government’s approach to bank regulation in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash.
But its achievements were undeniable, even to dedicated critics like yours truly. Investment rebuilt a shattered public realm. Many pensioners and children were lifted out of poverty, thanks to the minimum wage, more generous social security entitlements and other reforms. The party made real advances in protecting and recognising the rights of LGBTQ people and devolved power to Scotland, Wales and London. Yes, Labour’s top brass failed to rebut the Tory line that excess investment on frontline services led Britain to economic ruin – rather than bankers high on deregulation. Blairite devotees conceded ground to Tory lies about carelessly frittering away cash, with Blair even criticising his own government for allowing the deficit to grow. There is a perverse irony that between 2010 and 2015, New Labour’s leftwing critics, such as Caroline Lucas, were more likely to defend its economic record than many in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet. But still, unlike the current band of Tories, many MPs on the right of Labour – however much I think they are wrong – remain true to Blairite tenets.
Thatcherism, too, had plenty of opponents. It was charged with social vandalism as communities were ravaged by the sudden disappearance of mines, steelworks and shipyards. The increase in inequality was described by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as “unparalled” both historically and compared with other industrialised nations at the time. Meanwhile, right to buy has led to a housing crisis in which private landlords have rented out many former council homes at twice the rate charged by local authorities and the privatisation of our utilities has brought us rip-off energy bills and sewage-infested water. Yet its cheerleaders have always exhibited religious devotion.
And, sure, there are eras that are contested. Ted Heath, who served as Conservative prime minister from 1970 to 1974, was ousted from power after his free-market counter-revolution collided with political reality. But he also took Britain into Europe’s Common Market, an achievement that lasted over four decades.
The current stretch of Tory rule, however, has been catastrophic, and even the Conservatives know it. Rachel Wolf, co-author of the party’s 2019 manifesto, admits the basics of the prospectus were not delivered. One former Tory adviser suggests it may have been the worst stretch of government ever. Even more dramatically, the editor of the conservative Sunday Telegraph wrote earlier this year: “For the first time in my life, I’m now beginning to think Britain is finished.”
Even the most ardent leftwing critics of New Labour didn’t go that far as Brown’s government approached the end. Today, a consensus unites both left and right: the government has failed, whether your metric is improving the nation or delivering conservative priorities. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, real wages last year were exactly the same as they had been when the Tories came to power. The past 14 years have been defined by low investment, with economic growth per capita since 2010 more than 10 times slower than the 16 preceding years. Productivity has risen by just 0.6% a year – less than a third of the rate before the financial crash.
While many foolishly portrayed austerity as unavoidable in its time, now most accept it has shredded the public realm to such a degree that Britain has become a nation in which little works and national infrastructure is literally falling apart. An entire generation has been pummelled from every direction: from staggering debts for university courses to a growing housing emergency. The Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson once described the NHS as “the closest thing the English people have to a religion”: voters, therefore, look at record waiting lists and demoralised striking frontline workers as blasphemy.
And just look at how their own obsessions panned out. “Low tax” is the clarion call of the right, but conservative newspapers have bemoaned “the highest tax burden for 70 years”. Meanwhile, the Tories have spent 14 years incessantly portraying immigration as a national ailment, while presiding over record numbers of people entering the country, ensuring nobody is satisfied. Those of us who point to immigration as a social good can highlight that what little economic growth there has been, has been thanks to our new arrivals – but we will hardly credit the Tories for it. And what of the one grand national project this Tory era will most be remembered for, our rupture from the European Union? Polls show that 57% of people think Brexit to have been more of a failure than a success, and just 13% think it more a success than a failure.
This government’s record is a combination of objective catastrophes with nothing for the Tory faithful to be proud of. That’s why Nigel Farage is surging now: he can ask rightwing voters what they have to show for 14 years of Conservative rule, and they legitimately struggle to answer. The British right has failed not just inevitably on the terms of their opponents, but by their own measures, too. That’s without mentioning the scandals or indeed the turmoil: it has given us five out of the 17 postwar prime ministers in just the past 8 years, with no change in governing party. Neither can it claim we simply weren’t offered the correct brand of rightwing politics. Since 2010, it has offered a rich array of ideologies: David Cameron’s slash-and-burn cuts with social liberal dressing, Theresa May’s national conservatism, Boris Johnson’s tub-thumping rightwing populism, Liz Truss’s ultra-libertarianism, and Rishi Sunak’s confused culture wars. All have failed. A calamity without precedent, a political project left without defenders – and it is this which presages their looming electoral apocalypse.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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