Jonathan Freedland (I’ve got news for Rishi Sunak: he no longer leads the Conservative party, 29 September) gives us a vivid picture of the Tory government’s descent into rightwing populism. But is it the case that they have really changed the party into “something else entirely”? Could it rather be that Boris Johnson’s purge of the “one nation” Conservative MPs, in pursuit of a populist Brexit, has drawn aside a convenient veil of civic responsibility to expose the Tories in their true colours?
It was indeed the presence of these moderates at the top that safeguarded the Tories’ custodianship of the “long-established institutions” noted by Freedland. But there is another long-established institution whose perpetuation has been a core historical purpose for this party – the English class system, together with the privilege and injustice that it enshrines.
