The real reason the Right lost – and surrendered Britain to the technocrats

The Tories have achieved almost nothing because they failed to grasp the strength of their opponents

What has been the point of the Tory-led governments of the past 12 years? Yes, there was Brexit, and salvation from Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn’s class warfare, which made it all worthwhile. But what else? Even leaving the EU has only really happened de jure; we have so far made little of our new freedoms. The school reforms reversed the decline of state education, though this has now stalled. What else? Universal Credit hasn’t cut numbers on out of work benefits, with today’s 5.3 million exactly the same as in August 2005.

The terrible truth is that the Tories in general, and the Right in particular, have failed to shift the country in a conservative direction, defeated by incompetence, the power of the dominant Left-wing ideology and vested interests, and some bad luck. Far from standing athwart history and yelling stop, as William F Buckley demanded, the Conservatives have succumbed to the tyranny of the status quo.

The Right has, inter alia, been routed on crime, tax, the NHS, pensions and welfare, regulation, immigration, the family, higher education, wokery, the environment, economic growth, housebuilding, monetary policy, debt, pandemic management, defence, the constitution, devolution and individual freedom (with one or two exceptions). It’s been a disaster, with the rapid implosion of the Truss experiment the final, abject humiliation.

Why did the Right fail? There is nothing wrong with its world view. But it can only win when it grasps the extraordinary strength of its opponents, realises that politics is downstream from economic conditions, technology and culture, and carefully works out how to change a world and a system deeply hostile to its ideas.