The Economist: Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives facing up to their own harsh electoral reality

Open a history book about Britain at random and you will probably come across a distant relative of Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, being shot at. Mr Hunt comes from a long line of brigadiers, admirals and colonial administrators (along with the occasional vicar), the types of people who have long made up England’s elite. In an otherwise excoriating essay, George Orwell alighted on the redeeming feature of this species: “One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed.”

The Conservative Party is facing the prospect of electoral carnage on July 4. Mr Hunt himself runs the risk of being the first sitting chancellor to lose his seat, in a prosperous corner of Surrey, in a general election.

But whereas Mr Hunt marches cheerfully towards gunfire, other Tories approach their destiny differently. Some have deserted, or stationed themselves far from danger. Some see an opportunity for a quick buck. Some complain about their lot; others have come to terms with it. You can learn a lot about someone in their final moments in battle, and this election is no different.

For a few close to Downing Street, the outbreak of electoral hostilities was a moment for making money rather than a matter of political life or death. A host of Conservative candidates and staff placed suspicious bets on a July election just before it was announced; two candidates have been dropped by the party. (Several police officers are also being investigated.) This is misconduct at its most tinpot: risking a career, and increasing the likelihood of electoral annihilation, for the sake of a few hundred quid.

Some would rather not fight at all. Top-flight politicians once stuck around, at least for a little while, offering wisdom extracted from their own screw-ups. But a bunch of Conservative MPs have rushed for the exit. Sajid Javid, a former home secretary, health secretary and, briefly, chancellor, jumped early. Michael Gove, one of the few ministers to have achieved much in office, scarpered when the election was called in May; some pollsters guess that Mr Gove’s seat, also in Surrey, will flip to the Liberal Democrats, just as Mr Hunt’s might.

Leaving may be understandable. It is one thing to spend five years (at least) in Opposition; it is quite another to suffer being sacked in a leisure centre at 4am while people cheer your demise. But it is still a shame. A Conservative Party without Messrs Gove and Javid and their ilk is a worse one.

The Tory infantry blame their demise on the idiotic decisions of their senior officers. Voters were appalled when Rishi Sunak skipped part of the D-Day celebrations in northern France to return to Britain for an interview with a broadcaster. It was an achievement of sorts: in an election in which many Britons have tried their damnedest to avoid all political coverage, Mr Sunak’s dash home managed to stir focus groups from their slumber. Unfortunately, it was to wonder why the prime minister had accidentally insulted a group of veterans (not least because his constituency includes both a Royal Air Force base and the British Army’s largest barracks).

Strategy, as well as tactics, have been lacking. In theWipers Times, a satirical magazine produced during the first world war by British soldiers in Ypres, one wrote: “They give us a —ing nail. They give us a —ing hammer and they tell us to go and dig a —ing dugout.”

That is a familiar feeling for Conservative activists in the south-east, who are embroiled in trench warfare with the wrong tools. What does the Conservative Party offer a City employee who likes to work from home two days a week and voted Remain in 2016? For several years the answer has been insults — for being at best lazy and at worst a traitor.

Those close to the party leadership managed to secure candidacies for plum seats in the election, far away from the nastiest fighting. Will Tanner, a charming Downing Street adviser-turned-think-tanker-turned-Downing Street adviser, parlayed his way into one of the Tories’ safest seats, in Bury St Edmunds, a Suffolk market town. Richard Holden, the more pugnacious party chairman, secured a seat in Basildon in Essex after local members were presented with a shortlist containing just one name: his.

It all brings to mind the leadership values of General Melchett in “Blackadder Goes Forth”, a classic TV sitcom set in the WWI trenches, who was attempting to cheer up troops before they went over the top: “Don’t worry my boy, if you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you.” To which Blackadder replied: “About 35 miles behind you.”

Somme Conservatism

Even so Mr Tanner has warned local activists that he could lose on July 4. In Essex some polls suggest that Mr Holden will fail to win the seat he so carefully secured. A cataclysmic night could even see Mr Sunak ejected from office, never mind Mr Hunt. At this point, with Labour so far ahead in the polls, careful analysis of the electoral landscape is less helpful than hurling a tin of red paint over a map of Britain and seeing where it dribbles.

As a result, resignation is seeping through the ranks. Although some Conservatives will fight to the very end, others have long given up. After 14 years in office, many will find the likely result—a gigantic Labour majority and perhaps the Tories’ worst-ever defeat—a relief. “One cannot but remark on the absolute apathy with which the end was received over here,” recalled a nameless author in the Wipers Times when it was all over in 1918. Today, too, most in the Conservative Party simply want it to be done, no matter how painful the eventual end.