How the Chesham Effect is killing the Tory Party

If we are looking for a source of the Conservatives woes then the Chesham & Amersham by-election provides the case study, not because the Party lost a safe seat but because of why it thinks it lost

Back to the simple life.

Back to nature.

To a shady retreat in the reeds and rushes of the River Ches.

The lure of Metroland was remoteness and quiet.

This is what a brochure of the 20's said.

'It's the trees, the fairy dingles, and a hundred and one things in which dame nature's fingers have lingered long in setting out this beautiful array of wooden slope, trout stream, meadow and hill top sites'.

'Send a postcard, for the homestead of your dreams, to 'Loudwater Estate', Chorley Wood.

From ‘Metroland’ by John Betjeman

The scale of Conservative collapse in last week’s local elections came as a surprise. Not because the party lost seats, that was always baked in, but because they lost seats pretty much everywhere. Not a single county council remains in Conservative control with Reform and Liberal Democrats shoving the party aside. For the first time serious consideration is given to whether the Conservative Party can survive this crisis. Of course the media’s focus will be on the leadership, did the membership make a mistake opting for Kemi Badenoch rather than Robert Jenrick? Is now the time to switch horses and will such a change make any actual difference?

I think the Party’s problem isn’t just the vengeance of an angry electorate but comes also from a diminishing base and the inability to escape from the mood music that diminishing base wants to hear. One of my ex-twitter mutuals, Fat Jacques, taps the nail firmly on the head with this comment in response to my saying a “future focused conservative would want to scrap the arbitrary Green Belt designation”:

“What future focused conservatives? Is that a thing? They are controlled by property owning boomers who vote NIMBY. Look what happened in Chesham when Tories pissed them off. They are more scared of losing the grey middle class cote than they are interested in gaining younger votes.”

If Fat Jacques is right, and I fear he might be, then the Conservative Party is finished. Not just because of the inevitable demographics of appealing to the old but because, as those who read my article about ‘libdemmery’ will know, the NIMBY vote is contested with Reform, Greens, Lib Dems and assorted localists. And all these alternatives have the advantage of not being the Conservative Party.

If we are looking for a source of the Conservatives woes then maybe the Chesham & Amersham by-election provides the case study. Not because the Party lost a safe seat to the Liberal Democrats but because of what they saw as the reasons for that defeat. The fallout from that by-election saw the dumping of Robert Jenrick’s planning reforms as dozens of home counties and suburban MPs ran around like chicken licken fearing the worst. Most of these panicked chickens are now ex-MPs but only after they tore lumps out of each other and the party they represented.

It always struck me as odd that the Conservative Party, despite a substantial majority in Parliament, allowed that body to, in effect, sack its leader. I may have stopped being a party member because of Boris Johnson, but the manner in which the Party allowed a Parliamentary kangaroo court chaired by an opposition MP to force him out remains one of the stranger episodes in modern politics. And Conservative MPs allowed it to happen for the same reason they crippled pro-growth reforms and, other than in schools, improvements to public services. Those Conservative MPs placed their own survival above everything else, there was no ambition for Britain, no interest in Disraeli’s mission of bettering the conditions of ordinary men and women, no Thatcherite zeal for a growing economy, just grubby electoral calculus.

After the recent Canadian elections, I remarked that Mark Carney might be the last Liberal Prime Minister of that country. His narrow win was achieved on the back of voters over 65 while the Conservative Party of Canada won comfortably among those under 40. The British Conservative Party is the case study for Canadian Liberals. The crushing 2019 election win was built on the back of voters over 50 and especially those over 65. So when some of those wealthy older homeowners, upset by the work building a high speed railway, used a by-election to protest, the party doubled down on indulging the interests of those older voters.

If the Conservatives want to recover (and sometimes I’m not sure they do) they must begin with answering two questions: what they want for Britain and who is likely to agree with that aspiration? If, as at present, the party simply falls into lazy opposition and mutterings about how it all used to be so much better, then the public, quite rightly, will turn away and seek a different answer elsewhere. I am something of a cracked record but, since we started with John Betjeman and a by-election in Buckinghamshire, a Conservative message should perhaps start with another hero of that county, the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli:

“Gentlemen, another great object of the Tory party, and one not inferior to the maintenance of the empire, or the upholding of our institutions, is the elevation of the condition of the people.”

Disraeli’s conservatism recognised, and criticised Liberals for failing to see this, that a successful nation needed aspiration, “England will have to decide between national and cosmopolitan principles”, to want our sons and daughter to be part of doing great things:

“It is whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and moulded upon continental principles and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be a great country, - an imperial country - a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world”

To realise this ambition a good conservatism would try to remove the things that bar the way to success and a better life, even if that better life is a three-bed detached on an estate near Amersham. Right now the Conservative Party stands astride the road with the selfish and greedy barring the way to that better life for young people. It has adopted those narrow, continental national principles and rejects the cosmopolitan principles Disraeli cried for. Conservatives are not alone in opposing betterment for ordinary people, all Britain’s parties to a greater or lesser extent do this, but they have become the symbols of selfish provincialism as well as avatars of failure:

“The public has been completely conned. @Keir_Starmer and @AngelaRayner dressed up their so-called ‘Grey Belt’ plan as a few disused garage forecourts —but in reality, it’s a green light for @MayorofLondon to concrete over thousands of acres of protected Green Belt land to cover up an appalling housing record.”

A fifth of 34 year olds in London are living with their parents. Over half of Londoners rent either privately or from the council. And the Conservative Party’s housing spokesman wants to block the opportunity for those people to do the thing conservatives used to support without hesitation, owning a home. And when the government signs trade agreements, the Conservative leadership responds with negativity - Britain will be left “shafted” - rather than welcoming the opening up of opportunity for Britain’s sons and daughters to succeed in the world.

The Conservative Party should be brave, should step away from this new instinct to bar and block, and should talk about how Britain became great by trading with the world, by allowing people to build homes, start businesses and grow the institutions of a safe, family-friendly society. Right now only Labour speaks of growth with anything that looks like passion and their grand plan might yet be scuppered by net zero, failing to build new homes and allowing migration to damage our culture, economy and social mores. Conservatives can do better but only if they start by reminding my generation what a great life we’ve had and maybe let’s allow the next generations the same or, damn it, a better opportunity.