The Tory leadership race says it all about the trouble they are in. Jenrick, Badenoch, Stride: what a crew!

Instead of looking at those candidates, whose names escape me for the moment, what of their party? As has often been said and written, this is the most remarkable and successful political party in European history. There has been something called a Tory party in Britain in the three and a half centuries from the reigns of Charles II to Charles III. It was routed three times in the last century, first by the Liberals in 1906. Within a matter of years, during the Ulster crisis of 1912-14 – the lowest point in the party’s history – the Tories were almost inciting civil war and mutiny in the army.