Mick Hartley

This is exactly right, from Clare Foges in the Times (£):

The Conservative Party does not need to worry about being likeable. Its currency is not likeability but respect. For decades there has been a belief that while you might loathe the Tories, they get the job done. Yes, they could be arrogant, high-handed bastards but at least they were competent bastards. They were capable. They could envision and see through big, nation-changing projects. This is the fatal thing about the current state of the Conservative Party. The reputation for competence is gone — and with it the grudging respect that brought millions of people to vote Tory.

At conference the Conservative MP James Cleverly said of Labour that “their cosmic role in life” is to “screw things up, so we can come and fix them”. This is standard Tory rhetoric; I put enough of it in speeches over the years. Yet the assertion that Conservatives are the real “fixers” in British politics feels out of step with reality after the bodged campaign, the manifesto U-turn, the snap election that snapped back, and the slowly deflating balloon that is expectations on Brexit. If the Conservatives are fixers, they are Del Boy and Rodney fixing that chandelier….

Even the leadership rumbles of recent weeks lack competence. Conservatives used to have a reputation for dispatching leaders ruthlessly. As Churchill put it: “The loyalties which centre upon number one are enormous. If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered . . . If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.” Alan Clark’s diaries tell of a meeting during the 1990 election contest when Mrs Thatcher’s cards were clearly marked. A group of senior Tories had met to discuss their next steps. “The really sickening thing,” observed Clark, “was the urgent and unanimous abandonment of the Lady. Except for William [Waldegrave]’s little opening tribute she was never mentioned again.”

Tories were red in tooth and claw and decisive in action. Now we have the foreign secretary endlessly manoeuvring but never moving (never mind his late call to “get behind the PM” over the weekend); Grant Shapps going into heavy fire only to find no one behind him; high school manoeuvrings on WhatsApp that are routinely leaked to the press. Shapps “is not even in our WhatsApp group!” declared one MP. From House of Cards to Mean Girls in a few decades.

For the Tories to lose their reputation for competence would be as fatal as Labour losing theirs for compassion. It is core to the brand. 

It was the election that did for May's reputation – an unforgivable political blunder. And the disastrous Brexit negotiations are being led by a man who's been called "thick as mince, lazy as a toad, and vain as Narcissus". Plus a clown as Foreign Secretary…

Unfortunately, they're all at the moment that stands between Jeremy Corbyn and Downing Street.