In autumn 1977 Paul Johnson wrote a memorable article for the New Statesman explaining why he could no longer support Labour. “One reason why I joined the Labour party,” he wrote, “was that I believed it stood by the helpless and persecuted, and by the angular non-conformist.” For him, Labour no longer did this – thanks to trade union corporatism from below, and Marxist intellectuals above.
I was an undergraduate at the time, and this article changed my political outlook so profoundly that I can recall the moment I read it. As for Paul Johnson, a giant of literary and political journalism, his timing was sublime. He called the moment when Labour, which in 1977 seemed the natural party of government, embarked on its journey to irrelevance and worse.
Forty-two years later, the Conservative Party is open to the same despairing verdict. The Conservatives have become a vehicle for well-drilled fanatics who, like the Militant tendency forty years ago, infiltrate constituency parties in order to deselect MPs who offend doctrinal purity.
