The Conservative Party’s Turmoil and Division
| Author | Tim Bale |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058221147585a |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
4POLITICAL INSIGHT•DECEMBER 2022
Whatever else you can say
about the Conservative
Party in recent years, it
certainly seems to have
taken the words of its iconic wartime leader
Winston Churchill to heart – even if, in Liz
Truss’s case, it conveniently forgot about
his final sentence. While the Tory Party’s
The Conservative
Party’s Turmoil
and Division
Britain has had five Conservative prime ministers in a little over six
years. But, argues Tim Bale, the Tories’ taste for regicide has as much
to do with MPs’ estimates of their leaders’ electoral viability as it
does with more profound ideological fissures.
ruthlessness can be seriously overdone
(did it really need 775 days to discover
Iain Duncan Smith (hereafter IDS) was a
dud or 1080 days to work out that Boris
Johnson was a one-man moral vacuum?),
it has been ejecting ‘number ones’ at a
phenomenal rate in the past few years.
What’s interesting is why. Does the rapid
turnover of leaders indicate that the party
is increasingly ideologically riven, with one
or other faction determined to take cold-
blooded revenge on its rivals by bringing
down its pick for leader? Or, is it rather more
instrumental and self-interested – less to
do with long- and rmly-held beliefs and
more to do with court politics and careerism,
whether that be reaching and staying on the
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 sleeps he must not be
wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed. But this last extreme
process cannot be carried out every day; and certainly not in the days just after he
has been chosen.
(Winston Churchill, 1949)
© Imageplotter / Alamy Stock Photo
Political Insight December 2022.indd 4Political Insight December 2022.indd 414/11/2022 11:1314/11/2022 11:13
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