Is this the end of the Conservative Party?

Could the unthinkable be about to happen to the UK's longest-lasting election-winning machine?

All bad things come to an end, and after hundreds of years of political hegemony, growing numbers of Conservatives are starting to think the unthinkable.

With multiple opinion polls pointing to Rishi Sunak’s party not just losing next month’s general election, but even getting fewer seats than the Lib Dems, some Tories are now starting to ask whether they could be finally reaching their end game.

The reaction from most commentators to this scenario has been to dismiss it as an amusing, but unlikely, fantasy.

The thought of Ed Davey leading the official opposition, with the Conservatives reduced to a political afterthought, is just too alien a prospect for many in Westminster to seriously consider.

Yet following a week in which the Prime Minister had to issue a grovelling apology to D-Day veterans, could it not just be possible, but actually likely, that we may be witnessing the final death of the Conservative Party as an active governing force in the UK?

Here’s why I think we should now start to take the possibility of a post-Conservative political era seriously.