Turning up Like a Bad Penny

Rather than face up to why the public has turned against them, the Conservatives appear determined to simply keep on making the same mistakes over again instead

“A mistake repeated more than once is a decision” wrote the Brazilian author Paulo Coehlo.

And so it is with the Conservative Party. At a point when polls suggest they are heading for a generational wipeout at the next general election, you might expect them to be asking serious questions about exactly how they got here.

These questions could include:

• Why are we behind Labour in every age group aside from the over 70s?

• Why do we keep on talking about tax cuts when voters really want to hear about public services instead?

• Why do people trust us less and less on immigration the more we talk about it?

Yet instead of asking these questions, the Conservatives instead appear determined to simply go on making exactly the same mistakes they’ve made before.

And so, like the proverbial dog returning to its own regurgitation, Conservative MPs are once again returning to the question of who should be their leader.

According to multiple reports, Conservative MPs are coalescing around a new plot to remove Rishi Sunak and replace him with another unelected leader in Penny Mordaunt.

So is this the potential masterstroke that could finally turn their fortunes around, or is it merely the final nail in an already well-secured coffin.

Here’s how I expect things to play out.