The Tory leader’s shift to the right has left its centrist wing wondering if its tradition still has a future
In one popular reading of the history of Tory successes, the party’s last three election-winning prime ministers – John Major, David Cameron and Boris Johnson – all swept into Downing Street on unifying one-nation platforms.
But for many people this year’s Tory conference, marked by its hardening rhetoric on asylum seekers and growing overtures to Nigel Farage’s brand of politics, feels a far cry from those broad principles.