'Tories are still in denial over election wipeout - conference will be a Victorian freak show'

"Tories will delude themselves that Labour’s unpopularity will send voters rushing back into their arms, and they will kid themselves that they lost not because they were out of touch, but because they were not right-wing enough"

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But the Tories are not yet through the first one.

They remain in denial about why they lost the election. This week in Birmingham, a party of 121 MPs will act as if they are still the natural party of government.

They will delude themselves that Labour’s unpopularity will send voters rushing back into their arms. Then they will kid themselves that they lost not because they were out of touch, incompetent, negligent and arrogant but because they were not right wing enough.

Then they will repeat the mistake of so many parties bruised from a ballot box bashing by retreating to the comfort of their own prejudices. Just as Labour turned to Michael Foot after losing in 1979 and to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, the Tories will elect a leader who makes them feel good about themselves rather than someone who can lead them out of the wilderness.

The Conservatives should be angry with themselves for squandering the trust of voters. Instead, they will be angry with voters for deserting them. They should be trying to reform their party so it can strike a new bargain with the public but they will spend their conference talking to themselves. They should be depressed at how low their stock has fallen but they will swagger through the next few days with the entitlement of people born to rule.

There will be no reckoning in Birmingham, no acceptance of why they were booted out, no attempt to conduct a postmortem. Rather than try to reach out to the voters they lost they will spend the four days in an orgy of introspection as the four leadership contenders compete to see who is the most unsuitable person to lead this moribund, dog-eared, moth-eaten rump of a political party.

Conference will not be a beauty pageant, more like a Victorian freak show which you feel disgusted with yourself for watching. If the Tories are to have any chance of returning to government, they will have to change.

That means admitting the Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson is a failure holding back business. It requires standing up to Donald Trump rather than lauding a convicted felon who is a threat to Nato and a Putin apologist. It involves once again being a party that respects laws and institutions such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

It requires having a policy platform wider than just immigration and recognises the Rwanda scheme was an expensive gimmick. And it demands a halt to the endless culture wars which only underline how out of touch they are with modern Britain.

The Tories are not even close to having these conversations. Until they do, the only thing they will achieve this week is remind people why they were sent packing.