DAN HODGES: If Tories are being trounced in their safest citadels, all Rishi can do is sit down… and pray

Turn off all the noise. Dial down the claims and counter-claims of the spin doctors, psephologists and strategists. 

Instead, imagine being on a winding Bedfordshire lane called Deadman’s Cross – they used to hang highwaymen from the nearby hill – and in an unassuming but cosy 17th Century red-brick pub called The Greyhound.

Last Thursday lunchtime, I popped in to take a break from my perambulation of polling stations in the Mid-Beds by-election. 

Gathered round the bar were three locals, Andie, Robbie and Boo. In 2000, when Vauxhall announced it was ending car production in nearby Luton, Andie asked on a whim if he could purchase the firm’s seemingly obsolete manufacturing robots.

‘Now I sell robots all round the world. We had a £7 million turnover last year,’ he tells me casually. Robbie is a property developer. Boo a bricklayer.

Last month, Sunak attempted to relaunch his premiership by repackaging himself as an agent of change. On Thursday, that rebranding exercise blew up in his face

These three men – self-made, middle-aged, robustly unwoke – would once have represented the bedrock of British Conservatism. The constituency where we are sitting wasn’t so much safe, as an impregnable Tory fortress.

Not any more.

‘I’ve had it with all of them,’ Andie tells me. ‘Rishi is OK. Yeah, he’s rich but I haven’t got a problem with that. But there’s no difference now in any of them. Nothing changes.’

Robbie had more parochial concerns. ‘Our council is a nightmare. Getting something built around here is like a war. I’d be better off with Keir Starmer.’ He laughs. ‘Not that I trust a word he says.’

Boo voted for Boris Johnson in 2019. ‘I liked him. He made me laugh,’ he explains. But now he has drifted back to abstention. ‘I won’t be voting for anyone,’ he tells me, almost proudly.

In the wake of Thursday’s electoral double-whammy for the Tories, people have struggled to contextualise the scale of their defeat. 

‘It’s Armageddon,’ one Minister told me.

But Andie, Robbie and Boo reveal the truth. The Tory base is not imploding. It’s just slowly and inexorably ebbing away. Men – and women – who once voted Conservative on muscle-memory have had enough. They look at a party and politicians they used to take on trust and thought would speak for them. And now see nothing but a vacuum.

YES, there were a significant number who switched allegiance last week. You could see it before you even spoke to them. As they walked towards the polling station there was something about their demeanour. It was confident and measured. They wanted to send a message.

Fred Ash, a pensioner, was typical. ‘I’ve always voted Tory, but it’s time to change now. Partygate. That did it for me.’

Nicole, a lawyer, said: ‘I was a Tory member once, but I’m voting Labour this time. We need them out.’

Keith Palmer, a builder: ‘Always been Tory. Especially round here. But it’s Reform [which emerged from the ashes of the Brexit Party] now. It’s just the last decade. They just don’t look or act like a Conservative Government.’

There were also a significant number who didn’t stop to chat – the most I’ve personally experienced at a by-election. They rushed by hurriedly, heads down.

Which may give Rishi Sunak a small cause for hope. The idea there is a ‘shy Tory’ factor that could be slightly overstating Labour’s support in the polls.

Starmer’s weaknesses do not open the door for a Conservative fightback. They simply underline the extent to which people have decided ‘it’s time for anyone but the Tories’. Which means time is almost up for the Conservatives

But it shouldn’t give the PM too much hope. When Tory stalwarts are too embarrassed to admit

they are voting Conservative in the heart of Bedfordshire, something is seriously amiss.

Over the past few years we have lived through a period of unprecedented political turmoil, but this weekend we finally have clarity.

Last month, Sunak attempted to relaunch his premiership by repackaging himself as an agent of change. 

On Thursday, that rebranding exercise blew up in his face. Just as it will blow up next week, and the week after.

The voters could not have been clearer. If they want change, they’ll choose Starmer. What they will not do is cast their ballot for a five-year extension of 13 years of Tory rule.

Starmer’s double by-election successes also mean some people need to rethink the consensus surrounding the Labour leader.

All the caveats still apply: he does not enthuse people; he’s seen as aloof and wooden; Britain still cannot quite relate to him.

And until now, Tory MPs and Ministers have been clinging to this characterisation.

But, in truth, it ought to be filling them with dread.

Starmer is not the new Blair. His policy agenda – to the extent he has one – remains opaque. Last week, dozens of Labour MPs were queuing up to defy his stance on the Israel-Hamas war and again indulge their fetishisation of the pro-Palestinian movement.

And it hasn’t made the slightest electoral difference.

Sunak’s party is still being routed in its securest citadels.

Starmer’s weaknesses do not open the door for a Conservative fightback. They simply underline the extent to which people have decided ‘it’s time for anyone but the Tories’. 

Which means time is almost up for the Conservatives.

The next few days will see some fevered speculation about one last, desperate throw of the leadership dice. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, will ready his letter opener for any new votes of no confidence.

Boris Johnson will pull himself away from his memoirs long enough to gently remind the party he’s ready to serve if required.

But it will be a fantasy. The Conservative Party’s reputation for sound governance is already shredded. Another change of leader would leave Britain looking like a banana republic. And as one Minister said: ‘There are constitutional issues that need to be considered. If we try to change leader again, after a year, I think the King might start taking an interest.’

Other Ministers advocate a dramatic and wide-ranging Cabinet reshuffle. ‘That really would be our last throw of the dice,’ one told me. ‘It’s the one thing we have left that could change the narrative.’

But again, this is crazy talk.

If Tory strategists honestly think the voters are going to say, ‘Have you heard? Andrew Bowie has replaced Gillian Keegan as Education Secretary. We were wrong about them all along,’ they really have lost touch with reality.

There is only one thing Sunak can realistically do now. Sit back. Pour himself a stiff non-alcoholic drink. And pray for something – anything – to turn up. The trouble is that has basically been the Government’s strategy for five years. And the voters of Tamworth and Mid-Beds have delivered their verdict on it.

There will be a few more twists and turns. Starmer will inevitably have a stumble. The polls will begin to narrow a little. A few disillusioned members of the Tory tribe will reluctantly revert. But the political path is set.

Four years ago, I was sitting in a pub in the Red Wall seat of Bishop Auckland. It was General Election polling day and I could hear some regulars laughing among themselves. They were joking about the ludicrous idea of them voting for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.

For Andie, Robbie and Boo, and millions of others in what used to be the Tory Blue Wall, the idea of saving the Conservatives from its inevitable fate is now equally laughable.

It may be in months. It may be a year. But one day soon, Sunak will walk out of No 10 for the last time.

And the mocking cackle of the ghosts of Deadman’s Cross will accompany him.

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