Today's Conservative Party believes in relatively high spending and relatively high taxes. That makes it a much harder opponent for Labour, just as New Labour was a much harder opponent for the Conservatives 10/n

There's one other consequence of this change in the Conservatives. They've been in office for 11 years so 'time for a change' should be an increasingly powerful message, but it isn't because we have had 4 very different governments over those 11 years 11/n

If that all sounds daunting for Labourites and others who don't want a Conservative government: in his 2019 triumph Boris Johnson only got just over 300,000 more votes than Theresa May in 2017. So why the huge difference in the outcome (hung Parliament vs big majority)? 12/n

Because in our first past the post system what matters is the margin between the parties. In 2017 Corbyn got most of the anti-Tory vote; by 2019 when voters knew him better he didn't. While the centre left is divided, it has no chance of beating a united cente right THE END