Bloody Panico!

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A history and obituary for the British conservative party

As the Tories face the voters at the next General  Election. Leading political commentator Geoffrey Wheatcroft argues that the party is not just facing the loss of government but also an existential crisis.

The Tory Party has been the most electorally successful party in the history of modern Europe. It has been in power for eighty-five of the past 135 years. In 2019 they won their largest parliamentary majority in more than thirty years. So what went wrong?

In Bloody Panico, Geoffrey Wheatcroft charts the collapse of not just the party but its shattering of its very foundations. 2022 will be remembered as the year of two monarchs and three prime ministers, not to mention four chancellors of the exchequer, five education secretaries, and more than thirty resignations from the government.

Beyond the pantomine of Boris, Truss and the managerial dullness of Sunak, the fabric of the party is frayed. At long last the Tories’ ancient instinct for survival appears to have deserted them, along with any concern for the public good, and the prevailing mode of dissension and vicious feuding. This could see them cast into the political wilderness for decades.”There is much … in Bloody Panico with which most rational people will agree, whatever their politics … If the next incarnation of the Conservative party doesn’t mend its pretty abominable ways, Wheatcroft really will have to write the obituary.”
—Simon Heffer, Telegraph

“Very lucid”
—John Harris, Guardian

“Wheatcroft is particularly alert to the way enduring labels obscure underlying realities. Don’t be misled by the name, for the Conservative Party has rarely functioned as a simple, straightforward embodiment of Tory principles and prejudices.”
—Colin Kidd, New Statesman

“Wheatcroft is a splendid and convincing phrasemaker … and enjoyably feline in his malice.”
—Philip Hensher, Spectator

“Trenchant”
—Mary Kenny, Irish Independent

“Enlightening”
—Andrew Gimson, Conservative Home

“Masterly”
—Sarah Ingham, Conservative Home

“Fast-moving and powerful … [Wheatcroft] blends points from Tory history, which stretches back nearly 350 years, with contemporary events to enhance understanding of what has gone wrong.”
—Lord Lexden, The House

“Enjoyably bilious … [Wheatcroft] delves into the party’s history, revealing a unique ability for reinvention that now seems to have deserted it.”
—ChoiceGeoffrey Wheatcroft is a journalist and author. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, TLS, New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and his books include The Randlords, The Controversy of Zion, which won an American National Book Award, The Strange Death of Tory England, Yo, Blair! and Churchill’s Shadow. He lives in Bath.GB

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