Even the much heralded Tory epiphany of 1979 yielded a majority of only 43 This is the country of the natural anti-Tory majority

Even the much heralded Tory epiphany of 1979 yielded a majority of only 43 This is the country of the natural anti-Tory majority. A change to its voting system threatens to marginalise the Conservative Party in perpetuity But the true threat to the Tories comes from within. When an ideological mirage divides you from reality, when you have a set of ready platitudes, formulaic responses and a dash of bad history with which to confront the world, you stop thinking. This is what has now happened to the Tories.Their catalogue of British worthies and virtues - rugged and individualistic - seem to come straight from the Ladybird books of British history. A less convincing set of swashbucklers was never assembled than the ones sitting on the opposition front bench.

Their "internationalism" is bogus - a mere synonym for craven pro-Americanism. They ignore the fact that sovereignty is a late modern invention of tight little European states - that system which came into being with the peace of Westphalia in 1648 and died in the rubble of Berlin in 1945.Perhaps the least appealing of Mr Hague's observations was his attempt to make our flesh creep - like the Fat Boy in Dickens. He threatens us with dark forces - perhaps at the return home of those Florida holiday- makers he refers to so admiringly in his speech. English nationalism is "a sinister and uncontrollable force". Tony Blair "holding a dagger at the heart of what it is to be British" is playing with fire. A Cardiff assembly and an Edinburgh parliament will arouse savage English resentments.This is the true craven populist at work.

He is always ready to encourage nastiness in order to wrest advantage from it - while at the same time maintaining an air of offended virtue Violent language is becoming a Hague speciality. Last year he told us that the European single currency was a burning building with no exits. The exchanges of Europe have survived the prophecies of this intemperate sibyl.The old United Kingdom withered on the vine because the Tories ceased to be good custodians of that Union. Now their sole constitutional posture is one of a charmless and arid defence of the day before yesterday. Their one and only policy consists of a dogmatic anti-Europeanism fed on fantasy and fear. Mr Hague's "British Way" is a path to perdition.`Guilty Men: Conservative Decline and Fall, 1992-97', by Hywel Williams, is published by Aurum Press..