Oh it's getting back reform ones, losing to LDs and calling it a win, isn't it.
It will be interesting if the next election saw the party win, say, 80ish more seats, whether that would be perceived as success or failure.
Wonder which is higher - the probability of the next Tory leader contesting the ~2034 election, or of them leading the party into the ~2029 one?
Don't think it helps that a bunch of people on the right use "social conservative" to mean "tough on crime and immigration", then try to impute other social conservative positions onto that group.
The Conservative Government failed to reduce immigration because it was wholly unwilling to embrace or address the second order effects of doing it. They also created, as a policy, an immigration system of the type that had always increased numbers where it had been implemented.
The US also really downplayed it's German culture during/after the wars. American Christmas for example is obviously germanic, but not ever mentioned as such.
Yes, especially being at the Bar where your income fluctuates and lags.
It's a bit like the run in to 2024. Is it possible that things coupe turn around? Yes! Are you going to do any of the difficult things that might increase the chances? Probably not.
He's also probably moved in circles where there are a bunch of people whose income is fairly secondary to their standard of living and maybe a sense that frivolity is for those people not for him.
Plus he did give up what would have likely been his really meaty earning years at the Bar to be DPP and then an MP.