None of this ever cohered into anything solid. From around 2012 onwards, in response to Labour’s weakening connection with some of its old core vote, some adventurous Conservatives (the Harlow MP Robert Halfon is a good example) had held out the idea of the Tories somehow becoming a new “workers’ party”, and re-embracing the idea of an activist state. In that context, if the people at the top of the party made money by fair or foul means, they were only living the dream they offered the electorate at large– not least in the 1980s, when the comedian Harry Enfield invented a ubiquitous character called “ Loadsamoney”, and the old Tory vision of the property-owning democracy was joined by the brief dream of millions of people owning and trading in shares.īut eventually, something very interesting happened. When the party had extended its appeal in the past, it was by offering people individual advancement, rather than by economic interventionism – most spectacularly, when Margaret Thatcher encouraged people to own their council houses via the right-to-buy scheme. Up until the Brexit referendum, the Conservative party tended to be seen as the enduring voice of the shires and suburbs, speaking for and to those who were either rich or comfortably off, and millions of others who at least aspired to be.

Two years ago, 107 new Conservative MPs were elected, and the views they have and the places they represent are starting to have a fascinating effect on Tory politics. But there are other reasons, too – one of which is a huge change that is only just starting to be understood. Why the shift? The most obvious explanation is Boris Johnson’s self-described act of “ crashing the car” in the Owen Paterson case, and how an attempt to change the rules on parliamentary standards highlighted the contorted ethics of scores of MPs.

Suddenly, though, we seem to be in one of those political moments that is not so much about new revelations as an instant realisation that what was tolerated or ignored yesterday ought to be rejected today.

But thanks to an uneasy mixture of low expectations of politicians, a certain deference, and the idea that Tory avarice was part of the natural order of things, most of the people involved have been left alone. From time to time, the intersection between some Tories’ idea of public service and their pursuit of money has burst into the headlines. C onservative MPs have had second, third and fourth jobs for years.

Cabinet vision solid