If the Tories were a vegetable, they would’ve been composted years ago. Not in British politics, where rotten parties stick around long after they’re past due.

Nothing epitomises this more than the fourteen-year reign of the Conservatives, who were finally removed from power in the July 2024 general election, scoring their worst-ever result.

If only it were a victory for Labour. Though it claimed a near-record-breaking 411 seats, Keir Starmer won with the smallest majority on record, taking in under 34% of the vote.

If anything, both parties lost big. But the public punished the Tories hardest.

Dial back to January 2024. Suspecting Rishi Sunak’s government wouldn’t make it through the year, The Battleground’s Josh White began recording an election diary in anticipation of its fall.

Starting monthly and going weekly once elections were called, White’s monologues anticipated what would happen to Sunak and how Labour would fail to capitalise on its electoral triumph.

If this sounds like a Greek tragedy, it is. Just call it Tories Are Dead. Josh White got it right; the only beneficiaries of the Tories’ death are Nigel Farage and his far-right Reform UK party.

Tories Are Dead is a spoken word album compiled from The Battleground’s Left To Burn podcast and is available from Bandcamp.

 

Produced by Joel Schalit
Cover design by Philippe Nicolas