the right wing of the tory party a lesson about not getting complacent and disappearing up its own arse. The Conservative party isn't used to that sort of thing and the memory of having its clothes so effectively stolen by Blair is still pretty raw.

Your point about belief is an interesting one, actually. I have been pointing out to everyone who keeps coming up to me with the 'shy tory' narrative that they're missing the point entirely. The point is that voting tory is not an ideological position for most people, but a pragmatic choice. Thus, plenty of people will vote tory without ever identifying as tories themselves, whereas Labour voters tend to identify as such on an ideological level. The problem being, of course, that until voting Labour is a similarly pragmatic choice for the voter, they will remain out of office.