But Tories have also distanced themselves from most other professional groups. The liberal chief constable has now been joined by the left-leaning general in that spacious pantheon which accommodates the Tory demons. In the depth of its phobias the Tory party has now become at last an authentically European party - one of the reactionary right. It has cut loose from its roots in the English political tradition and is locatable somewhere in inter-war Europe. It is the party of offended virtue and angry patriots, of the misunderstood and permanently cross.
Alienation is the daily rationed bread.
By that term Tories mean the modern world with its anarchy of tastes and the individualism of minorities who threaten to become a majority. It means the alien in their midst, the refugee at the door and the deviant who threatens to jump into bed. Much as fascism did. Conspiratorial and suspicious in temperament, they jeer at plotting liberals in high places. Nostalgia is not a conservative prerogative - nor is it necessarily noxious.