It is better for Rishi Sunak to lose an election than to win ugly

Anthony Seldon – biographer of six prime ministers – explains which lessons the current occupant of 10 Downing Street could stand to learn from history, and why the return of the ‘nasty party’ would be a mistake

I rate Rishi Sunak highly as a thoroughly professional, hard-working and serious-minded politician (PA Wire)

Theresa May bravely used the words “nasty party” at the October 2002 party conference to describe a series of intolerant Conservative policies and attitudes within the mainstream party towards those without power or voice in society.

The party didn’t listen, went on to select Michael Howard the following year as the successor to Iain Duncan Smith. Not till the election of David Cameron in 2005 did the party begin to embrace new concerns across the country which came to the fore at the beginning of the new century, as they had 100 years before when the party under Lord Salisbury was slow to respond. The party lost power in 1905 for nearly 20 years.

Could we be hearing, at the end of this long period of Conservative government since 2010, some of the same tendencies that lead Theresa May to speak out?