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It is unclear whether the party understands what has just happened to it, or rather what it has just done to itself: for seldom was a loss more self-inflicted. The post mortems in the press are full of the inevitable anonymous finger pointing about divisions within the campaign team, or the failings of their voter identification model, or the lack of adequate screening of candidates.

It isn’t about that. Nor is it about some inescapable 10-year timetable that dictates voter fatigue with incumbents. It isn’t even about Stephen Harper, at least in the trivial sense that people “just didn’t like” him. It’s true that Harper is not the warmest person you’re liable to meet. But Canadians did elect him, more than once, until he and his party made their presence in power intolerable.

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Only four years ago, indeed, it appeared the country was on the verge of a realignment; the new Conservative coalition, of the West and Ontario, seemed built to last. That the Tories should have thrown it all away since then is a remarkable testament to what arrogance, paranoia and an obsession with control can do. There have been worse defeats, it is true: the party has a base to rebuild on. But unless the culture changes, it should not count on being returned to power any time soon.

We should be clear where the roots of that culture lie. The nastiness of Tory politics under Harper, the mindless partisanship, the throttling of backbench MPs, are not outgrowths of conservatism. They were born, rather, of its repudiation: of the decision to sterilize the new party of any ideological convictions, the better (it was supposed) to remove any obstacle to its electability.