These two U-turns (the one over cigarettes is actually more like a smoke ring, as ministers have circled back to their original position) highlight the problem in the Tory party. The problem is not those modernisers who genuinely believed in their pet policies. It was the way some of their colleagues adopted modernising stances that they didn’t really believe in, for the sake of the right “messaging”. They picked huskies to send one message, and then replaced them with “green crap” when the trends changed.