Grassroots Tories are unhappy about May cuddling up to Jeremy Corbyn - a man she rightly argued cannot be trusted with the country's economy, defences or interests. She has managed to unearth a way to make herself even less popular, just when it was generally assumed that seam was mined out.

However, the Prime Minister is not her Party's only affliction. If she resigned tomorrow, and took her failed dilution of Brexit and newfound friendship with Corbyn with her, it would not instantly return to rude health. With a new leader who does radical things like keep their promises and enthuse voters, the Conservatives might shake off the immediate bug, but the Party itself would remain severely out of shape.

Aside from poor leadership or bad policies, the behaviour of the centre towards the members is a chronic and harmful condition. The unwillingness to trust the grassroots with important decisions has always been unjust. When David Cameron argued they should sacrifice some of their beliefs in order to win, they chose him over David Davis. Among some, however, a fetish for disdaining Tory members has caught hold, a shorthand with which to display one's modernity. Tory MPs point to Momentum as a cautionary tale, as though enthusiastic Conservatives are somehow as extreme and misguided as Marxists.

Members are not simply insulted, they are ignored: no say on policy; no vote on the leadership since 2005; not even a free and meaningful voice at their own conference. Candidate selections are now subject to "advice" from Party HQ - advice recently described to me by a senior activist as "blatant bullying, matched by patronising contempt", delivered with the subtlety of "five double-glazing salesmen putting their feet inside my door".

Tory MPs lament the lack of a mass-movement to rival Labour's. They are right, but they should not be surprised that an organisation which treats its most committed supporters so poorly struggles to recruit more.

We should apply Conservative principles to the Conservative Party. Excessive top-down control does not work for the economy or the state, and nor does it work for a political party. Accruing too much power centrally alienates the base and neglects the benefits of local knowledge, while micromanagement distracts HQ from fulfilling its proper responsibilities.