There is a deep paradox at the heart of the newly dominant strain of Right-wing Conservatism: it is a populism that, in so many respects, is proving to be conspicuously out of touch with the very voters it claims to represent.

Boris Johnson’s party presents itself as the authentic voice of the people, but does so with ears of tin — and, judging by much of its recent conduct, a heart of stone.

In response to such charges, senior Tory figures invariably recite an inventory of objectives and campaign themes as evidence of their unique connection with, and understanding of, the will of the people: “Get Brexit Done”; 20,000 more police officers; untold billions for the NHS; law and order; better schools… it is a catechism of bounty, proclaimed with a certainty matched only by vagueness.

Yet there was no vagueness about Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appalling remarks on Monday concerning the Grenfell tragedy . On LBC, the Leader of the House told his interviewer: “I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do.”

Does it? I can only imagine — or guess, actually — how I would have responded if caught in a high-rise building, consumed by flames, smoke, the noise of terror and confusion.

What I do know is that it is emphatically not my place to say how I would have behaved in contrast to the residents of Grenfell Tower. The languid arrogance of Rees-Mogg’s ruminations was simply breathtaking. This was not the voice of the people, but the voice of the judgmental patrician — he who considers himself innately wiser, better, and entitled to assert that superiority.

If anything, his supposed apology made the problem worse. “What I meant to say,” Rees-Mogg told the Evening Standard , “is that I would have also listened to the fire brigade’s advice to stay and wait at the time.

“However, with what we know now and with hindsight I wouldn’t and I don’t think anyone else would.”

But that patently isn’t what he meant to say, and he is taking us for fools with such a lazy attempted clarification. This was a classic example of victim-blaming — an extraordinary statement as morally outrageous as it was deplorably offhand. I agree with Labour MP David Lammy that it is amazing that Rees-Mogg is still in his Cabinet post.

And yet is it amazing? As public life has been coarsened — as it has become shriller, crueller and less humane — so our collective skin has hardened a little, We shrug with resignation when we should insist on accountability and decency.

“This ain’t about politics,” said the rapper Stormzy yesterday , “it’s about the people who govern us lacking the most basic humanity or empathy.” Absolutely right.

Not that Labour is any better. It presents itself to the public as a prospective government, not having resolved (or, in many cases, even acknowledged) the problem of anti-Jewish racism that is deeply embedded in its bones.

On Monday, Zarah Sultana, the Labour candidate for Coventry South, had to apologise for saying on social media that she would “celebrate” when “the likes of Blair, Netanyahu and Bush die”.

Labour’s problems are the product of ideological certainty and a sanctimonious conviction that those they choose to attack are, by definition, fair game. I do not know how much the brutally binary world view of the Corbynites will trouble voters during this election. But it certainly should.

The Conservative pathology is one of detachment, insensitivity and baffled irritation. Witness the Prime Minister, asked by Paula Sherriff in September to consider the fate of Jo Cox whenever he used inflammatory words such as “surrender”, dismissing the Labour MP’s concerns as “humbug”.

Witness, too, the row surrounding Alun Cairns, who today resigned as Welsh Secretary . In April 2018, one of his aides, Ross England, caused a rape trial to collapse when he referred to the female victim’s previous sexual history in court. England was subsequently selected as Tory candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan.

Cairns initially told BBC Wales that he became aware of the trial’s collapse only last week, when the story broke. However, a leaked email has now made it clear that the Welsh Secretary was told of the trial’s collapse in August 2018 (if not before). On the basis of this, the rape victim — who worked for the Conservative Party — called for him to stand down. She was right to do so.

What beggars belief is that Johnson’s team cannot see this.

They spend millions on data analysis, on psychographic scraping of voters’ personal information to develop a detailed image of the electorate. And yet the simplest questions of morality, empathy and taste elude them.

The core message of the Conservative campaign, launched in earnest today, is aimed squarely at Labour Leave-voting constituencies. I have never known senior Conservatives so brazen in their insistence that they have what it takes to win over “ordinary voters”. More than ever, they invoke “the People” — and you just know the “P” is capitalised in their minds.

How pitiful, then, that they seem to understand so little about people with a lower-case “p” — and the damage they do to their own electoral prospects by behaving this way. This, at least, strikes me as a matter of common sense.