“Conservative MPs, with a few honourable exceptions, appear to be in denial about the scale of the popular uprising against our current rulers. This is despite their party finishing third in the elections,” he said. “They appear to think that the Ukip threat will go away (it won’t) or that the economic recovery will float them off the political rocks. They should recall what happened in 1997. Then the economy had been growing strongly for four years. That did not stop John Major going down to the worst Tory defeat since 1832.”