Yet examining whether Truss might have been right in her diagnosis — if not her prescription — is a far more difficult proposition of introspection. Who among the candidates has a theory about how the party managed to oversee more than a decade of stagnant economic growth and wages, and has challenged the Conservative hierarchy to understand the economic and political underpinnings of this unsatisfactory order?

Tory defeat in 1997 may have been comparably catastrophic to 2024, but the party at least felt it had a record to defend. This year offers no such indulgence. Not even leadership frontrunner Robert Jenrick is keen to defend his party’s record in government.

Just look back to Ed Miliband in the 2010 parliament. By casting doubt on the worthiness of the last Labour government with his own faint praise, he offered up political territory to the Conservatives: they could simply march their troops onto the open, undefended land.

But for the Tory Party after this defeat, challenging itself and engaging in self-criticism is essential. Nobody should be prepared to defend its woeful outcomes on the economy, migration or public services.

At first, it will be too offensive to declare that the party can no longer rely on offering pork-barrel goodies to a dwindling set of grey voters. But challenging the status quo of a pensioners’ welfare and planning system that hands out cash to retirees, and prevents the building of infrastructure and new homes, is vital. Not facing up to these realities has led the party to catastrophic defeat in any case, yet it’s unlikely to give a mandate to change this order without the maturity that comes through serial defeat.

And without a mandate to tear up the incentive structures that have given us such woeful outcomes, whoever ends up winning the contest is unlikely to be offered permission by the party to truly change its nature. Without the power to change the party, and then offer a changed party to the country, what reason is there to believe the next election result will be much different?

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James Sean Dickson is an analyst and journalist who Substacks at Himbonomics.

Gaylussite

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