To change their prospects the Tories have to unite behind their leader and deliver...

THE change in the fortunes of the Conservatives has been remarkable.

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Exactly three years ago, they were the most popular, triumphant force in British politics.

In the local elections of May 2021, they not only gained 235 seats, but also swept to victory in the parliamentary by-election held in the traditionally Labour working-class constituency of Hartlepool.

Yet from that impressive peak the Tories have plunged into the pit of defeat and despair.

The unfolding results of Thursday's elections have exceeded even the most pessimistic forecasts of party strategists as they lost around half of the municipal seats they were defending, while they were also crushed in the Blackpool South by-election.

In a telling symbol of the rout, Labour regained control of Hartlepool Council, but nowhere seemed safe for Rishi Sunak's party.

The losses piled up from key marginal battlegrounds like Thurrock in Essex and from true-blue southern territory like Rushmoor Council in Hampshire, where Labour took charge for the first time in history.

Such was the scale of the massacre that it felt as if the public had already reached its guilty verdict on the Government, with the death sentence to be enacted at the general election.

This was the worst set of municipal results for a ruling party since John Major lost over 2,000 seats in 1995, a bloodbath that presaged Tony Blair's historic landslide two years later.

In fact the results may underplay the scale of the crisis now facing the Tories, for there is a real danger they could be trapped in a pincer movement, with opposition from the Left led by Labour and from the Right by the Reform party.