With the stakes as high as they are, the Tories need to throw the kitchen sink at the Opposition to drag themselves ahead in the polls.
Do they become the party of the provincial working class and lower middle class? Or do they fight to maintain their status as the party of the affluent middle class?
For all his manifesto mistakes, his core take is correct. The key people in elections are who he has always said they are: lower middle-class, provincial, home-owning voters.
C1/C2 voters are hugely important in raw numerical terms. They make up 52 per cent of the electorate in England.
May won five per cent more of the vote than Cameron did two years ago. The margin between having a majority and not having one was performance in marginal seats.
Other than saying, “the state should stay out of things”, they haven’t had much to say. This must change. They need to set out how they’d do things better.
If she tries to work through populist edicts and diktats, she will fail. And if the Right argues that a few tax cuts for the richest will solve our problems, this will be no better.
Gender, race and sexuality dominated the early phases of Tory modernisation. The Prime Minister is now scaling the most challenging peak: class.
Those looking to find what she really stands for may one day get an answer. But the point for the here and now is: she seeks to dominate the mainstream.
The core of their beliefs is that elite expertise is preferred and believed superior to messier concepts such as the market or democracy.
Low aspirational parenting and teaching are key problems.
Embracing this crude Marxist fiction has put the Conservative Party at risk of lasting electoral damage, particularly in London.