Writing in The Sunday Telegraph on 13 October, Robert Jenrick included three historical points. Two of them were wrong.
He said that that the Party “has just received the lowest share of the vote since 1832”. In fact at 23.7% it was worse than in 1832 when its vote share was 29.4%.
He made the startling claim that the “obscure Edmund Isham” was Tory leader in 1761. This amiable Northamptonshire squire served his county contentedly on the backbenches for 35 years. He could not have risen higher. As Sir Lewis Namier’s magisterial work for the History of Parliament Trust established, the Tories of that era “did not profess to acknowledge any leader, but were independent Members, voting according to their own lights.”
It is true, however, that at around 100 there were even fewer Tory MPs in 1761 than today.
