Last Wednesday, the announcement that Conservative MPs had decided on a conclusive leadership battle between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick was greeted in non-Tory circles by an outpouring of mirth. One Labour parliamentarian texted the Guardian’s political editor to jokily wonder whether the result needed to be declared as yet another gift. Rumours that the shock outcome was the consequence of James Cleverly’s supporters assuming he had an unassailable lead and cynically backing Robert Jenrick as his most beatable opponent were the clincher: here was yet another instalment of the Tory pantomime that has now been running for nearly a decade. “A lot of very serious analysis awaits,” said the LBC presenter James O’Brien, “but this is all objectively hilarious.”

In so far as Badenoch and Jenrick seemingly have no interest in the reasons why their party so comprehensively lost the election, all the amusement is understandable. Talk of whoever wins perhaps lasting only a couple of years only increases the sense of hilarity. But it is surely not that difficult to take a slightly different view, and look at the future of Tory politics with more than a pang of anxiety.

The new government is faced with an almost impossible set of financial and economic problems. The reputational damage caused by Freebiegate may well stick, and there is still no coherent big-picture narrative. Since the summer, Keir Starmer’s personal approval ratings have dropped by 45 percentage points; on Sunday, new polling by More In Common suggested Labour and the Tories are neck-and-neck. Meanwhile, a huge cloud of toxic rightwing politics – full of racism, conspiracy theory and hare-brained economics – hangs over much of the world, the UK included.

Make no mistake: the fact that Jenrick and Badenoch have chosen to position themselves in such close proximity to the new global right is........

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