The Eton vs Winchester of the wine world

A few days ago, when everything looked black, a small group of us were consoling ourselves over a couple of good bottles. ‘In politics,’ said I, ‘things are never as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope.’ ‘I entirely agree,’ replied one friend. ‘At the moment, things are not as bad as I fear. They are worse.’

That was before Bojo lost his mojo. Has his curse now finally been lifted from the Conservative party? It would be foolish to offer a swift and complacent ‘yes’. Among the political figures Boris resembles, we must include not only Alcibiades, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump. There is also Rasputin. Can we be certain that Mr Johnson has been given the full fatal dosage: icy Neva, silver bullet, poisoned cake, stake through the heart? Nothing less is guaranteed to be sufficient. Many now assume that Borasputin is politically finished. We can be certain he is not one of them.

On the subject of quasi--miraculous escapes from doom, we should not forget an institutional example: the Tory party itself. Since its emergence under the Younger Pitt, the modern Conservative party in its long innings has been much the most successful electoral force in the entire world. It might have been assumed that the party which resisted electoral reform in the early 1830s would have declined into a marginalised Carlist rump. Not a bit of it. The Tories discreetly embraced social change and co-opted many of its beneficiaries. It never allowed itself to be on the wrong side of history for long.

But then recent events happened. Prime ministers came, like the obscure French monarchs before Henri IV – and they went. Actually, those enfeebled final sputterings of Valois decadence lasted rather longer than the post-Cameron PMs.

Despite his best efforts, everything went wrong under John Major. This time, it was worse. It seemed the Tories were bent on self-slaughter. In the mid-1990s, an amusing Labour MP, Austin Mitchell, said his party would be able to sleepwalk to power. Suddenly, Labour looked like benefiting from another outbreak of somnambulism – and when would the Tories reawaken?

Cometh the hour, cometh the saviour. Virtually as soon as Rishi Sunak arrived in Westminster, he had been identified as a future leader, in the way that David Cameron was. Many people had not expected the young Cameron to rise so fast. There were fears that we were about to sacrifice a promising youngster in a hopeless battle. The fears were brushed aside. Now an even younger figure has been tasked with the rescue mission.

He starts with one self-evident advantage. To put it mildly, Mr Sunak does not fit the stereotype of a Conservative leader. Voters will look at him with interest and, indeed, surprise. The Tories’ only prospect of electoral revival is a political reset, with the recent past covered in an act of oblivion while the public examine the party with a fresh eye. There is no guarantee of success. Yet it is not a forlorn hope.

We had consoled ourselves with a Langoa-Barton 2005: everything a serious claret ought to be. In celebratory mood, the same group moved on to a Léoville-Barton ’05. The two houses are great rivals – almost like Eton and Winchester. So which was the better? I am tempted to say ‘both’. If you are lucky enough to drink either – or better still, both – you will not need my adjudication. Either would do well in a cautious toast to a possible Tory recovery.