"To cut through to the public in Britain’s increasingly multi-party system, it’s not enough to simply think things and say things. You need to do things too."

Read the latest column from Mark Littlewood, Director of Popular Conservatism. 

Even for political obsessives like me, it’s important to have a hinterland. So, this weekend I am intending to take a trip to the cinema to watch one of the latest blockbusters.

Usually that’s an opportunity to have a little fun and excitement and forget the troubles of the real world for a few hours.

On this occasion though, I’m a little worried that the mere title of the movie will make it hard for me to ignore the current plight of the Conservative Party.

“Mission : Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is Tom Cruise’s eighth film as super-agent Ethan Hunt in which he overcomes seemingly insuperable odds to save humanity from disaster.

A quick glance at the latest opinion polls suggests the odds currently facing the Tories are nearly as daunting.

Fortunately for Conservatives, turning the party’s fortunes around will not require leaping off mountains to grab hold of a passing helicopter (although I think a few more eye-catching stunts from the party leadership would be most welcome).

The mission for the Conservatives, if they choose to accept it, is to put forward a compelling narrative about how and why things are going wrong in Britain and then to roll out some plans for how to fix it.

A lot of the debate about Conservative strategy seems to be focusing on how quickly the party should roll out some concrete policy proposals. But you don’t tend to listen to someone’s prescriptions unless you agree with their diagnosis.

So, it’s good news that the Tory leadership are unveiling a range of policy commissions, but while this is going on in the background, opposition figures need to be pointing out the failures of the Labour government and the broken state of country in an engaging and compelling fashion.

Robert Jenrick’s recent foray into calling out fare-dodgers on the London transport system is a standout example. Robert was able to show how Britain seems to be falling apart at the seams in a one-minute video. It secured enormous cut through across social and mainstream media (over 12 million views on Robert’s X account alone). Even usually hostile outlets felt obliged to cover it. (Incredibly and ludicrously, Channel 4 News seemed to think the big story was that Robert had broken some technical regulation by not securing permission to film on the tube!)

Neil O’Brien MP seized an opportunity to post a couple of photos of the ghastly graffiti on the Bakerloo line on Twitter. Again, a sad tale of Britain’s capital in a state of decay. Currently 1.4m views and counting. 

If the Conservatives want to get back in the game and halt the alarming drop off in the party’s poll ratings there needs to be more of this sort of stuff each and every day from a swathe of leading Tories.

To cut through to the public in Britain’s increasingly multi-party system, it’s not enough to simply think things and say things. You need to do things too.

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Keep the flag of freedom flying.