In consequence, the party has not just shrunk. It has lost its vigour. It has been hollowed out. Mental inertia prevails. The leadership is unchallenged, which it appreciates, but it is also unstimulated, which it will eventually regret. The ruling cabal of modernisers has no purpose except its own indefinite perpetuation. Given plenty of money from big business to purchase first-rate media managers, and faced with a single, credible, threatening enemy, the votes can still be found to win elections. But as a recognisable historic entity, with roots, instincts, principles, preferences — and, yes, prejudices, which are always inseparable from mass politics — the Conservative party today has lost its way.

The Corbyn phenomenon provides the backdrop to change all that. Argument among Conservatives will, henceforth, be possible. Dissent will no longer look like treachery. Life, even intellectual liveliness, can return. If that happens, the country as a whole will benefit.

A third cloud on the horizon, even darker than the second, spells rain on the leadership’s approach. George Osborne’s post-election strategy is to have the Conservatives straddle the centre ground of politics. Thus the Conservatives are now apparently the “party of the workers”. This is merely the latest in a series of inauthentic, left-looking slogans dreamt up by the party’s modernisers: “Vote Blue, go Green!”, “Sharing the Proceeds of Growth”, “The Big Society”. Like same-sex marriage, these were ways of reaching out to non-conservative constituencies, while ignoring and, on occasion, enraging the party’s traditional supporters.

The tactic continues. Perhaps it seemed a nice stroke to steal the Labour policy of the “living wage” and announce it as the Chancellor’s own. But, apart from the impact on particular firms and employees priced out of jobs — not to mention the further undermining of immigration control — this policy unlearns a lesson that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph spent years attempting to instil. The “living wage” suggests that Government can and should determine the level of wages paid by private employers. Once that is accepted, why should a “living wage” not become a “decent wage”, or a “fair wage”, or “an equal wage for equal work”, or just a “high wage” at whatever level a politician wishes to propose?

One can argue about the balance of advantage of such an approach in the past. But in a political environment in which Corbyn leads an unelectable Labour party it makes no sense at all. Moreover, since upon that approach depend Osborne’s leadership hopes, this third cloud blown in by Corbyn’s victory is blackest for the Chancellor. It renders his strategy redundant and his leadership prospects doubtful.

The broader implications of the Corbyn leadership victory must also be taken into account. British politics will not remain the same. The fact that Jeremy Corbyn’s views are extreme, and that they can only ever muster minority support, does not mean that they will be without influence. Having a radical Leftist at the head of the Labour party will shift debate in the media, and opinion in the influential media class, leftwards too.