DAILY MAIL COMMENT: First steps on the long road to Conservative renewal

As the Tory faithful gathered in Birmingham yesterday, they could have been forgiven for indulging in a bout of schadenfreude over Labour 's current sea of troubles.

After years of finger-jabbing piety over the supposed failings of the Conservative government, Sir Keir Starmer has been exposed as a rank hypocrite within three months of coming to power.

Before the election he promised 'a government of service'. Given the revelations about his apparent addiction to freeloading, a government of self-service might be more accurate.

In a withering letter resigning the Labour whip, Rosie Duffield brutally summed up the leader's shortcomings, saying he and his inner circle were 'tarnishing and humiliating' a once proud party.

Robbing pensioners of their winter fuel allowance and refusing to lift the two-child benefit cap while at the same time accepting huge personal gifts from donors was outrageous, the Canterbury MP said.

She accused him of running an administration in which sleaze and nepotism are 'off the scale', failing to speak out against anti-Semitism when in the Shadow Cabinet and using 'heavy-handed' tactics against those who challenged him.

Meanwhile, his senior Downing Street aides and advisers fight like cats in a sack, and his Chancellor is reportedly set to rewrite fiscal rules so Labour can embark on an orgy of potentially ruinous borrowing.

Little wonder Sir Keir's approval ratings have collapsed, and millions who voted him in on July 4 are suffering an acute case of buyer's remorse. However, the Tories should not allow themselves to be too smug about Labour's agonies.

They recently suffered their most disastrous electoral drubbing, losing seats they had held continuously for many decades and seeing their parliamentary representation slashed to just 121 MPs.

They have a mammoth rebuilding job on their hands if they are to win back public trust before the next election.

The staggering ineptitude of Sir Keir and his acolytes will help, but they need to offer a positive vision of their own, based on traditional low-tax, small-state, financially responsible Conservatism.

If the threat from Reform UK is to be neutralised, their prospectus must include a credible plan to radically cut immigration and a commitment to defend British identity, history and culture, under relentless attack from the woke Left.

Above all, the party must rediscover its spirit of common purpose. Boris Johnson's brilliant memoir of his time in government reminds us of the perils of disunity.

Having won a historic landslide, got Brexit done, guided us through a pandemic, and spearheaded Nato's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he was brought down by the factionalism and disloyalty of his own ministers and backbenchers.

The result was chaos, public disgust and a Labour government by default. That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Four candidates are left in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak in the forthcoming election. Whoever wins, the others, along with the wider party, must rally behind them.

Labour can do enormous damage over the next five years, starting with the Budget on October 30, which is expected to be a tax assault on millions of ordinary families. It is an opportunity for the new leader to remind the nation there is an alternative.

It's a political truism that divided parties don't win elections. The Tories forgot this golden rule under Boris. From today, it must be their guiding principle.