'Stuffed' Tory party insiders on why morale and hope are in freefall

Hours after Wednesday's budget, the Conservative party's great and good assembled under the sweeping stone arches of London's medieval Guildhall to hear Rishi Sunak address the 50th anniversary dinner for the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank.

- Peter Walker, Pippa Crerar

His party had a clear plan, the prime minister told hundreds of Tory MPs, peers, donors and other assorted luminaries - one centred on higher growth and lower taxes.

Many of those gathered had listened in person as Jeremy Hunt unveiled another 2p cut in national insurance but failed to produce anything approximating the rabbitin-a-hat announcement that Tory MPs desperately hoped might start shifting the polls.

Sunak's remarks were therefore greeted with scepticism, even some raised eyebrows and politely shaken heads. One attender called the event the "most opulent funeral I've ever been to".

It is by no means uncommon for governments to run out of energy at the end of a long period in office.

But the gallows humour on show on Wednesday night is indicative of a mood some Tory insiders say goes much further: a sense that many in the party have almost entirely given up.

Perhaps the most obvious metric for this is the running tally of MPs deciding they do not wish to stand again. Even with the general election potentially still six months or more away, of the 96 standing down so far, 61 - fully two-thirds are Conservatives.

The 61st was Theresa May, who made the announcement yesterday morning. While it is not necessarily unusual for a 67-year-old former PM who has spent 27 years in the Commons to decide enough is enough, there is a general sense of the decks being cleared ahead of a possibly calamitous defeat to Labour.

Another vignette came from one party member who said they had noticed a big upsurge in

Conservative special advisers and thinktank staff applying to join the exclusive Carlton Club, primarily in the hope of using it to network for another job.

Hunt's budget has become the latest in a succession of policy ideas to make no dent in Labour's 20-or-so-point polling lead.