Only the Tory party's own members can now save it from self-destruction

The Tory party used to be the most formidable electoral machine in the entire world. On several occasions – 1832, 1906, 1945 – it seemed to have found itself on the wrong side of history. Each time, a rapid adjustment and a speedy recovery were made. Tory leaders had enduring values, instincts and prejudices, but were always prepared to adapt them to new circumstances. From the era of the younger Pitt onwards, Tory history was a dialectic of principle and opportunity.

Not any more. Now, there is neither. This is not to say that all senior Tories lack principles. But what is the use of principles if no one knows what they are? Yet ask an average voter – or even an average Independent reader – to take a blank sheet of paper and write down what the Tories stand for: you would end up with an awful lot of blank paper, and much of what was written would be abuse, originally coined by Alastair Campbell.

As for opportunism: has any party ever been less adept at taking its opportunities? A Tory spokesman recently brushed aside the suggestion that the Liberals could ever displace the Tories as the official Opposition. He pointed out that in every large country, the political battle takes place between parties of the left and the right; why should Britain be different? Especially in view of the depth of innate conservatism in the British character, this is undoubtedly correct – but only in the long run. In the short run, anything could happen if the Tory party continues to wallow in ineptitude. The Tories will not recover until they deserve to recover. At present, they are getting their just deserts.

It has become routine to blame all this on Mr Duncan Smith. That is not only unfair, which does not matter as politics has never been fair, but it is inaccurate. So far, Iain Duncan Smith has failed to display any great leadership prowess. He was elected because he was neither Michael Portillo nor Kenneth Clarke and has not yet succeeded in turning those negatives into positives. But how could he have? Even if Mr Duncan Smith were a mixture of Einstein, Wittgenstein, Frankenstein's monster and Mother Teresa, he could not lead a party which refuses to be led.

Nor is this a new problem. Back in 1989, Tristan Garel-Jones, then a Whip, said he was worried. He described the Tory Whips' office as a signal-box, with levers that pulled the wires to move the rails which steered the trains. Suddenly, the levers no longer seemed to be connected to anything. Party discipline had given way to anarchy. An anarchic party overthrew Margaret Thatcher and proceeded to spend six-and-a-half years sabotaging her successor. It then gave William Hague no more than a sullen, grumbling acquiescence. IDS cannot even rely on that.

Back in 1992, the then Tory chief Whip, Richard Ryder, said: "I have a majority of 21. Yet on any issue you care to mention, I can field two elevenses of loonies." Since then, the parliamentary party has halved in size. There are even more loonies.

Any newspaper political editor facing a dull day with slack news knows that, if all else fails, he could always find a story by shaking the Tory tree. It would probably take no more than three phone conversations – with John Bercow, Francis Maude and Archie Norman – to justify the headline, "New crisis for IDS's leadership". If they, for once, let him down, a dozen backbenchers would be ready to pour out their woes.

Mr Duncan Smith is inexperienced. He has a lot to learn about leadership and policy-making, just as Margaret Thatcher did in 1975/76. She too had party malcontents; she knew that she would have only one chance to win an election and become Prime Minster. But there was a crucial difference. Her malcontents never tried to undermine her chances of fighting and winning that election. She barely had to devote any time to party management; she could concentrate her energies on policy, and on attacking Labour.

In contrast, Iain Duncan Smith has to devote a great deal of time and nervous energy to dealing, unavailingly, with his own troops. A significant number of Tory MPs, including shadow ministers, seem to be singing from a song-sheet provided by Alastair Campbell. When he considers the difficulties which beset his domestic agenda, Tony Blair has the odd spasm of anxiety. Then he looks across at the Conservatives, and cannot believe his luck. Nor can Charles Kennedy.

It is bizarre that a once-successful party should be so set on self-destruction, though there is a sociological explanation. Until a generation ago, the Tory benches were dominated by knights of the shires. They had been brought up in old-fashioned public schools and in good regiments. At an early age, discipline and loyalty had been expected from them and, when necessary, enforced. Later on, they had learned how to inspire or enforce the same qualities in others. So they knew how to be steady on parade. Moreover, their identity was not solely dependent on their parliamentary status, nor their income on a parliamentary salary.

Their replacements, the esquires of the suburbs, are different. More gently nurtured, they are also more egotistical. Moreover, unlike the average Labour MP, who is much better paid than he was as number five in Camden Council's child protection department, most Tory MPs made a financial sacrifice by choosing the Commons route. They often feel it, especially when the school fees are due, another encumbrance which Labour MPs avoid.

So Tories are prone to worry about the wisdom of their choice, especially when they contemplate the risk of losing their seat at an awkward age: too old for easy employability, far too young for a decent pension. As a result, there is a tendency to panic, and to forget that panic is almost always the enemy of self-preservation. Tory MPs who bleat their miseries at the media because they are afraid of being unseated by a Liberal fail to understand that they themselves could be ensuring that their worst fears come to pass.

If Tory members of parliament do not know how to behave, it may be time for those whom they rely on to play more of a role. Never in Tory history have the senior members of the average local party been more disillusioned with events at Westminster. But they could do more to exert themselves. Traditionally, Tory associations have been extremely reluctant to exercise their powers of deselection. Tory MPs have had to be quite excessively delinquent or gaga in order not to be renominated. But there is nothing to prevent local associations liaising with the Whips' office so that, when chronic disloyalty is evident, action can be taken.

In the mid-1980s, David Steel once begged Liberal MPs not to approach every problem with an open mouth. When he did so, Tory MPS chuckled. In those days, most of them felt able to patronise the Liberal Party. That is no longer possible. Nor will Tory MPs ever again be able to patronise their Liberal opponents, until they take David Steel's advice.