Britain's Conservative Party is the most successful political organisation in the Western world ever.

For the best part of two centuries it has been the default party of governments in the UK.

It's the equivalent in British politics of Rael Madrid. It is, historically speaking anyway, addicted to winning.

But that might be about to change.

There's a general election here in the UK in July,

and if the polling is to be believed,

then the Conservatives are in line for a historic hiding.

Some polls put them below 20%.

Some polls even put reform, led by Nigel Farage, ahead of them.

So on the ballot in July isn't just a candidate or a set of policies or a

manifest or even a potential Prime Minister, but a whole ideology, a whole tradition and

history, a whole way of doing politics. In short, British

conservatism is at a crossroad. And some people think that means that this election is the most important perhaps for a century.

After all, it's not very often that one of the major parties collapses.

We've seen it once before with the liberals a century ago. Could we see it happen once

more in July? Well today's guest thinks that's a distinct possibility and he should know. After all he is a

conservative with real pedigree to match. Peter Oborne is a former political editor

at the spectator and a former political editor at the Spectator and a former chief political commentator at the

Telegraph and he thinks that the Conservative Party isn't just headed for collapse but it's

about to be replaced by something

very different. Peter Oborne, welcome to Downstreet. Thank you very much for

inviting me. We've wanted to get you on for a very long time because you've been saying very interesting things about the Conservative Party for a very long time and for a very long time you're a bit of a siren voice who may have been interpreted as being wide of the mark because you were saying

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