REMEMBER the factional disarray that beset Conservative governments in the early 1990s, as Labour supporters gleefully watched the Major administrations unravel before our very eyes?

I can’t help being struck by the parallels between the political climate then and now. Except that this time round, Labour is the butt of the joke and it is the Tories that require a continuous supply of dry underwear.

One obvious comparison is the state of the UK economy, which had undergone serious turbulence in the preceding two years, as a result of the unconstrained financial markets that Thatcherism deified and the Labourism of the period still half-heartedly contemplated reining in.

The nation was outraged that a handful of Conservative backbenchers had pocketed bungs in plain brown paper envelopes for tabling parliamentary questions, although the furore was as nothing compared to the apoplexy generated by the expenses crisis.

Red top kiss ‘n’ tell activity reached the level of a minor cottage industry, with tales of Juanita Maneater’s improbable feats of athleticism with ministers clad in Chelsea shirts, knocked-up local councillors, and bed-sharing on holidays in France to ‘save on hotel bills’ generating widespread moral indignity, most of it entirely feigned.

There has been nothing like it until earlier this year, when the News of the World published those pictures of Nigel ‘Babe Magnet’ Griffiths in flagrante delicto drunkenly chasing some leggy chick in stockings round the office sofa.

The impression – which, as a Labour-supporting journalist, I naturally did my utmost to propagate – was of a fag-end government going through the motions until the electorate could administer the necessary coup de grace.

So it was that even before the 1994 euroelections, everyone knew Labour was on course for a massive victory in the general election that was to come. Yet somehow the outcome of the contest served to confirm the prognosis, just as last night’s results offers a pointer to the impending return of the Conservatives.

To recap, 15 years ago, the first major electoral outing for New Labour under the leadership of Tony Blair saw the party secure 43%, a far cry from the nugatory 16% it scored last night.

The Tories got 27%, a share only fractionally less than the 28% that has enabled it to emerge as the most popular party this time round. That was considered a disastrous showing as the time.

The Lib Dems were on 16%, again in the same ball park as their performance last Thursday. UKIP hardly registered, with a laughable 1%, and the main far right challenger, the National Front, managed just 0.1% for its five candidates.

On the evidence of last night, Cameron is not building anything like the same base of positive support that Blair was able to create. But then he doesn’t have to, because the collapse of the governing party is all the more comprehensive. If only Brown had done as well as Major managed at the equivalent juncture, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

On the ideological level, it is worth pointing out that an absolutely majority of voters last night voted for parties of the right. The aggregate tally for the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP comes in a shade over 50%.

Within that figure, we see that one Briton in five of those that can be bothered to turn out voted either for a reactionary rightist formation or an out-and-out fascist organisation.

So much for the argument that economic downturn is generally a harbinger of leftist revival. From our point of view, the 2010s looks distinctly worrying.