Long before the first votes were cast in the 2015 general election, this blog was warning that Labour’s arrogance and sanctimonious moralising was likely to cost them any chance of forming a new government.

One can almost forgive them their arrogance. After all, so commonly heard is the left wing worldview and so widespread is the belief that right wing ideas are inherently selfish and lacking compassion that many Conservatives – including some very prominent figures – have been forced to radically adapt their messaging to this most inhospitable of climates, sounding more like Diet Labour than the Conservative Party of old.

Even in the aftermath of David Cameron’s victory, many members of the public are still too afraid to openly admit that they voted Conservative or UKIP, for fear of the inevitable social backlash that would result: painful real world consequences for holding perfectly normal, middle-of-the-road political opinions.

But it isn’t just young and intemperate activists – the kind who scrawl obscene graffiti on a war memorial during the VE Day celebrations – who are now giving Labour a reputation as a party of sore losers. Take the case of Matt Woodruff, the mild-mannered owner of a garden centre in East Sussex, whose smarmy anti-Tory message, scrawled on his shop’s blackboard, was posted on Twitter and quickly went viral.

The Guardian reports:

The owner of a small garden centre in East Sussex whose anti-Tory blackboard went viral on social media says he has no regrets, despite admitting it could put him out of business.

Matt Woodruff, the owner of Woodruffs Yard in Lewes, said he was moved to vent his political views on his shop’s blackboard after the Conservatives took the local seat that had been occupied by the Lib Dem former Home Office minister Norman Baker.

The sign proposes a “Tory tax” of 10% on any customer who voted Conservative as one of the “‘tough’ decisions I need to make to ‘balance the books’ under your preferred government”.

The sign also says Ukip voters should “shop elsewhere”.

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