Any political party that had suffered humiliating losses at an election would be expected to review what went wrong and why.

It might be fairly obvious in some cases and complex in others, but is a necessary if painful process.

In the case of the Conservative performance in Kent, there were a number of faultlines that were fairly simple to identify as reasons why supporters stayed at home or registered their disquiet by putting a cross against another party.

So, we are witnessing another episode of introspective navel gazing about immigration and Brexit - subjects that former leader David Cameron implored the party not “to bang on” about as there were more important things to worry about.

He may have been slightly adrift from where many of the party faithful stood but did at least try to draw the sting from the issue.

Valiant though the attempt was, it was one that the party has spectacularly failed to achieve.

So much has been said about the approach the government takes to asylum seekers and economic migrants, you sometimes wonder what else is going on in government and why is this still sapping political energy.

Like it or not, for the party to be divided on such a crucial issue with a general election likely next year is not a good look.

Populist policies around flying plane-loads of failed asylum seekers to Rwanda – and plans to make it lawfully inadmissible for anyone who arrives on a small boat to claim asylum – don’t seem to mollify government critics.

If you were looking for evidence of scepticism that the latest crackdown on people smuggling gangs crossing the Channel, just look at the results of the council elections.

In Dover - yep Dover - the Conservatives lost to Labour despite efforts to depict it as a party that was soft on immigration.

It may have been a protest vote, of course. But equally, it could be that loyal voters in the Tory shires are simply fed up, in much the same way as they were when Tony Blair came to prominence in the mid-1990s.

If there is one thing that governing parties fear most, it is not being listened to because voters have already made up their mind.

And there is a sense that this might be the case in Kent, which business chiefs dub the ‘Gateway to Europe.’

Whether that reflects the reality or not, the government’s obsession with three-word slogans to capture the essence of the government’s policy approach is too simplistic.