 It should also be noted that "The Strange Death of Tory England" had previously been used as a title by Anne Applebaum for an article published in June 2001.The pictorial dust cover of the book's first edition shows the last Conservative prime minister, John Major, batting in a game of cricket, at the moment of being "clean bowled" (his wicket demolished).That alludes to Major's well-known love of cricket and to the result of the United Kingdom general election of 1997, which was won in a landslide by the Labour Party with 418 seats in the House of Commons, its highest ever total, while the Conservatives took only 165, their worst performance since the general election of 1906.