The Times newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has yet to really come out strongly in favour of Tory leader David Cameron, preferring to stick, for the time being, with the Labour Party, or at least maintain a sort of studied neutrality. If you can recall that far back, Blair famously courted Murdoch’s media empire ahead of the 1997 election, convincing Murdoch that a Labour administration would not repeat the mistakes of the past. It worked, and the Times gave Blair and his court a remarkably easy ride for the first few years of Blair’s time in office.
Even so, with Labour in deep trouble, Blair and finance minister Gordon Brown at each others’ throats, the position of the Tories appears to be more promising than for a long time. You might think that Cameron, even though he has shown himself to be trend-follower since becoming leader, might take the odd risk by not trying to creep up to fashionable chattering-class opinion on such issues as Iraq, the Israeli-Hizbollah conflict and the ongoing campaign to crush Islamic fanaticism. Instead, as the Times notes today, what we get is a mixture of truths, half-truths and vacuous sound-bytes on foreign affairs.
Apologists for Cameron – some of whom pop up on the comment threads here – like to use the following, rather damning argument. It goes like this: the public will never vote for a small-government, strongly pro-capitalist, pro-America, pro-liberty Tory Party. The English middle class floating voters, so the argument goes, are not exactly the most intelligent demographic on the surface of the Earth, and are convinced that any tax cuts must come at the expense of the poor, the health service and education. Capitalism is cruel and rather naughty. Saving the planet and forcing people to give up their cars is a Jolly Good Idea (for other people). So Cameron, realising that this is what people think, has to appeal to this mindset. Once he is in power, suddenly, he can give up the “hug-a-mugger” rhetoric, tell the Greenies to go hang, slash taxes and regulations, restore in full the English Common Law, stop nagging us about eating chocolate oranges, etc.
Like many cynics, they are wrong. I would have thought that Cameron, if he has any sense at all, would realise by now that unless he lays down a few markers about what he would actually do in power, then he will face a situation where, once elected, it would be hard to push through a radically pro-market agenda particularly if the Tories get a narrow majority. “Where’s the mandate?”, people would cry. And their cries would have some merit. When Margaret Thatcher won power, the Tory manifesto of 1979 was famously thin. There was little mention of the kind of privatisation and large cuts to tax rates that were to follow. But even so, during the 1975-79 run-up to the elections, Mrs Thatcher, along with colleagues like Sir Keith Joseph, did voice a coherent, and sustained attack on things like Keynesian demand management, out-of-control trade unions, nationalised industries, regulations on business and controls on trade. In short, Mrs Thatcher made it pretty clear what sort of administration hers would be like. She gave herself a bit of room to say to the doubters during the hard years after 1979: “This is my platform and the public voted for it”.
Cameron, if he wants to con his way into power, is, I supposed, welcome to try. Britain’s political history is full of adventurers like Disraeli or chancers like Lloyd George. But when I hear libertarian-leaning Tory voters trying to convince me that Cameron is embarking on the mother-of-all deceptions, it sounds suspiciously close to whistling in the dark to sustain the spirits. I am not convinced.
Well I, for one, am willing to give David Cameron the benefit of the doubt – as an hones politician. Just as Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher gave the public a strong steer as to the direction their government would follow, even if the specifics were a bit vague, Cameron is doing the same.
He is seeking a mandate to lead a bossy, intrusive, politically correct, bash the motorist, tax and spend, smash and grab, woolly on terrorism and woolly on the causes of terrorism, chocolate pinching, we-know-best, old Etonian, old fashioned Tory government. If he gets it, that is exactly what we will have.
I am already feeling nostalgic for Blair at his best.
Actually, given stories like this one, about Colin Ross’ attack on Marty Layman-Mendonca(Link), I would think that this would be an excellent opportunity, with the right PR team, for Cameron to ride the Willie Horton (Link) express into office…
I just have no time for Tories who pull out the pathetic “but it is just to get elected, he doesn’t mean it” excuse. It is really just a gonzo ‘conspiracy theory’ and just as loopy as they always are.
I can only guess why people do this to themselves, but I suppose it is driven by the same psychological underpinning as all conspiracy theories… Just as some blame “Jewish Bankers” for all the things they do not understand, those who think Cameron is actual a serious intellectual operator and man of ideas is regardless of the evidence to the contrary, are just trying to avoid facing the truth that is staring them in the face because that is too painful.
The Tory party is an intellectual corpse and people who think Cameron is anything other than a Blairite whose election will just bring us more of the same are rather like Norman Bates having conservations with his dead mother, unable to come to terms with the fact what they love is dead.
But what exactly is Tony Blair at his best? His introducing less than 1 piece of intrusive anti-civil liberties legislation per fortnight, perhaps or maybe not accepting more than one party ‘loan’ for a peerage per month? I doubt that Cameron, even in his wildest politically correct wet (non-emissive) dreams, could equal Blair’s truly abhorrent and, dare I say, corrupt record as Prime Minister and where does this ‘chocolate pinching, we-know-best, old Etonian’ rant come from?
I hope you won’t mind my hazarding that for someone alluding to/linking to Liberty Cadre you do seem to have a somewhat odd sense of liberty if you already feel nostalgic in any way for one of the worst authoritarians ever to be spawned in the UK, above and over a somewhat still untested political product as Cameron. I have no particular love for yesterday’s NuLabour snakejuice being recycled as tomorrow’s Conservative wondercure but I’m afraid that I still do not see any serious Tory party alternative to Cameron either now or upon the horizon unless you would prefer the boy George.
It would however seem that Tony Blair has already dealt a blow to Cameron. By proposing more authoritarian legislation in that cyclists must ring a bell when approaching pedestrians, or face a fine of up to £2,500 or 2 years imprisonment, he presumably hopes to scupper David Cameron’s ‘green’ cycling image – legislation proposed by Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman – what a brilliant name for a NuLabour minister!
The next election is likely to offer a pretty much straight choice between Cameron and Brown. Not a very appetizing choice. If you vote in a very safe Tory or Labour constituency you can permit yourself the luxury of voting UKIP. If you vote in a marginal seat not turning out for the Tories amounts to voting for Brown.
Say what you like about Cameron (and I’ll probably agree) but I’d rather have him than Brown.
Voting for the Tories (instead of, say UKIP) because they’re electable reminds me of the well worn story of the drunk who lost his keys on a dark night.
It converts to approximately –
It’s worse than that, midwesterner. People vote for who they think is capable of winning because of the same phenomenon that created the “popular crowd” back in school. It’s the ugly groupist side of our evolved animal that wants to belong to a successful tribe, which starts by electing a tribe leader who leads successful hunts.
When the leader doesn’t find a mammoth to kill, he just blames it on the gods. When the proto-libber in the group says its because the leader is a loud obnoxious idiotic git, guess who winds up in the next sacrificial barbecue?
Since politicians started to live from politics instead of for, they have too much to loose to fight with open vizor. So best is to confront no one in the hope to get elected by a small margin as the one who did it better.
Apparently Comrade Cameron labours under the belief that, not only Democracy, but ‘change’ was introduced to South Africa and India peacefully from the ground up. Apparently chanting ‘Be the change’ over his tofu and prayer beads while staring at himself in the mirror has actually managed to blind him to basic facts like 1,000,000 people dying in the Indian Civil War. I thought that perhaps on his visit to India he might have visited some war graves (or perhaps something that reminded him that western political institutions were introduced by western guns in the hands of western soldiers). He should probably be sent to do so now, but my personal preference would be to buy him a farm in South Africa where he can experience the forthcoming wonders of land reform.
The main problem, though, is that Chairman Cameron thought it was approriate to commemorate 9/11 with cheap vote winning speech advocating distancing ourselves from the US.
Real classy, Dave, reeeeeaaaalllll f**king classy.
I agree strongly with Gabriel. Cameron is a useless appendage, long overdue for removal. He is the Emperor with no clothes. I sometimes wonder why parents pay such large amounts of money to get their offspring into Eton if Cameron is typical. Surely the standards at that place must be higher than that…….aren’t they?
There is no “doubt” to give Mr Cameron the benefit of – he has already told us (again and again) that he will vastly increase government spending on the “public services” (even above the bloated levels that Mr Brown has given us) and he will not take back any powers from the E.U. (that would violate our “treaty obligations”).
The government spending increases (at a time of very large government deficit) will mean certainly mean no reductions in taxation (indeed Mr Cameron has already denounced tax cuts) and may very well mean that taxes would go up under Mr Cameron.
The failure to take back any power from the E.U. will mean that regulations in virtually all aspects of life will also continue to increase.
As for the idea that Mr Cameron is just saying a lot of leftist things and has a cunning plan to resist statism if he wins the election – well as children may read this thread I can not use the words I would like to about that idea.
Mr Cameron has never shown any interest in profreedom ideas in his life, and (in any case) one can not follow a pro freedom policy in office having gone along with statism in opposition (the media would tear apart any government that tried that).
Mrs Thatcher did not seek a mandate for specific policies in the late 1970’s – but the lady (and other leading Conservatives) did seek a mandate for a general pro freedom stance – the exact opposite of what Mr Cameron is doing.
I repeat, there is no “doubt” – Mr Cameron is just as much an enemy as Mr Blair or Mr Brown (indeed Mr Cameron has long presented himself as the heir of Blair).
Indeed the way that Mr Cameron choose to mark the 11th of September was more disgusting than anything that any major Labour party person would do on this date. I am about to write a post about the matter.
What’s IDS up to, nowadays?
An important element of Cameron’s strategy all along, I think,has been to “square” the BBC and the rest of the metropolitan media and bring them onside enough to give the Tories something approximating to a fair crack of the whip.
No political party advocating policies which are distasteful to the ruling Mediaocracy has much chance of winning an election in Britain at present.
It seems to me that Cameron probably does believe in what he says,though I hope I’m wrong.Don’t forget his background in bullshit-otherwise known as PR-the nearest thing to a proper job he’s ever had.The most worrying thing is that we have no idea of his plans to deal with the threat of Islamist terror and yesterday’s speech was not a good sign.
While I am sympathetic to Perry’s oft expressed view that the Tory party is now all but dead,it is all that stands between us and another 5/10 years of Labour.From the evidence of the past 9 years it is surely clear that by then things will have gone too far to turn round,even if they haven’t already.I don’t believe Cameron is the man to do it but there is more chance that it might be done with the Tories in power than anyone else.
Cameron is worryingly like Blair in tht he has no policies other than what he is making on the run and those he’s inherited. Very worrying for Britain.
I had a yak to a Conservative councillor friend of mine, he reassured me somewhat re. Cameron in that he said that the opinion polls suggest that the public like Tory policies but don’t like the Tory party, ie its basically a matter of image, not politics, which is keeping them from office. Therefore, Cameron is just trying very, very hard to move away from the Nasty Party and become a friendly sort of guy who people wouldn’t mind having in power, rather than some heartless despot which, whether true or not, is the public perception of the Conservatives.
Once he has achieved his aim and become a “decent enough bloke” then my friend figured he’d start trying to sell Conservative policies a bit more, but without the first step he would get shot down before he even had the chance.
In any case I’m not a Cameron fan at all and wished Davis was in (my friend considered Davis unelectable on the other hand), but I was reassured a little.