Blimpish || a Tory

“When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”

Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland

The occasion for this post is further reflection on Tim Montgomerie’s ongoing attempt at formulating a statement of conservatism, upon which I have previously (negatively) commented.  I remain of the same basic opinion, but (and Montgomerie’s efforts are to be commended for this at least; at least by me), it has made me think a bit more about what it means to be a conservative today.

It’s entirely possible that I’ve missed it, but in Montgomerie’s original statement, I find no statement to the effect of that quotation above – or any one of a number of others, be they from Burke, Kirk, Salisbury, or whoever – praising continuity over change.  The closest we get is Montgomerie’s no.20, which even then is a brief for change; just not quite so fast, please.  That struck me as more than a little odd, and the thought has nagged at me.  After all, surely that’s where we conservatives, like, get our name from?

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Long and windy, even by my standards…  Be warned.

I voted for the other Dave in the 2005 Tory leadership election.  I was suspicious of Cameron and the siren calls of Blue Labour.

Since then, I changed my mind, and am now a loyal and dedicated follower of the Leader of the Opposition.  Why the change?  Partly, history since then proved him right and me wrong.  Partly too, I guess I changed in my view on certain points; conservatives above all should be accepting of new lessons from experience.  And finally, he showed himself to be a genuinely conservative Conservative – his 2008 conference speech is a truer Tory statement than has been uttered from that stage in many years – and that, I liked.

All the while political progress has been slow but steady, resulting in a solid polling lead which withstood Gordon’s surge at the end of last year, I’ve had a lingering fear.  The Cameron project is an elite project; it is driving the Party, but the Party does not embrace it.  There’s no cynicism there – the Party is bored of losing and follows the lead; much like Labour in the 1990s, and to some extent, the Tories in the 1970s.  Change is like that.

There’s one, big difference with those two historic precedents.  When Thatcher took the leadership in 1975, she wasn’t on her own; there were plenty of intellectual backing in the think-tanks and in the press who could circle the wagons whenever the Thatcher campaign came under attack.  Their work was of sufficient quality that some of it can be read with interest and relevance today (I did so the other day).  The same applies to Blair in 1994, for whom there were plenty of opinion leaders who had been hankering for some years for a “Thatcherism with a human face” – and plenty more who were sufficiently annoyed with the Labour Party’s descent into lunacy that they would back Blairite political realism to advance their own goals (Giddens, say).

The Cameron project has no such intellectual hinterland.  Much of the Right-leaning press remain unengaged, and occasionally sees outburstsof naked hostility (have you read Heffer recently?); the think-tanks too tend to fellow-travel but not buy – Policy Exchange used to be close, but perhaps too close, and has since distanced itself.  ConservativeHome’s support is strongest where Cameron’s priorities coincides with Montgomerie’s hopes for an American-style movement conservatism; the goals are clearly different though.   The general chatter on the Right seems to be shot through with a sense of “yes, yes, Dave – but when can we have tax cuts?” – even the broadly sympathetic seem only to add “but it’s great that we’re nice now.”

The leadership might argue that it doesn’t matter – if we lead, they will follow, especially in power.  I’m not so sure, especially amidst troubled and turbulent times.  What’s more, the leadership’s articulation of what I take to be (and support as such) its broad case is weak, with concepts poor and underdeveloped.  The idea of a “post-bureaucratic age”, but when it amounts to eBay Government, colour me unimpressed.  It’s all very well to call for an end to target culture – but what comes after?  Outside schools policy, the arguments seem thin.

So, it is in that context that I welcome the discussion in this month’s Prospect, around an article on ‘Red Toryism’ by Philip Blond.  It’s an attempt at genuine critical engagement with the leadership, to give an exposition of Toryism for the years ahead.

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