THE TORY SPECTATOR: Conservatism Abandoned
Harris, Robin
{ :., ~.,.. ~::? V S ? ~15,1 ( ' ~ i ~' A T , j < ~:~', Conservatism Abandoned s o l o i are invariably accused of sacrificing their principles to their interests. By contrast, nothing is...
...Cameron abandons what everyone everywhere sees to work...
...The party's policy chief, Oliver 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 2006 R O B i N H A R ii L i S Letwin, has declared that a redistribution of wealth and a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor are now the key priorities...
...The United States also has its liberal Republicans, of course, many in the senior ranks of the party...
...The economy may slip, Labour might split, the Liberals might collapse, bird flu, or bombs might expose the government's incompetence...
...Cameron has made a point of casting off not merely the policies espoused by Margaret Thatcher, but also the beliefs that underlay them...
...The party is backing away from welfare reform and from fiscal measures to strengthen families...
...APRIL 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 43...
...But, all that said, the gamble that the Conservative Party is presently taking does not make sense...
...New leaders often make a difference...
...An elliptical pledge to "share the proceeds of growth" between public and private sectors has replaced it...
...Yet it is a huge gamble...
...David Cameron rejoices to be considered the "heir to Tony Blair...
...By another extraordinary reversal, the Conservatives now also regularly join with the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons to oppose government measures to increase police powers to deal with Islamic terrorism...
...Party leaders are ultimately assessed on more than their style and their language: they are judged by the record, their character, and their sense of purpose...
...The party leader thus accepts the specious argument that tax cuts threaten stability rather than, by encouraging growth, provide the basis for it...
...What would seem an alarming prospect to most conservative strategists does not, however, at all alarm the current leadership...
...Cameron has emphatically ruled out tax breaks to encourage patients to have private care and also pledged that the creaking system will remain wholly funded by the taxpayer...
...M1 talk of trying to achieve a "smaller state," that staple of Tory rhetoric since the Thatcher era, has now been banned...
...Cameron and Gordon Brown, who will soon succeed Mr...
...UCH U-TURNS UNNERVE MANY BRITISH conservatives, but they must leave those few American ~,_Jconservatives who know what is happening speechless...
...Cameron--certainly not Margaret Thatcher, when she took over a similarly defeated and dispirited party just over 30 years ago...
...For example, the party's new advertising campaign bluntly proclaims: "We should not stand up for big business, but stand up to big business when it's in the interests of Britain and the world...
...Such targets, as President Bush wisely understood, and as Mr...
...Second, potential dissenters and covert critics in the party hope that the present changes are only superficial and ephemeral, part of a public relations tactic, not a permanent shift...
...The contrast does not stop there...
...However, in order to prove his centrist (and statist) credentials, Mr...
...The same opinion polls that warm Tory hearts also show that the British public is heartily fed up with Tony Blair...
...In this way, two traditional Conservative objectives-cutting back government and widening choice--have been very publicly abandoned...
...Within three months of Cameron's arrival, the Conservative Party was, for the first time in years, slightly ahead of Labour in the polls...
...Nor is this a mere publicity gimmick...
...It has since been dropped...
...By contrast, extending effective choice to the less well off is certainly not a priority, at least if it involves anything that might be seen as a subsidy to the private sector...
...Unfortunately, the political climate quickly changes, and when it does fair weather friends desert...
...So, by an even more ferocious ukase, has any talk of tax cuts...
...Since his first speech as leader, Mr...
...Every right-of-center party that has won elections in recent times has cultivated and mobilized its base, not scorned and enraged i t - witness George W. Bush in America, John Howard in Australia, and now Stephen Harper in Canada...
...This, for the moment, is true...
...A third goal-protecting society against internal and external threats-is also being sharply reduced in salience...
...Of course, a Conservative success at the next election in four years' time cannot be entirely ruled out...
...Blair as prime minister, may not be favorable to the Tories...
...Talk of imprisoning criminals in extra prisons for longer periods is taboo...
...First, the Conservative Party, having lost three elections, is utterly despondent, lacks self-belief, and is prepared to try anything to get back into power...
...That would also push up business costs, and jeopardize the country's future energy security...
...In his first parliamentary encounter with Tony Blair, the new Tory leader criticized the Prime Minister for not pressing hard enough for a successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, which would enforce a new set of rigid targets for carbon emissions...
...Blair abandoned what experience showed to have failed...
...But it is unthinkable that any Republican president or Congress could get away with the kind of wholesale abandonment of conservatism underway in Britain...
...As further proof of their Green credentials, the Tories are preparing now to oppose Labour plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations...
...So not surprisingly, the British Conservative Party and its new, young leader, David Cameron, have become the toast of every bien pensant commentator...
...It was one of the few popular policies that the Conservatives offered...
...He and his advisers seek to emulate Mr...
...But fewhave made such a difference so fast as Mr...
...By contrast, nothing is more guaranteed to win instant popularity with the liberal media than when conservatives move to the left...
...Blair in every respect, from polling techniques, to dress sense, to slogans, to searching out the center ground on every issue...
...And just in case anyone had any doubts on the matter, Mr...
...V Robin Harris is a former member of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit...
...Still more far-reaching in its implications is the new policy on health care...
...The implication, of course, is that business ("big" or otherwise) is a problem, government the solution...
...It is still not too late for second thoughts...
...And not just in Britain...
...Cameron has declared in an interview with the Financial Times: "When it comes to the economy, I am absolutely clear that stability and responsibility come first, second and third as our priorities-and they come before the commitment to tax cuts...
...Thus the leadership has firmly ruled out education vouchers, which would permit parents whose children were trapped in failing public schools to take the money with them and go private...
...Cameron and his advisers have deliberately decided to do quite the opposite-to renounce conservative policies, to mock conservative values, and to continue the policies of the current New Labour administration...
...Everybody knows that the National Health Service is in crisis, that money poured in yields diminishing benefits, that future demands cannot be met, and that continental Europe's social insurance-based health schemes are superior...
...Since the Tories also argue that the country is running a large structural budget deficit, they risk being trapped into plans for substantial tax increases at the next election...
...Aping Blair has another downside...
...Last year's Tory general election manifesto-which the flexible Mr...
...In yielding the intellectual battlefield to their opponents they will have forfeited, should they win power, any convincing mandate for reform...
...Blair increasingly also grasps, place burdens on business that impede growth-incidentally making it more difficult to tackle "global poverty," another Cameron priority...
...Third, and crucially, while the opinion polls suggest that the makeover is working, the party's members, donors, and parliamentarians will more or less grudgingly go along with it...
...In the late 1970s, Mrs...
...Cameron wrote himself-promised to put a cap on immigration and to check the torrent of asylum seekers...
...Worse still, if defeated, the party's identity, purpose, and prospects of survival will be in the balance...
...Cameron can do so, and so easily, is explicable by three factors...
...The Conservatives could have hoped to win with some changes in style, while staying true to conservative principles...
...Newsweek, no less, has gushed: "A charismatic new leader revives the Tories' fortunes-suddenly it's cool to be Conservative...
...It was to restate fundamental conservative principles, to win support for them by appealing to conservative values, and to advance policies that would radically shift the country's direction...
...V S ? ~15,1 ( ' ~ i ~' A T , j < ~:~', Conservatism Abandoned s o l o i are invariably accused of sacrificing their principles to their interests...
...Indeed, Labour taunts of Cameron "flip-flops" on key issues have already begun to bite...
...But, in the end, the parallel is flawed...
...Thatcher and her team had a clear strategy...
...That Mr...
...Blairism with a Tory face may seem by election day as unpalatable as last year's fad diet...
...On these criteria, the contest between Mr...
Vol. 39 • April 2006 • No. 3
