Recasting British Conservatism

...When last May his closeness to President George W. Bush, whom Britons now widely revile, forced Blair to turn over Number 10 Downing Street to his Treasury chief, Gordon Brown, earlier than he planned the Conservatives felt certain the voters would rally to them en masse...

...Still, it is historically ingrained in the country’s political conventions that the primary function of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Conservatives in this case, is to oppose...

...He has backtracked on distancing himself from the advocates of grammar schools in his party...

...A promising new member of the Conservative Research Department pulled out too, saying the party leader “has no principled sense of direction...

...He has nothing to offer but spivvery and vacuity...

...He has to prevent a resurgence of public bickering between Conservative modernizers and traditionalists, counter continuing taunts that he is “all spin and no substance,” and do more than he has so far to prove he is a credible prime minister-in-waiting...

...To many Britons his straightforward take-charge, get-things-done manner proved a welcome change from the ultimately lampooned celebrity style leadership of Tony Blair...

...To be sure, one encounters clear expressions of support for Cameron as well among prominent Conservatives...

...He was tempted to do so before the expected economic downturn sets in...

...He has similarly shown little enthusiasm for reducing what the Tories had always pointed to as “profligate spending” on such services...

...His call for matching intensified police crime fighting with a more sophisticated handling of British teenagers caught up in the current disturbing rash of “antisocial behavior”—violence, thievery, drunkenness, drugs—also backf ired...

...Middle-class Tories have held these high performance institutions in particular regard...

...They had envisioned regaining control at Westminster shortly after the departure of their nemesis, former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair...

...In addition to the government’s unpopularity because of the war, Brown is an uncharismatic figure...

...William Hague, a former Conservative Party leader who is now its spokesman on foreign affairs, says Cameron has achieved “wonders” in broadening the party’s appeal...

...So the big question is whether he has completely abandoned his plan to lead the Tories along a daring new path, or simply put it on hold as he continues to consolidate his position...

...That drove the opposition Conservatives further to the Right and seemed to entrench Labor as the natural governing party—to the despair of the Tories...

...His confrontations with the new prime minister across the dispatch box in the House of Commons showed him to be an aggressive challenger to continued Labor rule...

...Moreover, in trying to elbow his way into the political center firmly occupied by the Laborites, Cameron has not merely baffled but distressed many Tories...

...As Cameron outlined his positions, it began to appear that his approach to leadership was akin to an advertising executive lacking a principled underpinning...

...A product of Eton and Oxford, the 41-year-old Cameron had been a television communications director before becoming a member of Parliament and the party’s media adviser...

...Cameron’s early audacious, unTorylike steps have been succeeded by gestures of conciliationto his Right-wing critics...

...Not without reason...

...Cameron’s Detractors accuse him of arrogance, with some attributing it to his Etonian background...

...At least two wealthy contributors to the party’s coffers stopped donating...

...Like him, they are convinced their party is doomed to be stuck in the political wilderness unless it sheds its antediluvian far Right image and moves into center ground...

...I lead,” he has declared...

...By then he may have become the fourth consecutive failed leader to be jettisoned by the Tories in their hungry quest for a return to power...

...Reporters discovered that when, to help protect the environment, he regularly bicycled to Parliament through London’s congested streets, his less environmentally friendly Lexus followed not far behind with his papers and whatever else he might need...

...London Times columnist Matthew Parris, a former Conservative Member of Parliament, has warned against “a group of Right-wingers, reactionaries and xenophobes . . . drawn toward everything that is morbid within the body politic, sucking [the Conservative Party] toward its grave...

...The Tories believed the image and style of Labor’s new prime minister would provide the opportunity they had been pining for—after three successive party leaders had been effortlessly outshone by Blair...

...A check would have revealed the candidate had appeared publicly as a Labor Party supporter not long before...

...In the process, he transformed the Labor Party into “New Labor” by jettisoning its underlying Socialist leanings and seizing the political center—to the despair of its Left wing...

...Instead they find themselves torn by fundamental differences about what their party should stand for...

...Ruddy cheeked, sprightly and accessible, Cameron exuded vitality and promised to produce a raft of electionwinning policies...

...But it was revealed that almost half of Cameron’s choices have retained active business directorships and other outside positions, making them part-timers in politics...

...The tumult primarily involves members of the Conservative Party—possibly the oldest formal political organization in the modern world—at a moment when they hoped to be reveling in joyous anticipation...

...To achieve that exalted status, he set about remodeling the long-floundering Conservative Party, just as Blair had remade the Labor Party...

...Despite Cameron’s verbal assaults on the floor of Parliament and in public pronouncements, however, it remains unclear to what extent the policies and prescriptions he favors differ fundamentally from those of the prime minister...

...I do not follow...

...One complained “The Tory party seems to be run now by Old Etonians” who have little understanding of politics...

...His leadership image was not helped by a disclosure about many of those he has appointed members of his “shadow Cabinet,” whose job it is to monitor the doings of the actual Cabinet members and challenge them right down the line...

...As a practicing “communicator,” Cameron meticulously examined how Blair had established and sustained a highly favorable rapport with the public until Iraq dragged him down...

...Green issues, on the other hand are hardly high on the agenda of the Conservative base, but the party is now a strong advocate of Green policies...

...Appalled by Cameron’s approach, some of his recently appointed senior aides publicly withdrew from “Team Cameron...

...The opportunism he displays is deplorable...

...Neither is Cameron, despite his publicly flaunted confidence...

...Dismissing some of his Tory critics as “delusional,” Cameron has offered assurances that he will do exactly that...

...But uncertainty about the electoral consequences of Cameron’s new, loudly proclaimed dedication to cutting taxes prompted him to hold back and say he is in no hurry...

...Even while offering to scrap or reduce the inheritance tax, he suggested other taxes would be raised to make up the revenue shortfall, leading to voluble Tory complaints...

...Many Tories allow that some of the Labor Party’s achievements and goals under Blair were commendable, and that Brown may not pose an existential threat to the cherished British way of life...

...Its raison d’être is to contest the policies of the government in power and offer the electorate a credible alternative...

...Its outcome is likely to decide not simply when the next general election will be held but who will govern Britain for quite some time...

...London Daily Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer, a dedicated Tory, wrote: “The veneer of magic Dave brought with him has cracked and is flaking off...

...But he is empowered to do so whenever he chooses in the interim...

...As the country’s former Treasury chief and now its prime minister, Brown would be held responsible...

...He has backtracked on achieving greater accord with the rest of the European Community, which his principal center-leaning supporters consider crucial to Britain’s international ranking...

...Nevertheless his early reception by the frustrated Conservatives was enthusiastic...

...Brown flirted with the idea of calling a snap election this autumn, while the Tories were trying to sort themselves out...

...Another of Cameron’s critics lamented that the Conservative Party, once obsessed with changing Britain, was now obsessed with changing itself...

...By law, Brown is not required to call new national elections until 2010, five years after the previous balloting...

...He intends to be the “heir to Blair,” one of his chief aides observed...

...BUT HE WAS SOON confronted with two major difficulties...

...He could not say otherwise...

...Cameron says he is ready, indeed anxious, for the contest to take place soon, no matter what the opinion polls currently forecast...

...Lord Saatchi, a former joint chairman of the Conservative Party, stingingly criticized his failure to adhere to a “true Conservative ideology...

...Thus, although they actually shared Blair’s determination to stand with the United States in Iraq, they saw a silver lining in the quagmire the war became...

...This will be easier for him to do if forecasts of a looming decline in the British economy prove accurate...

...He possesses none of his predecessor’s quick wit, charm or easy manner...

...During his 10year reign, Blair won an unprecedented three consecutive national elections...

...They are popularly identified by their fashionable hooded jackets and London tabloids had a field day ridiculing Cameron’s un-Torylike “hug a hoodie” campaign...

...A Labor critic said Cameron was raised to believe it his right to lead the country, and that it is unfair he has been denied that opportunity so far...

...Michael Portillo, a former Tory Cabinet minister, has urged Cameron to stand fast against the stream of invective that has been showered on him...

...First, after a faltering start Prime Minister Brown showed himself to be a more formidable political leader than had been expected...

...In the party itself, there was outrage when Cameron impetuously chose a personable businessman to stand as the Conservative candidate in a parliamentary by-election simply because he (mistakenly) thought him electable...

...If Labor is again returned to office by the voters in the next election, whenever it comes, it could be five more years before the Conservatives get another crack at governing...

...It remains to be seen if that is mere bravado...

...He riled the business community (a natural Conservative bastion with which Brown has established good relations) by playing down the party’s customary demand for lower taxes, to avoid undermining his stance as a protector of cherished public services...

...Difficulty two has been more significant...

...And most vigorously, he backtracked on taxes, returning to the traditional Tory emphasis on cutting them—particularly that great Conservative hobgoblin, the inheritance tax...

...To prepare for what they were convinced would be a return to power come next election day, the Conservatives chose David Cameron to be their leader in December 2005...

...An early Cameron ploy, designed to show him as youthful, caring and cool, rather than another staid old Conservative, was sabotaged by the press...

...He concluded that he had to broaden his party’s appeal by shifting it to the center of British politics and expunging its traditional Rightist identity...

...His tasks now are considerable...

...Not wanting to be seen as promoting a two-tier education system, Cameron has also aroused ire by refusing to back an increase in the number of grammar schools with selective enrollment...

...Aside from striving to make his party electable again, no one knows exactly what Cameron stands for...

...Dour” is an adjective long used by the press to describe him...

...Having methodically tested public opinion and examined the possibilities, he seemed to be trying to change a product because it has not been selling, rather than making an effort to persuade people conservatism is a neglected noble cause and they should rally around it just as Britons once rallied around such Conservative luminaries as Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher...

...Cameron has thus effectively shed the “heir to Blair” modernizer image he initially cultivated...

...A Tory blogger accused them of lacking the hunger for power that brought the Labor Party to government and has kept it there...

...Though not silvertongued, he expressed himself with assurance and wit...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...