With our overstretched army bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, violent crime on the streets out of control, a run on a high street bank, teachers assaulted in their classrooms, bullying by pupils over the internet, illiteracy growing, the NHS shambles in which young British doctors are left jobless while thousands of foreigners are imported to take their jobs, house prices soaring way beyond the reach of ordinary families, even the Commission for Racial Equality admitting that uncontrolled immigration and multiculturalism — those totems of New Labour — are threatening the stability of society, there should be a spring in David Cameron’s feet as he pedals north to Blackpool.
Surely he must deserve to be 20 points ahead of that dull, uninspiring Brown — a man with no charisma and a record of imprudent borrowing and spending to put Northern Rock’s mild profligacy in the shade — a man tainted by his association with the Blair regime.
The one-day wonders of a few MPs drifting across the middle ground to shelter in Brown’s big tent apart, there has been a remarkable loyalty among senior Tories, in public at least. As for Lady Thatcher’s photo call at No. 10, that must have brought great satisfaction to the Cameroon inner circle who have been trashing Thatcherism, distancing Cameron from her, and selling their leader as the heir to Blair. They must be pleased to see Brown risking the unpopularity of being seen as heir to Thatcher — not Blair.
So things, Cameron might have thought, could hardly be better for the Tories. Yet somehow it is Labour that seems to be in the lead. Something, somewhere, has gone wrong and the Tories can only hope that they will be given time to get it right. First of all they have to realise it is not all David Cameron’s fault. It goes back a long way to when the Euro-fanatics ambushed Margaret Thatcher and dragged her into the ERM before they finished her off in 1990.
The fuse they had lit led to Black Wednesday’s explosion when Major, Heseltine and Clarke gambled against the currency markets and lost. Sadly it was not just the fanatics but the Conservative party which lost a reputation for economic competence and it cost not only Major an election, but Hague and Howard too.
For some reason the Cameroons thought that if they distanced themselves from the Thatcher years, they could escape the curse of the ERM debacle. They called it ‘decontaminating the brand’, but they ended up flushing the baby of Thatcher’s successes down the plughole, and floundering in the dirty bathwater of Major’s disaster.
As the polls turned bad they forgot Denis Healey’s advice: ‘When you are in a hole, stop digging.’ They abused in most offensive terms the ineffably polite Michael Ancram rather than biting their tongues and hugging him back into line as though he was a hoodie.
The tactic of kicking policy (except on grammar schools) into touch by appointing commissions of wise and not so wise men looked good, but sod’s law has landed Cameron with a hotchpotch of policy proposals, many contradictory or unpopular. That will need another round of hasty decontamination of toxic political waste under the shadow of a possible October election.
The freshness of Cameron’s political novices had the initial appeal of a basket of puppies with Conservative poll ratings soaring, but the voters now seem to prefer the old dog Brown. Not that the headline figures of support for the parties should encourage either euphoria or despair if the general election is a couple of years away — but there is no guarantee of that. Far more worrying was the Telegraph YouGov poll four weeks ago when respondents were asked whether Labour or the Tories were the better party to handle each of the 19 problems ranging from the economy and NHS to crime and immigration. Labour led the Tories by 13 to 4 with 2 shared, but more people said ‘Neither’ or ‘Don’t Know’ than supported either party in 15 of the 19, often by wide margins.
Now the economic uncertainties seem to be driving even Tory-inclined voters to trust the solid, experienced Brown rather than the fresh, open, modern, compassionate, middle-of-the-road Cameron. Much of this is the Tories’ own fault. The decontamination exercise has left the party deracinated, and its rootlessness has left its voters looking elsewhere for security — most notably to Gordon Brown.
If we have an autumn election, it is likely to be every man for himself as Tory candidates fall back on local campaigning, the leadership plays pick and mix with the policy recommendations of its commissions, and everyone hopes that the Labour campaign will tread on a banana skin. I suspect that if the electors saw Brown cruising to a 100 plus majority, then they would back off and a late swing could leave Cameron defeated but not humiliated.
It does not have to be that way. Cameron is not stupid. He does want to win. He needs to clear his office of the overexcitable youths and turn to a better source of advice — St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians xiv 8: ‘If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’
Neither the party workers (who are despised by the clever young people in Central Office), nor the hard core of 8.8 million Tory voters of 2005, let alone the five million lost to the growing army of abstainers, will be inspired to turn out merely to replace middle-ground New Labour Brown with middle-ground modern Conservative Cameron.
Governments are overturned by electors voting for change — not a different coloured status quo. Inept opposition has let Gordon Brown claim ownership of the Tory ground of economic competence and patriotism. There is no time to win it back before an October election, so Cameron must find popular causes which Labour cannot claim as their own. Policy on education and health is not sufficiently different.
Immigration and multiculturalism is. Even the Commission for Racial Equality now sees the value of the cricket test. Cameron has pledged repeal of the Human Rights Act. Now he needs to challenge the power of Brussels to overrule Parliament’s laws. And Cameron’s promise of a EU referendum will split Labour.
Even better is English votes for English laws. Brown cannot risk Labour’s Scottish votes by adopting that, which would leave Labour’s candidates in England to argue what is good sauce for the Scottish goose is too good for the English gander.
Cameron could come out now for nuclear power. Brown will do so next year but cannot say so yet. This is not just a green global warming issue — with most oil in the hands of potential enemies it is a patriotic, national security issue.
Cameron’s task at Blackpool is to scare Brown off an election to gain time to rebalance the party from a lurch to the left which cost it the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005.