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Cameron´s by-election failures show that he cannot talk liberal and walk Conservative

Excerpt: (This post is by Paul LLoyd). Cameron’s march towards the so called centre ground of politics suffered a severe blow yesterday, and the dilemma that has faced the Tory leader since he took over, and that he has never faced, remains.
Submitted by Peter Welch on 30 June 2006 - 3:02pm | Categories:

(This post is by Paul LLoyd).

Cameron’s march towards the so called centre ground of politics suffered a severe blow yesterday, and the dilemma that has faced the Tory leader since he took over, and that he has never faced, remains.

And that dilemma is that the Conservative Party that was left over after the 1997 defeat represents the quarter to a third of Britain that is fundamentally opposed to progress in all of its forms. This was not the old One Nation Conservative Party that had gradually wrested power since the mid-Nineteenth Century - a broad church, fundamentally Christian Democrat, centre-right party of the establishment. This party represented the rump of the various factions that surrounded the Tories unleashed because of Margaret Thatcher’s personal foibles, beliefs and prejudices. As such the remains of the Conservative Party has been inhabited by rabid free marketeers, arch Europhobes and extreme social conservatives.

Cameron’s response to trying to keep these people on board whilst he tries to take his party towards the mythical centre ground has been his much discussed lack of policies. The strategy is obvious, by offering nothing substantial to anyone he hopes he can talk liberal and walk Conservative and no one will notice.

The result in Bromley shows that Cameron’s strategy has a flaw. With the Tories losing thousands of votes of both ends – to the Liberal Democrats on one side and UKIP on the other, it is becoming obvious that Cameron will have to come clean and give in concrete terms what the Conservative Party really is. Are they returning to the One Nation Tories, or are they hardcore Thatcherites and all that entails?

Paul Lloyd


Comments

On 1 July 2006 - 9:04pm, Sean Fear (not verified) wrote:

Perhaps. However, I think the more prosaic truth is that the Lib Dems are just much more effective at fighting Parliamentary by-elections than the Conservatives are.

The problem for your party is that your undoubted skill at fighting such elections doesn't translate into fighting hundreds of seats at a time.

However, I accept that David Cameron will not be able to attract the support of both traditonal Conservatives, and people who are fundamentally anti-Conservative in outlook. The problem for you is that traditionalist Conservatives are a good deal more numerous than Liberal Democrats.