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Cameron's right-turn
It's everywhere: the Sun pictures Cameron in a Thatcherite bouffant, the Independent describes "an abrupt turnaround". In their different ways the press is acknowldeging that as soon as the going got rough, Cameron reverted to type.
He'd had a rough couple of days: his interview with Andrew Marr made him look second-rate; Kalms had qualms and Wheeler decided UKIP looked a better bet; and Cameron himself was caught out sounding a lot keener on taking England out of the European Union that Britan out of the EU.
Suddenly Cameron was talking about his great love for Thatcherism:
“We believe in freedom under the law, personal responsibility, sound money, strong defence and national sovereignty.
“Those who ask whether I am a Conservative need to know that the foundation stones of the alternative government that we’re building are the ideas that encouraged me as a young man to join the Conservative Party and work for Margaret Thatcher.”
The Sun, of course, loves this. Nothing comes for free. But they acknowledge that the U-turn has been forced upon him:
He has spent an entire year rebranding the party as a modern-day force interested in the environment and public services.
In trying to bring his party screaming into the 21st Century, he has left many feeling they no longer belong. And so UKIP have already enticed two Tory peers and one of Iron Lady Mrs Thatcher’s most respected economists to their ranks. Conservative funder Stuart Wheeler might even follow suit.
So now we know what we long suspected: Cameron is going the way of Hague. He starts off modernising - and then rushes to embrace the core vote.
And if that seems downbeat, have a look at what the traditional conversative behind UK Daily Pundit has to say - because he has really got it in for Cameron.
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The problem with Cameron is that he gives every impression of being an old-fashioned statist. Having three statist parties would be very depressing, wouldn't you say?
By the way, registration has made life a lot easier on the comments front, as you predicted.
"The problem with Cameron is that he gives every impression of being an old-fashioned statist."
Generally true - and it is noticeable that he started by praising the statist part of the Thatcher heritage (of which there is quite a lot).
Three statist parties? Yes, I think that is right generally. My lot like to push localism (genuinely I think) but I don't personally think that transforms the picture. Still I am happy with the simplification of income tax and benefits that gets the state out of a lot of micromanagement, and the opposition to the Big Database proposals.
Pleased to hear the registration move is simplifying comments.
I think it's pretty much inevitable that Cameron has/will turn to the right - or at least pay lip service in the direction of some old Tory totems. If he doesn't espouse lower taxes, a smaller state and/or greater personal liberty then the question becomes 'What is the Tory Party actually for?' Mere managerialism is not enough, although the Conservative Party did not even seem capable of that in the years after 1997. At root, the Tory Party represents a set of timeless right wing philosophical views about society which it will always have to return to.
Nor is a move to the right necessarily a 'bad' thing, even in terms of pure political calculation. In the mid 90s the perceived failure of the market to provide adequate social goods meant that books like 'The State We're In' became best sellers off the back of disatisfaction with market lead reforms and other right wing ideas. But the pendulum always swings. There's been almost a decade of public spending and tax has had to rise to meet that. The intellectual climate is not explicitly hostile to public spending (yet?), but people are increasingly asking about what they are getting for their money. Earlier shifts to the right by Hague and IDS failed because public opinion had not shifted to meet them, but in a few years Cameron could be hitting the right notes.