Left-wing commentators are confused by the Conservatives' more balanced message. They shouldn't be.

The Sunday newspapers offer thoughts on the changed Tory tactics of the last fortnight.  For Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer the principal change has been a change of language:

"A year ago, in the speech which became caricatured as Hug a Hoodie, [Cameron] argued for a sophisticated approach which would concentrate as much on the causes of crime as on its effects. He invited his audience to empathise with why young people became troubled. In a arresting phrase, designed to get the headlines that it did, he said: 'We have to show a lot more love.'... His language this summer has been very different. These have been speeches that Michael Howard could well have delivered. Mr Cameron declared: 'Common sense suggests that with young people you need to hit them where it hurts.' From Hug a Hoodie to Hit a Hoodie."

But Mr Rawnsley also believes that the Cameron message is in danger of becoming muddled.  He says that Mr Cameron may not be lurching to the right but he is lurching "all over the place".  He points to the division between the Redwood and Gummer policy groups on airport expansions as an example of incoherence.

Another commentator from the traditional left - John Rentoul in The Independent on Sunday - writes that there is a battle between Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson regarding the party's direction.  Steve Hilton, Rentoul writes, wanted to carry on with the NHS and environment messages.  Andy Coulson wanted to outreach to the traditional right-of-centre newspapers with 'core vote' messages.  Mr Coulson prevailed, it is suggested, after Hilton's Rwanda trip "made Cameron look out of touch".

It is perfectly possible that there have been arguments between Hilton and Coulson but my hunch is that John Rentoul is exaggerating them.  Steve Hilton has always planned that crime and family would be two of the party's four key themes at the next General Election.  They would, he hoped, assure traditional supporters that the Cameron-led party was still very much a Conservative project.  There would, at the same time, be no retreat from Steve Hilton's other major planned themes: the environment and the NHS.

My understanding is that the leader's team are very united on three of Hilton's four themes: crime, the family and the NHS.  Crime and the NHS are likely to be the two flagship campaign themes should there be an autumn election with action to support the family wrapped into the crime theme as a way of countering social breakdown.  The tension centres on the environment.  David Cameron has moved quickly to distance himself from Gummer-Goldsmith's opposition to airport expansion but some Tory advisers are very worried that the leadership's embrace of green taxation will be very unpopular. There is also some worry that the issue of the environment reinforces Cameron's negatives.  Research seen by the party suggests that voters do not think that David Cameron is genuine about green issues.

I do not see any fundamental problem with Tory tactics.  A government cannot just focus on a few issues and neither can a serious political party.  It would be ridiculous if the Conservative Party under David Cameron didn't talk about immigration and tax - just as it was ridiculous that Michael Howard and William Hague talked too little about the NHS and education in their election campaigns.  A political party has to highlight certain themes but it needs to have addressed all big issues.  What we probably need is a serious speech or (ideally) a series of briefings of journalists that explain that the Conservative Party is now following the 'And theory of Conservatism'.  I would nominate Michael Gove for that task.

Comments

[Cleo]

I think talking about immigration turns people off and the party needs to win new supporters. The party can do this by talking about schools, hospitals, break-down society and the environment.

[Tony Makara]

To win the next election David Cameron will have to enlist the support of disgruntled Labour and Liberal voters. He will need a mandate that reflects the broad concerns of the whole country. Such a srategy requires a balanced set of policies. In spite of Blair's attempt to be all thing to all men, Labour are still locked into the ideological block thinking of the 20th century. David Cameron quite correctly realises that the modern voter is eclectic rather than ideologically driven.

[TOmTom]

Confused maybe, but not in the way you imagine....then again it is hard to imagine the Conservatives making a case as clear as this article in the Indie

Taxes

Meanwhile, stamp duty on small share trades, taxation on pension funds and a flat rate of inheritance tax penalise the little guy. The mega-wealthy take advantage of tax loopholes, such as the one governing non-domiciled residents, and pay even less tax than they should on paper. But that does not stop ministers coming up with tired old clichés about how the rich should not be resented for being successful. Well if the masses got the favourable tax treatment enjoyed by billionaires, then maybe they would stop complaining.

[David Belchamber]

Cleo @ 09.48:

"I think talking about immigration turns people off and the party needs to win new supporters".

I do agree with you that we must talk more about schools and the NHS in particular but a government has to deal with every aspect of our society and immigration, like taxes and the EU, is something the tories now have talk about, if an election is approaching.

In my view the important thing is to get the language right: I have several times posted that the word "immigration" is a bomb that has to be defused before the debate starts and I advise tories, when attacked on immigration, to say: "Which category are you talking about? Asylum seekers, economic migrants or illegals?"

How can even Nulab defend illegal immigrants, how can the tories attack asylum seekers? That leaves the real debate on economic migrants.

[TomTom]

Which part of the country do you live Cleo ?

[Editor]

I think it really is incredibly simple. It's just about balance. We talked too much about immigration at the last election. We have talked too little about harder issues like crime in the last eighteen months.

[Cleo]

In London and in a highly marginal constituency so my vote is the kind of vote the party should be looking to obtain.

[TomTom]

In London and in a highly marginal constituency .

London is such a ghettoised city - I just wondered if you were in Brixton or Peckham

[Iain]

"I think talking about immigration turns people off and the party needs to win new supporters."

Which is why they should be talking about it in terms of population sustainability and incorporate it into the green agenda.

[Editor]

And, Iain, into the public services agenda - as DC did on Newsnight.

[Cleo]

Immigration has been good for London and contributes to the fact that it is such a vibrant place. As I said the issues facing London are schools, hospitals, crime, the environment and I would also add transport. And no I don't live in Brixton or Peckham.

[malcolm]

Absolutely Iain. There are simply too many people concentrated into too confined areas of Britain.

[malcolm]

As regards the 'leftwing' commentators I wonder how seriously we should take their comments.Rentoul in particular has a reputation simply for being a mouthpiece for Blairism and is unlikely either to have high level contacts within the Conservative party or be able to write objectively about Conservative party politics.

[simon]

'Left wing commentators are confused by the conservatives' more balanced message'. Eh? I think EVERYBODY is confused by the Party's message at the moment- including some MP's. What is balance? Define a balanced message/campaign. What we need are poulist key issues and pardon the phrase- keep banging on about them. We are comparing ourselves too much with Labour in opposition during 92-97. Labour are NOT in our position in government- they are not wholly despised -as we were- during the Major debacle. The fact of the matter is all 3 of the main parties are in a hell of a mess. Intellectually, financially, and i would argue morally. Crime and ASB is getting worse, immigration is uncontrollable ( or is NOT being controlled), the tax system is a mess, pensions- a disaster, foreign policy bankrupt, internal democracy ( ie) the devolutional settlement regarding England) a sham, and i'm sure fellow readers can add their own ideas. What people ( i want) are SOLUTIONS to all the above problems- not wind and half-hearted waffle that solves nothing.

[TomTom]

And no I don't live in Brixton or Peckham.

but I think you should Cleo...my relatives did....I think you would prefer it to wherever you live now.

Then again I think you might find plaes like Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Blackburn, Bradford, Keighley just as "vibrant" and i think you would be wise to sample them all and be imbued with the full joy of being a minority.

[Tony Makara]

Simon, 'balance' is having a programme to govern for the country as a whole rather than just for the Conservative policy. A package of initiatives that are Conservative in origin but broad in their appeal.

I certainly agree with you that all the parties need to improve their intellectual standards. Of course the big wheels of the respective parties have intellectual credentials but one only has to see the performance of most back benchers to realise that the standard of the average MP has declined considerably over the last few years. I'd like to see a better quality of MP emerging in the future. The key of course is selection.

[Victor, NW Kent]

A successful government will govern always in the best interests of the electorate. That does not mean passing thousands of laws to implement unpopular policies. It does mean taking a pragmatic view of all problems, trying to understand the questions they set and trying to find answers to those questions.
It also means not only to attempt to guide society in a particular direction but also listening to what society needs.
That may all sound very trite until it is compared with the 10 years of Blair.

It is not possible to talk about a sustainable environment, or transport, or schools without having some clear idea of how many people our islands can support and what infrastructure is necessary to accommodate them all. That is why it is necessary to get a grip on immigration - of all kinds. To wish to do so has no racial connotations but shows simple commonsense.
London may be a "vibrant" society Cleo. I am a Londoner and probably much older than you. It was always a vibrant society, quite independent of postwar immigration. What it is now is overcrowded, undersupplied with affordable transport, too expensive to live in and underpoliced. Its resources are not only finite but dwindling as various NHS facilities and ambulance services close and fire departments are starved for cash.

[Yet Another Anon]

I'm surprised that anyone isn't confused by David Cameron's message, Tony Blair wrongfooted John Major, but David Cameron seems to be wrongfooting himself.

The policy agenda is vague and confused - even where there aren't spending implications of a particular decision then usually it seems to be a "could be" or maybe. And there are suggestions of a decision one way at one point and another at another point - whatever line the Conservative Party takes in the run up to the General Election it is going to suffer from the apparent contradictions and indecisiveness there has been, he can't just suddenly appeal to one group or another and expect to get their enthusiastic support, from people from a variety of mindsets there is going to be suspicion of what he intends to do and what he stands for.

[Tony Makara]

Victor, yes, immigration is certainly an issue. The last decade under Labour has seen two and a half million immigrants entering Britain. To put that in perspective that is equal to half the population of Scotland. At a time when there are 5.4 million jobless in our country and serious housing crisis, we need to be putting quotas on the number of immigrants entering Britain and repatriating those who shouldn't be here in the first place.

[ToMTom]

To put that in perspective that is equal to half the population of Scotland

It is more than the population of West Yorkshire or even of North + South Yorkshire combined requiring 783 square miles of space ie. and area > Greater London.

So if we keep expanding at this rate we either urbanise all the fields or seize Northern France for living space

[Sean Fear]

I can't see any real benefit for Londoners from current levels of immigration, Cleo. All that it means is pressure on public services, soaring house prices, and, in the case of people who come here from failed states, a crime problem. Plainly *some* immigration is going to be beneficial. It doesn't follow that unlimited immigration is going to be beneficial.

You're also quite wrong in thinking that it's not an issue that concerns Londoners. It doesn't concern you, but that's a different matter.

[Cleo]

I am not against controlled immigration I just think the party is in danger of making the same mistake as it did 2005. It was not a successful rallying cry then and I don't see it being particularly successful next time. Have a policy yes but I think it is a mistake to major on it and it paints a picture that when Cameron is down in the opinion polls he does what Hague and Howard did- return to a core-vote strategy.

[Alistair]

Hit a Hoodie sums up the Tories' completely predictable lurch to the right which has already flopped as opinion polls reveal.

"Nasty Party" indeed. Unelectable also,

[Paul Oakley]

Indeed Sean. Uncontrolled immigration may benefit employers, whether they are the middle classes looking for a cheap nanny or businesses which enjoy the competition for jobs which keeps wages down.

The gains are not so obvious for those on middling or low incomes when public services are overstretched and the housing ladder is a distant dream.

And before any self-hating white liberal starts squealing, this is a view I have heard again and again from second and third-generation BME immigrants.

[Alistair]

Of course we have to take account of what really lies behind the mask of "immigration concern"

Step back a few years to when the FCS --then the future and now the present of the Tory Party -- were advocating Hang Nelson Mandela and other repugnant racist policies.

I was there and remember them. They were too extreme even for Norman Tebbit.

Now they are running the Tory party. It's a terrifying prospect,

[Paul Oakley]

What - Like John Bercow Alistair? LOL. There aren't any FCS hacks in the upper echelons as I can see.

[TomTom]

Now they are running the Tory party. It's a terrifying prospect,

Posted by: Alistair | September 02, 2007 at 12:27

Are they ? Do name them.......

[Alistair]

Are you really ignorant about the work of the notorious Douglas Smith behind the scenes.

David Davis was also a leader of FCS. There are others too numerous to mention. MacGregor is on the scene too.

Perhaps someone would like to remind us all exactly what Hoile is doing these days.

Is this collective amnesia?

[Yet Another Anon]

At a time when there are 5.4 million jobless in our country and serious housing crisis
The people who are unemployed are unemployed either because they aren't prepared to do work that needs to be done, or no one wants employ them whether they can or can't work; immigrants are doing many jobs that otherwise wouldn't get done and in many cases they are doing them far more efficently and at a lower cost than the indigenous population.

It's a win win situation because in many cases they are sending money home to their families and friends, so it works out quite well in International Development terms too.

As for housing, there is far too little utilisation of existing space - something such as a tax based on 2D land area in metres squared that property takes up could both replace Council Tax and encourage people to maximise returns from their land by building up and/or down. Greater population density also means greater economies of scale for mass transit systems, it makes building up infrastructure easier.

[malcolm]

Oh really are going to have to do a better better than that . To link the modern day Conservative party with a few notorious people within the FCS during the 1980's (not referring to DD here) is entirely ludicrous. You support a party whose last leader advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament at the height of the cold war whose justice minister was a communist and whose mayor of London was sympathetic to the murder of his fellow Britons by the IRA. Every party has its mavericks but few utter nutters like Blair, Straw and Livingstone become so senior.

[Alistair]

I notice you don'r comment on David Hoile Malcolm.

I wonder why that is?

[TomTom]

Greater population density also means greater economies of scale for mass transit systems

It has certainly worked wonders in Bangladesh.....

[Tony Makara]

"people who are unemployed are unemployed either because they aren't prepared to do work that needs to be done"

Yet another anon, this is a ridiculous statement! 5.4 million are freeloaders? Come on be serious. We have mass unemployment because our manufacturing industry has been decimated and our economy favours imports meaning that we don't even produce to serve our home market. We have become a service-sector economy dependent on foreign countries for our goods. Thats why we have 5.4 million people without work and mass immigration only intensifies to the problem.

[Yet Another Anon]

With regard to freeing up the labour market to a great extent immigration is doing this, employers have a greater range of options with regard to employing people in the UK while keeping labour costs down - it weakens the power of Trade Union Barons, the Conservative Party is against the closed shop and Unions being able to hold employers to ransom and immigration restricts their scope to do this, besides which a lot of transferable that immigrants are doing would go on anyway but in other countries otherwise and the money earned from it would be spent in those other countries rather than in this country. We are living in a global economy with global communications, protectionism will fail now far more spectacularily than it did in the past.

[Yet Another Anon]

this is a ridiculous statement! 5.4 million are freeloaders? Come on be serious. We have mass unemployment because our manufacturing industry has been decimated and our economy favours imports meaning that we don't even produce to serve our home market.
Manufacturing industry failed because it was uncompetitive, bureaucratic & dominated by the Trade Unions who ran it into the ground. People in this society have been conditioned by a century of welfarism into expecting to be looked after every step of the way and be given an easy life and it has infected most of society, in addition work is becoming increasingly based on high technology and communication and people who are bad at either will tend to suffer, this is inevitable - some of the 5.4 million of course are physically unable to work, many others do not match the structure of work that employers desire. Employment is about matching people to jobs not jobs to people, the jobs that there should be are those that need doing not those that employ the most people. The function of the workplace is to expand the economy and keep the system working not guarantee jobs to anybody.

[Tony Makara]

Yet another anon, protectionism still exists today, its just that countries like China cook their economy to promote export and control imports. As for the trades unions, its fair to say they are dying if not dead. 2,125 strikes in 1979 and 158 strikes in 2006. Actually I'm not anti-union if the union exists purely to respresent workers rights. Sadly though the unions were Hijacked by the Red Robbo's and Mick McGaughy's in the 1970s. I feel that the Conservative government mistakingly turned a blind eye to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s/90s as it meant the death of union power. However that was a mistake. The decline of manufacturing has now saddled us with unmanageable unemployment. This unemployment has massive social effects including the creation of impoverished sub-cultures with an anti social mind-set.

[TomTom]

Well that is another dose of prejudices masquerading as rational thought. It is flawed in its premise and proceeds from there....but in essence it is Pseudo-Marxism with its commodification postulate and the withering away of the nation-state under global Capitalism.

I'll bet you had to raid your handouts for such a crude exposition. It is obviously trite and in the case of Marx was postulated before Universal Suffrage.

One of the giveaways is the Inevitability Syndrome - it cannot be otherwise because it is ordained to be this way which is the hallmark of the irrational pretending to be rational as they recite the mantra.

We are not a global economy. we have simply opened our markets to imported manufactures without tariffs - something which has never before happened in the history of the industrialised world.

When Lancashire was producing cotton it survived behind the tariff protection of The Calico Act which allowed Lancashire to compete with India, the low-cost producer. It permitted Lancashire to innovate and mechanise and run large spinning and weaving operations to becoe the centre of an imperial trade.

The USA survived behind the McKinley Tariff 1890 which allowed its nascent industries to grow to global scale; Germany, France all brought in tarrifs in the 1880-1900 period to build up their manufacturing base - ONLY Britain continued without protection leaving its industrial base at the mercy of cheap copies from "Made in Germany" - a term of insult for shoddy copies of "Made in England".....and as Germany moved up the value chain "Made in Germany" became a quality symbol - just as with "Made in Japan" - and "Made in Korea" and so on.

The disdain of the British Establishment for Trade had led them to sacrifice the industrial base with threadbare justifications and hackneyed excuses - they prefer the class-based professions and City money-making of the gentrified classes to the "where there's muck there's brass" philosophy of the manufacturer.

[TomTom]

Employment is about matching people to jobs not jobs to people, the jobs that there should be are those that need doing not those that employ the most people. The function of the workplace is to expand the economy and keep the system working not guarantee jobs to anybody.

Civil Servant talk.

The reason to run a business is PROFIT. Before you get to profit you have to pay your workforce and the levies the Government imposes when you employ them.

If you face those costs and face competition in the marketplace against producers not burdened with these costs you have less opportunity to make PROFIT.

If the cheap producer overseas is driving up the cost of raw materials you are squeezed at both ends and cannot get enough Value-Added to make the game pay.

So in the end everyone ends up working for The State either directly, or indirectly as a contractor in a service business. What is lost is the export business to pay for the imports.....and that will be the leitmotif of the coming 20 years....how Britain will compete to pay for oil and gas imports, milk imports, grain imports, consumer goods imports.

The real question is why anyone should want to set up any kind of international business here at all....it has absolutely ZERO advantage

[Tony Makara]

A privately owned British manufacturing industry could corner and dominate global export markets. Much of what China and India produces is of inferior quality as the Americans have found out all too recently. We could produce quality goods at competitive prices if we had a government in place that would support a co-ordinated export strategy. The current Labour government with its love of a strong overvalued sterling, is diametrically opposed to manufacturing and export. Their macroeconomic policies are national suicide.

[Ted]

TomTom - UK manufacturing was an export led industry and so required open overseas markets to support it. Empire preference provided this market for a time, supplemented by British investment in South America, by the forced opening of China to UK goods.
Lancashire cotton survived in large part because Britain destroyed competitive cotton industries in Egypt and India when they controlled those economies; the fall of Empire freed them to compete. The sad tale of post war British manufacturing is one of failed opportunities but tariff barriers would not have helped.

[Tony Makara]

Ted, I agree with much of what you say The Commonwealth was very much a set-up trading block where we were very much the big fish in the tank. It is no coincidence that mass unemployment developed significantly after 1973. The end of Bretton Woods was a factor too in my opinion. I agree with you that opportunities have been missed and if we did rebuild manufacturing we would be starting from behind scratch, but it is something we have to do. The size of our population warrants a large manufacturing base. The Conservative party must do more to promote manufacturing.

[The Culture Warrior]

I believe we lost the past three elections for a combination of reasons: narrowness of policy (crime, tax, Europe grr, crime, tax, Europe, grr); the whiplash of the Nineties problems (sleaze and division); our image as the nasty party; the fact that Labour were on a high.

Those things are connected (we were perceived as nasty because we only talked about crime, tax, Europe (grr)). We're ten yaers on, and there's no reason why Labour should have a lead. There's so much we should be holding them to account for - Iraq, pensions, referendum - that we should do.

Any party running for office has got to have policies for every aspect of government. It's just plain irresponsible to write a manifesto that consists only of crime, tax, Europe (grr) when we're going to have to run the NHS, schools and the environment.

The 'and theory' is just plain common sense. The left will do all they can to paint it as a 'lurch to the right', but it's not, and we know it's not. All it is is traditional conservative positions plus new conservative attitudes to other problems. We should stick to our guns, speak with some passion, roll out some more policy teasers and get on with it. The public will agree with what we say, and reward us.

[Lindsay Jenkins]

Ted Am puzzled by your remark that when we ran Egypt we destroyed the cotton industry - we ran much of it successfully for 100 years and what we didn't run directly, we created the conditions for others to run profitably.

[Yet Another Anon]

It is obviously trite and in the case of Marx was postulated before Universal Suffrage.
Karl Marx is now only of historical interest, his assumptions have been clearly been debunked.

Although there are elements of protection, the fact is that a multinational choosing to setup a call centre or a manufacturing plant will consider availability of people with the appropriate skills and also tax regimes, regulatory burden and what people are prepared to accept in terms of working conditions and renumeration and they can locate their operations wherever is most convenient for them with regard to these things.

Who cares what Karl Marx would have thought about that!

[voreas06]

Yet Another Anon "With regard to freeing up the labour market to a great extent immigration is doing this, employers have a greater range of options with regard to employing people in the UK while keeping labour costs down.

This is one of the main factors behind "breakdown Britain" what you are actually saying is I would rather let you people rot and get in cheap foreign Labour because it helps my profitability, I couldn't care less about the social effects of my decision.
Now I completely understand this argument from a business perspective but from society's perspective it is a poor deal. Irwin Steltzer is not a man I agree with often, but a couple of weeks ago he wrote an article that effectively said ok, you can have free labour movement but if you choose migrant labour then that business needs to pick up the costs in terms of schooling, housing etc.
His article is here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/15/do1501.xml

I think we should consider it.

[TomTom]

Actually Ted you are mistaken. There was a tariff system in place under IMF Rules which was not used properly. Countries in persistent surplus (Japan, Germany) were supposed to revalue their currencies or face punitive tariffs from persistent deficit countries (UK, USA).

The persistent surplus countries as with China today deliberately kept their currency undervalued...the D-Mark first became convertible in 1957 when it was 8 years old...it was undervalued and continued to be so until 1971.

Countries like Germany and Japan pursued a mercantilist policy rather similar to that pursued by Taiwan, Korea, China....countries like Britain operated a deregulated credit environment to feed consumerism.

The first time British interest rates hit double digits was under a Conservative Government - that of Edward Heath following Competition & Credit Control 1971. His deegulation of credit led to a huge trade gap, inflation and a speculative boom and bust. Interestingly - houses prices started to move off the steady-state path of 3-6% appreciation after 1971 and house-price inflation became built into the system as credit expansion continued.

Base Rates are always higher under Conservative Governments and have been since they lifted them from 3% after 1951

[Yet Another Anon]

Civil Servant talk.

The reason to run a business is PROFIT. Before you get to profit you have to pay your workforce and the levies the Government imposes when you employ them.
I didn't mean the state, I mean't whoever was the employer - they choose a particular person presumably because they think they can do the job to their satisfaction.

[Yet Another Anon]

Now I completely understand this argument from a business perspective but from society's perspective it is a poor deal.
It isn't just a matter of business perspective, someone looking to get in someone to do their garden, someone going to a restaurant, someone needing a plumber - without migrant workers there would be shortages of people to do these jobs or people who aren't particularily good at these jobs will be employed to do them. Migrant workers help to hold down wage demands and so hold down inflation maintaining a greater degree of economic stability, and indeed so does unemployment and low levels of assistance benefits.

[Ted]

Lindsay Jenkins
We turned an Egyptian Cotton manufacturing industry into an Egyptian cotton growing industry transferring most of the value add to Lancashire. Did much the same in India.

[Tony Makara]

"Karl Marx is now only of historical interest, his assumptions have been clearly been debunked."

Very true, but as anyone who has studied Sociology will know Messrs Marx, Engels, Gramsci and Mead are very much alive and still enjoying celebrity status in lecture rooms across Britain.

Marxism is a true pseudo-science, its core ideas of dialectical and historical materialism being corruptions of previous philosphical conjecture. Why the Marxist perspective still is held in such high regard by academica I will never understand.