14th January: It has been replaced by CentreRight.com; thirty or so writers blogging short and longer pieces 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
I want to thank Tim Montgomerie and Sam Coates for the opportunity they gave me to write a column for ConHome this year. Partly, this chance was afforded me because Tim knows I have been a Cameroon voice on the site for some time, under both my own name and pseudonyms, and because the editors wish to recognise Conservatives who represent the full range of party opinion. But in considering myself a Cameroon, I remain, as I have always been, a Thatcherite. When submitting myself for selection I was lucky enough to be able to include quotes from friends who had known me since university, and who could attest to my profound hero worship of the greatest woman statesman. I am in an odd position; in that I have a number of friends from political families, I have several acquaintances who know Lady Thatcher socially. I can not, and likely will never, make that boast. I do not know Lady Thatcher. But politically, I worship her. I never had any doubt as to how my column on Conservative Home should end. Posters on this site should not worry when the media spins to them that Cameroon, modern compassionate Conservative MPs and candidates, want to distance themselves from Lady Thatcher. This is nonsense; I do not wish to distance myself. I wish instead merely to touch the hem of her garment.
How can I express my gratitude to the greatest living Conservative and politician? I was born in 1971, born when my father was forced by punitive taxation to look at emigrating, and persuaded against it by my mother on the grounds that walks in the English countryside were always free. I was born into a world where strike-ridden Britain was perceived to be in permanent decline. I was born into a world where the idea of social justice was capitulation to the unions and pacifism abroad even in the face of aggression. I was born into a world where over-employment seemed a fact of life and the Foreign Office was telling the PM her job was to “manage Britain’s decline”. BM (Before Margaret) we were taking loans from the IMF, like the proverbial banana republic. We were a charity case, an afterthought. We were quite simply losers.
One of the most encouraging lessons in life is that of the utter triumph of the human will when expressed courageously. As a young girl in a world, in the 70s, where only men succeeded, Margaret Thatcher stood out like a beacon. She did not allow herself to be beaten down by prejudice, she simply forced the world to accept her talents. (NB: those commentators that say Margaret Thatcher was insensate to the sexism of selection committees need only read the letters of complaint she sent to cchq during her lengthy attempt to get selected. Indeed, to this day Baroness Thatcher assists women candidates in getting selected and I was privileged to meet her, at last, at a Women2Win event). I have also, and for different reasons, admired Arnold Schwarzenegger; like him, Thatcher is an exemplar of what a person can achieve if they simply refuse to accept limitations. Read the story of Margaret Thatcher’s victory in the leadership; men with a better chance simply did not have the stones to stand. She did, and the rest, literally, is history. Thatcher’s genius did not end with winning office, which (for example) Brown has appeared exclusively focussed on. She fought her party over the EU, the rebate, overemployment, interest rates, Westland, the lot. She was stamped through with Courage like a stick of Brighton rock. And not just political courage (her mandarins wanted to surrender over the Falklands) but physical courage too. After the Brighton Bombing, Margaret Thatcher, having prayed, persuaded M&S to open early. Delegates bought suits, and the conference opened on time – as usual.
Margaret Thatcher was a scientist. (Is a scientist). She was the first major politician seriously to warn of global warming. Despite the ludicrous caricature of her public image, she was a champion of social justice, the grocer’s daughter who swept away the barriers to home ownership for many of Britain’s poorest people. Elected on a popular mandate again and again, the voters never threw her out, much to the dismay of the liberal commentariat. She was the ultimate people’s politician.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to state that the country I grew up in was shaped and saved by Margaret Thatcher. She is my heroine, present in everything I attempt, whether in politics or popular fiction. I do not agree with everything she did; it would be a poor politician who aimed to photocopy someone else; but there’s no doubt at all that I hope, in Parliament, to be proved worthy of the noble, moral name of Thatcherite, that I will always look first to the weak and the helpless and hope to improve their situation, that I will always be proud of Britain, that I will fight any attempt to cede away our sovereignty (such as the EU Constitution), that I will do my best to preserve the Special Relationship, and that I will remember the basic Thatcherite tenet that politics, like life, is counter-intuitive; that things that seem compassionate (such as excessive worker protections) actually lead to high unemployment and are uncompassionate, and vice versa.
Blair made the Labour party electable by accepting Thatcherite reforms; indeed, her radical economics are now cross-party received wisdom. Earlier this year, the big Feartie from Fife (“frit!”) as the Lady would say, pretended for the cameras that he recanted a lifetime of spitting on her and admired her. She as a past PM was too polite to say no. But accept no imitations. I, and plenty of other PPCs, hoping to be elected under David Cameron, are true and passionate Thatcherites. This is my last column for the website, I have asked to be excused to concentrate on motherhood, fighting Corby, and my book career. But I didn’t want to leave without pinning my colours to the mast. Margaret Thatcher shaped me as a girl, a woman, and a would be politician. I am hugely grateful to her. And if I am so fortunate as to be elected for Corby & East Northants, I will try to be true to her tradition of service.
Merry Christmas to all, especially fellow Conservatives. It’s easy to live the season to be jolly when you’re hitting a steady 40% in most polls. And this time of year, we feel a particular need to be kind to the weak and helpless. Can we please prevail on cchq to mount a festive campaign to Save the Gordon?
Just think. Weak polls from Ming Campbell, following his many love-ins with Gordon Brown, and we harried him in office. He’s gone and the LibDems have Calamity Clegg. They have soared from eleven points to a mighty 14! Beware the new leader bounce!
Confession is good for the soul, so here goes; I felt a little stupid back in August. Months of polls showing a widening of our lead with Mr. Bean in charge, which I believed were accurate, were replaced with very different non-hypothetical numbers once he had actually kissed hands; Cameron down for the first time since his election. So what happened? Well, it seems those named leader polls, as PoliticalBetting pointed out this week, were accurate – but only after the new leader honeymoon had gone. Following wild highs and lows, they have settled for Gordon as predicted. But if there is any iron law in politics, I’ve learned the hard way it’s that a new leader, no matter who, will get a bounce. Do we want Gordon Brown out? I’m certain we could get him out. But why do it? The man should be up for one of Tim’s Conservative Politicians of the Year awards. No, no. Save the Gordon! True, people are heartily sick of the whole Labour government. Miliband, with his smirk, signing away our rights in Brussels. Jack Straw hectoring. Darling’s lack of shame. Even Gwyneth Dunwoody, Labour stalwart, is calling this Government of No Talents cynical and shameless. But Gordon Brown is the icing on the Labour disaster. We must not repeat the Ming episode. I take back all the cruel things I have said about Gordon in this column. He is a one-man Tory vote getting machine!
A few months ago I was asked to speak at an Oxford Union debate ‘That no modern woman would ever vote Conservative.’ It was especially exciting since Hazel Blears, a Cabinet minister, was billed to propose the motion. But the Tories were leading then with women (as we are now – 20 points in the latest poll). Well, it was the deputy leadership election, and understandably she cancelled. A good time to abandon my prepared notes and just ask questions. If the government were to be described in politically correct terms, I’d call it omni-challenged. Instead of reciting a laundry list of Labour failures, perhaps we could play a game. I’d just name the department, and the House would think of the corresponding Labour disaster. Agriculture. Defence. Immigration (by this time there was nervous laughter). The NHS. Education. In fact, to save time, could anybody think of an area where Labour had succeeded? One brave lad stuck his hand up. "The economy?" he said.
Ah yes, the economy. Gordon’s great card trick – to ride a wave of global growth and spin it at home as a domestic triumph. But as Fraser Nelson has written recently, Brown has been a simply dreadful Chancellor. PFI – our NHS deeply in hock, perhaps for decades. Northern Rock – Bank of England independence negated, one firm bailed out, a buyout stopped, a run on a British bank. Pensions ruined. Our gold reserves flogged at a bargain price, many times more expensive than Black Wednesday, and advertised to the market in advance. 100 tax rises. I could go on, but it’s too depressing. I like to dwell on Father Christmas, not Scrooge!
Anthony Seldon’s blockbusting biography of Blair levels plenty of character charges against Brown, some resulting in front page stories when the book was released. Weakened, demoralised, "found out" as Cameron said, Gordon has become a figure of fun. Hre reminds me of a character from another film popular at Christmas time – he’s the Wizard of Oz, revealed to be nothing more than a hunched little figure behind the curtain, a cheap card trick. But all this is Tory gold. Do not let us move to kill the man who actually, risibly, claimed polling did not influence his decision to bottle the election. The man who presided over Labour fundraising lawbreaking on a gigantic scale, who will nationalise Northern Rock, who has allowed illegal immigrants to guard his own car! To use a seasonal cliché, he is the gift that keeps on giving. I urge that Tory arrows should aim only to wound. Brown is the leader we must get behind for Labour in the next GE. Save the Gordon!
The year ends with the Tories well up, and Labour well down. It’s been an exciting few months, from the point of view of the horse-race. But how far have we really moved forward in the battle of ideas?
The horse-race matters. It’s not always edifying, but it’s not a trivial part of the democratic process. The politicians’ need to add percents to their score, point by point, is the only fuel for the progress of policy when vision fails, and sadly we can’t expect our politicians to have visions every day. They have to do something, whether it’s a photo-opportunity, a row, or a nice little tit-bit like the inheritance tax cut. What works and what fails gives them some sense of where they might go next, in the absence of any inner drive.
I suspect that if either David Cameron or Gordon Brown could find a real inner drive, a genuine vision for how they might change the country, then their support levels would grow with more solidity. That’s their challenge for 2008. Maybe something in their Christmas crackers will trigger a series of thoughts and emotions that grips their imaginations and leads us somewhere new.
We seem to be in singularly un-visionary times, whether here in the UK, or in the US, or in Europe. We have branding campaigns, and policy-tinkering, but no mission. Many will think this a good thing. Missions and visions can do great harm as well as great good. The last thing we want is a revolution when things are pretty much ok as they are.
I admit, I’m in two minds. Sometimes when I look at London, or Britain, or the world, it feels as if it’s going horribly wrong. Things don’t work, everything costs more, there’s colossal waste, and people suffer as a consequence. I see frustrations welling up into real anger, and threats developing a dangerous edge. I see posing politicians ignoring the anger and the threats and only looking for some little advantage in the media. I get angry myself - and then the feeling subsides. Things don’t look so bad. Disasters may after all be averted by the technocrats and the entrepreneurs, so long as politicians (with or without visions) just keep out of the way.
I go off on my Christmas holidays in a few days with my family and a bag of books about art and science, some DVDs of old movies, and a few crates of wine, switching off thoughts about the state of democracy. When we all come back, will we want more of the same, a repeat of the last few months, an entertaining spectacle with our side winning, or will we have a new appetite for profound political purpose?