Conservative majority

Iain Duncan Smith asserts that a majority of Britons hold conservative views on economic welfare, national security, social conservatism and ‘one nation’.

Iain Duncan Smith asserted the existence of a British ‘conservative majority’ in December 2004.

Writing for his Centre for Social Justice think tank the former Tory leader drew on a variety of opinion surveys to argue that the majority believed in four main things:

(1) that prosperity was best delivered by free market economies;

(2) the security of the nation should be a top priority for government;

(3) special care for the very young, the very old and the disabled should be at the heart of 'one nation'; and

(4) that laissez-faire social policies – on, for example, crime, family and drugs – bred social injustice.

Ten characteristics of Britain’s conservative majority

With regard to the majority’s views on social issues, IDS offered ten main characteristics. The majority…

1. is most committed to the protection of children from adult influences (at the same time as being tolerant of most adult freedoms);
2. is as committed to social justice issues like poverty – as to personal responsibility issues like family breakdown;
3. understands that social justice needs social conservatism (eg family breakdown causes much poverty);
4. holds moderate views on the most controversial issues of our time (like abortion and homosexuality);
5. isn’t dependent on American rates of 'moral majority' churchgoing;
6. is spread across all of the political parties;
7. looks more kindly on certain issues when they are given moral purpose;
8. increasingly interprets whole political platforms through values systems;
9. could re-energise the political system (including the conservative coalition);
10. has been sustained despite the lack of a conservative communications infrastructure within Britain.

The unsustainability of Labour’s coalition

IDS observed how George W Bush and John Howard had built majorities in the USA and Australia by using wedge issues to divide the working class strivers from the metropolitan elites that dominate their opponents’ rainbow coalitions. Bush used social issues like abortion and gay marriage to win Catholic and evangelical working class Democrats (values voters) to his corner. Howard won the support of low income ’strivers’ who couldn’t afford the Australian Labor Party’s job-destroying environmental policies.

One of the secrets of Blairism has been its tendency to ‘talk conservative’ but to ‘act metropolitan’. Tony Blair has led a party that has never been particularly comfortable with some of the conservative positions that New Labour has adopted on economic and security issues. Once Tony Blair has left the political stage the Conservative Party has an opportunity to reassert its position as Britain’s natural party of government. To prosper in the post-Blair electoral world, however, it must show more imagination - coupling a belief in ‘core vote’ policies with progressive and compassionate positions.