The need for civility on the Right

By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter.

This is the final offering in our six-part week-long series looking at 'The Wrong Right'. In three of its parts, Tim Montgomerie looked at the malign influence of a right-wing entertainment complex, the need to update centre right thinking on blue collar Britain and why Conservatives need (more than occasionally) to say positive things about the State. In a fourth, Pete Hoskin focused on the failure of Thatcher and Reagan to constrain the state, and in a fifth, Paul Goodman asked "Why does so much of the Right treat cutting spending as light entertainment?"

One of most disheartening things for Conservatives who stayed loyally supportive of the party during the wilderness years (which, still not having attained a parliamentary majority, we have not yet entirely left) is the disparity between the popularity of our messages and the unpopularity of our messengers. It seems illogical that so much of the public will be fully behind many of our policies, but will recoil in horror upon being told whose policies they are. But much of the fault lies with the lack of civility too often shown by those on the right.

Two of the best messengers can be found across the pond: Barack Obama and former Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee famously said in 2007: "I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad at anyone about it". He holds very conservative positions on abortion and religion, but was liked by many voters regardless of religion, because of his appeal to national unity and civility. In this respect, he was much like Barack Obama. Whatever you think of his track record, his initial message of "Yes We Can" appealed to many people, as did his statement: "there are no red states or blue states, just the United States". He was not angry, and he appealed to the whole nation for support.

Why does so much of the Right treat cutting spending as light entertainment?

By Paul Goodman
^{Follow Paul on Twitter}

This is the fifth offering in our six-part week-long series looking at 'The Wrong Right'. In three of its parts, Tim Montgomerie looked at the malign influence of a right-wing entertainment complex, the need to update centre right thinking on blue collar Britain and why Conservatives need (more than occasionally) to say positive things about the State.  In a fourth, Pete Hoskin focused on the failure of Thatcher and Reagan to constrain the state.

December 5, the date of the autumn statement, is less important that January 1, the start of the New Year.  This is because 2013 will see the Coalition's Spending Review, and if this Government  - or any future one - can't control its spending (whatever the Chancellor decides to do with it next month), then deficits and debt will persist.  If this happens, the point will come when the burden of the cost of covering the deficit and servicing the debt will mean that any government, in the longer-term, will have no choice but to cut spending - and I really mean cut, not simply reduce the rate at which public spending rises, as this Government is doing.

Conservatives need (more than occasionally) to say positive things about the State

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

This is the fourth part of a week-long series looking at 'The Wrong Right'. In part one I looked at the malign influence of a right-wing entertainment complex and in part two looked at the need to update centre right thinking on blue collar Britain. Yesterday Pete Hoskin focused on the failure of Thatcher and Reagan to constrain the state.

The Conservative Party can sometimes - even often - give the impression that we're an anti-State party. We are, of course, a 'limited state party' but we are not an anti-State party, nor even a minarchist party.

People on the Right may say that they do, of course, support all sorts of state activities but, regrettably, when they appear on TV, radio or in newspapers it's invariably to explain why the state should be smaller in one or other particular area of national activity. For obvious reasons that's particularly true at the moment.

This is dangerous politics. A party that cannot say positive things about the role of government - or that does not appear to say positive things about the role of government - is a party that is out of step with public opinion. A ConHome/YouGov poll that I published last week found that only a measly 5% of the British people want to be "almost completely free of both government control and assistance". 25% want "a society where government plays a big role in society" and another 61% want "a society where government plays a limited role in society, providing services and a safety net in hard times". The full survey results are here.

The chart below points to what the public would most like government to do:

Click on chart to enlarge.

We didn't ask about every conceivable activity but there are six activities - identified in YouGov's exclusive poll for ConHome - where voters recognise a very considerable role for government:

1. Maintaining law and order;
2. Providing healthcare;
3. Making provisions for unemployment, sickness or disability;
4. Providing education;
5. Building road and transport networks;
6. Collecting and disposing of rubbish.

Conservative MPs and activists appearing in the media and thinking about the public presentation of Tory policies need to be as ready to affirm what they do think are legitimate roles for government as well as being ready to talk about what they want to cut or trim. The public will be more ready to trust the Conservative Party with making what they see as necessary cuts if they believe that we have a heartfelt and intellectual commitment to certain core government functions and those functions are more than fighting crime and maintaining the armed forces.

Let me give the last word to Margaret Thatcher. This is what the Iron Lady said in 1988, in a speech to the Church of Scotland:

"It is on the family that we in government build our own policies for welfare, education and care. You recall that Timothy was warned by St. Paul that anyone who neglects to provide for his own house (meaning his own family) has disowned the faith and is "worse than an infidel". We must recognise that modern society is infinitely more complex than that of Biblical times and of course new occasions teach new duties. In our generation, the only way we can ensure that no-one is left without sustenence, help or opportunity, is to have laws to provide for health and education, pensions for the elderly, succour for the sick and disabled."

Quite right. The family is the building block of a free and compassionate society but the government has vital and central roles - and those roles extend beyond nightwatchman functions.

The working class vote of 2012 has different concerns than the working class vote of 1979

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

This is the second part of a week-long series looking at 'The Wrong Right'; the barriers to the Conservatives winning a majority at the next election. Yesterday I looked at the dangers of following punditry. Tomorrow Peter Hoskin will take another look at the Thatcher/ Reagan years and warn against a slavish, rosy-eyed imitation of them.

Some brief thoughts today on winning over blue collar workers. At the heart of these Majority pages - since they were launched - has been the idea that we need to show that we are a party on the side of people for whom life isn't easy - on the side of people who, every month, are struggling to make ends meet.

In an important piece for the New York Times, conservative commentator Ross Douthat noted that in reaching blue collar Americans Republicans had to realise that the concerns of "middle-class Americans" (middle class means something slightly different in the USA to here) were different from when Reagan reached this group of voters at the end of the 1970s. Douthat wrote:

"Health care now takes a bigger bite than income taxes out of many paychecks. Wage stagnation is a bigger threat to blue-collar workers than inflation. Middle-income parents worry more about the cost of college than the crime rate. Americans are more likely to fret about Washington’s coziness with big business than about big government alone."

Winning political parties put their faith in polling rather than punditry

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

What's wrong with the Right? Throughout this week we'll be looking at weaknesses in how the conservative movement thinks and how it operates. We'll be thinking about the changes we still need to make in order to end our four election run of failing to win a majority. Today I want us to consider if we have what in America David Frum is calling a 'Conservative Entertainment Complex';