Cameron abandons dog-whistle politics

David Cameron may have been head of policy when Michael Howard ran his "It isn't racist to impose limits on immigration" campaign... but that dog-whistle approach to politics was comprehensively buried by his interview in today's Observer.

The new Tory leader (enjoying a 9% lead according to a MORI poll for the same newspaper) told Andrew Rawnsley that his party has a 'very deep perception problem' on the immigration issue but the real villain of the immigration debate was David Blunkett:

"He was the person who talked about us being swamped: he used irresponsible language at the same time as having a chaotic immigration policy.  I want the Conservative party to do the opposite: use moderate, reasonable, sensible language, and to have a policy that actually delivers."

Mr Cameron said that genuine refugees asylum should be taken "to our hearts", fed, clothed and schooled.

Continuing his appeal to Liberal Britain Mr Cameron also told The Observer that Conservatives should "no longer be the 'mouthpiece' of big business".  Conservatives should, instead, be the champion of working parents, environmentalists and other causes whose interests clash with the Tories' friends in the City.

Mr Cameron said that he will take a week's paternity leave when his third child is born early in the new year.  Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague will take charge in his absence.

Comments

[Selsdon Man]

He will have to ensure that conservative Britain stays on side too.

[Graeme Archer]

This is really, really important - not being the mouthpiece of big business. Don't groan, but it's been the top of our conversations in Hackney for a year. Why is it that our councillor in Queensbridge spends time fighting for local small businesses, from pizza shops to the much vaunted artists' communities, AGAINST the Labour council? Why do we feel such emotional affinity with a leaseholder who's having his shop and livelihood sold from under his feet by the Labour council? Isn't there something intrinsically unConservative about this, since the council argues that it's simply selling the contract to the highest financial bidder?

NO! It is the most natural Tory instinct in the world to side with your community against corporatist outsiders. It's only because we allowed ourselves to be seen as an extension of big business that we got such a daft reputation in the '80s. I KNOW which side I'm on, when faced with the dilemma of the man in E8 who's had his cafe sold to a non-local businessmen who will never live in our community, and I'm glad to see that our leadership understands this too.

What's really interesting is what Labour DOESN'T understand. They sort of get the bit about competition being healthy now, and private investment not being evil. They simply don't understand the drivers of normal people though (I'm not going to say "local" because of the League of Gentlemen reference!) to be a part of something that they own and direct. I think all that the socialists have done is replace their religion of state control with an agenda of corporate control. Faceless bureaucracies, whether private or publicly financed, share the same characteristics that make them anathema to Tories: no local control, producer-focussed rather than customer-focussed.

Normal people like me feel FURY, and I mean FURY, when a business like Little Georgia - set up and ran by a family of immigrant Londoners and instrumental in making our corner of Hackney more habitable - is closed down by the policy of the Labour borough, who sold it's lease to a non-resident who upped their rent to unmanageable proportions. We've also got a business in broadway market whose lease has been sold by the council to a firm registered in Nassau.

These people - the small leaseholders, the stallholders, the artist communities - they may never have thought of themselves as Tories in a million years but by God they are OUR PEOPLE. The faceless left, whether cocooned in its town hall on Mare St or safely in its gated community in Downing St, would much rather all these troublesome folk did the bidding of their rich friends, whether as clients of a faceless state welfare system or as functionaries in a global concern run from Nassau. It's not GOOD ENOUGH.

Last week in the City, feeling like an interloper, I asked David Cameron how we were going to form a Tory narrative to link the sensible things he was saying about fiscal policy, with the day to day life experienced by people in places like Hackney. He became animated - in the style we all now recognise! - and this interview this morning is another example, I think, that this guy doesn't only look different, he is totally different - a new generation Tory for whom references to little platoons has more meaning than a seminal Burkean reference.

[Sean Fear]

I don't want to be "the mouthpiece" for big business when big business is seeking to suppress competition, or rig the system in its favour.

But I would certainly expect us to champion the interests of business, big, medium and small, against those who wish to impose damaging and expensive forms of employment and environmental regulation on it. In fact, it is the big businesses who can more easily pass the cost of these regulations onto consumers - the smaller businesses can't.

[john Skinner]

Great post Graeme. The problems of small shopkeepers are many and your piece reminded me of a depressing article (I believe in the London Evening Standard ) about a property developer who was buying up a number of leases in Portobello Road and promptly doubling the rents. The antique shops soon became boutiques and Costa coffee shops.And the story is repeated in High Streets across the country.
I'm not sure whether Cameron has the answer to this, but it's something he should be working on.
By the way, I think the man has made the most incredible start. At this rate he'll be winning over Labour as well as Liberal voters.

[Goldie]

Cameron is going too far.

[Deckchair of despair]

Terrific post, Graeme. My own angle on this sort of thing (which I have been trying to argue for for years) is that the Conservative Party should be instinctively on the side of "the little man" - i.e, the individual - and against "the big battalions", whether the latter are private business, arms of the state or anything else.
Big organisations always have a tendency to use their established positions to crush anyone who is in their way, whether perceived rivals or simply by-standers. Often this is no-one's deliberate decision; it is just what big organisations do.
It seems to me that it is a profoundly Conservative position to recognise the danger inherent in big organisations, and, on behalf of "the little man" who feels powerless, to oppose it.

[Editor]

I agree with all of this. The best thing Michael Howard ever said was the need for Conservatives to stand with people against the over-mighty - that must include big business as well as big unions, the EU etc

[Goldie]

Yes, that's all fine (and in conservatism's best traditions, just recall Disraeli). The problem is that Cameron is reverting to extremely outdated ideas about immigration. Howard's immigration policy was extremely sensible and DC ought to stick by it.

[Goldie]

Worringly, DC has broken his promise to give up smoking on Dec the 6th...I earlier identified that whether he would manage to quit would be a very significant marker on his character. (He is going to try again starting on New Year's Day)

Then again, it's starting to dawn upon me that Cameron is the most ambitious leader we have had since Thatcher. Unlike all the other he's not interested in leading the conservative party. He really wants to become Prime Minister.

I hope the price we will pay for his ambition isn't going to be too high, but it's certainly interesting.

He is also (together with Howard) the first Conservative Party leader since Thatcher who is utterly comfortable with himself as leader. (With the exception of Howard) all the others --Major, Hague and IDS-- behaved as though they never really believed they were or deserved to be Leader. Precisely because DC someone seems to regard it as his birth right, he isn't very concerned with it. It's a great way to be the Leader, that I'll admit.

I suspect that DC is in fact rather ruthless.

[Steven Patrick]

"Worringly, DC has broken his promise to give up smoking on Dec the 6th..."

Well that has turned me again Cameron...

[andy]

We need to be very carefull we gradually change or views rather than broadcast an instant change of stance.The 'new' view on asylum is the total reverse to our previous stance and we risk being viewed as liar's,simply because the public wont beleive we have changed our minds just like that.

[Derek]

Cameron is saying lots of nice things, which is excellent, but he will also at some stage need to say some tough things as well. He will avoid those situations for the time being, but the time will come when he has to confront the problems of mass immigration, for example. Michael Howard also welcomed genuine asylum seekers, and championed small business. It's just that DC says it so much more convincingly!

[Frank Young]

I'm delighted that Cameron has made thoughtful and compassionate sounds about Asylum applicants.

The tone of the last two elections has been utterly horrid.

I've been a member for two general elections now and twice i've had to stand on the doorstep with a reaction to asylum which is opostie to my own and the mainstream of decent tories. I don't want to go into a third that way.

[a-tracy]

Will Mr Cameron be taking his weeks paternity leave at his expense (bar the £106 per week that the majority of fathers are entitled to) or at the taxpayers expense (on full pay)?

You know what, workers in small businesses and small business owners are bonkers nowadays we can't afford these sort of benefits but are supposed to congratulate and empathise with people who get everything they ask for now e.g retirement at 60 on a guaranteed 2/3 of final salary pension, fully paid Maternity/Paternity leave, 35 days + holidays, fully funded sick pay, flexible working on demand, time off at short notice.

The joke is that all the political parties think they can continue this ethos and have free enterprise and a growing small business sector and people willing to risk everything.

Every single concenssion stand at the outlet mall today had Eastern European workers manning them, working flat out, very polite and courteous, however, the money that they have earned over and above their living expenses will leave the Country with them when they go home, it won't be spent here and our economy will become the poorer for it. We have people unemployed who won't do these jobs because their benefits are more than they can earn working and it's wrong.

Private enterprise is leaving, is anyone else watching? For everyone sitting safe and sound in a public sector job where is the money going to come from to pay for you in ten years time?

Please tell me I'm wrong (with reasons why) I could do with cheering up.

[Matthew Oxley]

I'm also delighted with this new stance which appears quite effective.

I do worry about the Big business bit though. Why are we queueing up to say how good Greame's post is? if it was that good he woudn't have to shout and get angry so much. At the end of the day, the reality is that we wan't our country to be prosperous, we wan't economic growth and we wan't to be competitive, and as much as I understand the local business sentiment there's no place for protectionist policies in this day and age.

[Tory T]

Graeme is absolutely right about the situation in Broadway Market. The amazing thing is that a few years ago the Party nationally would have been defending the heartless greedhead developer (who lives in a £2 million mansion in Kent) and there would have been no local Tories. Now we have an excellent councillor (Andrew Boff) defending the little cafe and a national leader who is developing a narrative that's in harmony with that.

Add in a staunch advocacy of localism and direct democracy and we really will be the Peoples' Party - just as Labour is incarnated as the party of big govt and the EU.

[Matthew Oxley]

Hang on, isn't it Socialist to get Jealous of others and suggest that Just because somebody lives in a big house outside the area they shoudn't be able to suceed in Business?

We should always give incentives for new small businesses, and we should support the most realistic extent local shops/business offering something different to the residents of communities (as opposed to only having supermarkets) but surely if the market forces are such that there is no other option but the outside develop we have to stand back and allow it.

Life hardly got any better for people on the other side of the Iron Curtain and simular places which ignored the market.

[Sean Fear]

My problem with David Cameron's approach is that it is small to medium-sized business that will be hit hardest if we favour environmentalists and working parents over employers. Big businesses can afford these costs, and then pass them onto consumers. Those lower down the food chain can't afford to do so.

[Graeme Archer]

Matthew, with respect I think you were missing my point. Capitalism is a sine qua non, no-one here is advocating a return to state-directed business. But that is precisely what Labour is doing in Hackney (and to judge from other posts, elsewhere). In the 70s they thought they could direct from the state, through the state. Now they think they can direct from the state, but through the alternative route of big corporatist business. This business is nothing to do with the sound Tory values of community, and freedom of choice. What choice do Hackney residents have if their borough sells of their leaseholds through rigged ballots that they have no hope of competing with?

It's easy for me because I'm no libertarian, but I think even in the libertarian framework, having individuals' livelihood f***ed over by a combination of borough socialism and friends in big, foreign business doesn't fit the "perfect market" model. As I'm more Tory than liberal, it also offends me morally.

[malcolm]

Frank, you say our policy on immigration is 'horrid'.Given that around 90% of asylum applications are regarded as not being genuine how many exactly would you let into this country?
I disagree with you completely that 'mainstream Tories'are against curbing immigration.Our problem was that in the general election we relied on this policy to far too great an extent.
We did as a result poll more votes in England (the recipent of the vast majority of illegal immigrants)than the Labour Party.
I look forward to Damien Green putting forwaed some decent,humane but very firm policies to curb illegal immigration and bogus asylum seeking at the earliest opportunity.

[James Hellyer]

How so? Surely this council is doing its duty by its residents by maximising the income from the properties it owns. That's not directing "from the state, but through the alternative route of big corporatist business", it's utilising the assets to gain the best return.

I'd also add that lots of coucils run quasi-protectionist policies, which protect the business interests of "local" people (often the councillors themselves), by denying large businesses planning permission and so forth. All they do is maintain a small business's ability to deliver bad services at a high price, because the consumer has no other choice.

[Graeme Archer]

Hackney are NOT maximising their income over term, and thereby doing their council taxpayers a good thing. They are storing up appalling problems for the immediate term by selling off properties to which they hold the lease. That would be fine if (1) they had some other plan for generating the income we will need in future years or (2) they weren't deliberately making it impossible for people who have built up a business and through that activity, built up an AREA, to buy those leases. Imagine if the policy of selling council houses to their dwellers had been amended to allow their sale to the highest bidder, with not a care as to whether the person actually living in the house was able to bid. Still think that's fair?

[Sean Fear]

To be fair James, Graeme is the only one who knows the ins and outs of this particular transaction.

Perhaps you could explain Graeme. What were the terms of this particular lease, the reversion of which has been sold? How come the tenant didn't have security of tenure (under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954)? What is the use to which the new owner is putting the shop?

[James Hellyer]

"Hackney are NOT maximising their income over term, and thereby doing their council taxpayers a good thing."

Then whay not say that rather than making overwrough claims about some sort of corporatist despotism?

"they weren't deliberately making it impossible for people who have built up a business and through that activity, built up an AREA, to buy those leases."

How were they making it "impossible"?

"Imagine if the policy of selling council houses to their dwellers had been amended to allow their sale to the highest bidder, with not a care as to whether the person actually living in the house was able to bid"

Imagine if someone showed you a false analogy, would you call it as such?

Right to Buy was about empowering people who could previously not have afforded home ownership to get on the proprty ladder, and in so doing getting a stake in the area they live.

Selling a lease on a business property isn't about that, it's a simple commercial transaction. A leaseholder has security of tenure, and as such is more analagous to a house being transferred from a local authority to a Housing Association (with the exception that a provate landlord will charge market rates).

"To be fair James, Graeme is the only one who knows the ins and outs of this particular transaction."

True enough, Sean. But such examples deserve interrogation.

[Matthew Oxley]

Im with James - While Graeme may know the case better than us, he has used this to sell a case for protectionism and against free business.

I can't say for sure there hasn't been an injustice in Hackney, if you are implying that local people woudnt have been a chance to bid even if they were the highest bidder, then I'm sure that is wrong too.

I'll be Interested to hear more of this case too, but I certainly think we should be sceptical in considering the broader points made as much of it was not relevant to what I consider conservative thinking (i.e the bit about the size of somebody else's house)

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

I'm with Graeme Archer and John Skinner on this one. I expect I'll be tarred and feathered as some kind of quixotic socialist for saying this but I think it is high time that people who profess to care for local communities and the traditional British way-of-life took steps to defend small businesses against the trend of globalisation and aggressive capitalism that is turning British high streets and town centres into bland, character-free, faceless facsimiles of each other. After all, are we not a nation of shopkeepers?

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

In Tottenham, local Conservatives have been leading the fight against Labour's CPZ tax which is driving small businesses out of the area. This is an example of the Party standing up for the 'little man'. We’re also fighting a business which wants to open a concrete factory in a residential area. Does our campaign mean we're anti-business or on the side of locals residents and the environment? Ian Taylor, MP, wrote an interesting pamphlet a few years ago on corporate responsibility (published by the TRG). Perhaps David Cameron has been reading it? Taylor argued it was beneficial (financially) for big businesses to 'give something back' to their local communities etc. It’s worth reading.

[Tory T]

I was the person who mentioned the size of the landlord's house.

There are many things that are legal but not moral. For a man who is already hugely wealthy to cut a dubious deal with dodgy Labour council to buy leases of council-owned property - and then to squeeze out small shopkeepers in order to make a fat profit - is almost Dickensian in its heartlessness and greed.

The locals are furious - and Labour will pay the price.

[Tory T]

I was the person who mentioned the size of the landlord's house.

There are many things that are legal but not moral. For a man who is already hugely wealthy to cut a dubious deal with dodgy Labour council to buy leases of council-owned property - and then to squeeze out small shopkeepers in order to make a fat profit - is almost Dickensian in its heartlessness and greed.

The locals are furious - and Labour will pay the price.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Tory T is right.

[Tory T]

I was the person who mentioned the size of the landlord's house.

There are many things that are legal but not moral. For a man who is already hugely wealthy to cut a dubious deal with dodgy Labour council to buy leases of council-owned property - and then to squeeze out small shopkeepers in order to make a fat profit - is almost Dickensian in its heartlessness and greed.

The locals are furious - and Labour will pay the price.

[Tory T]

Apologies for the multiple postings!

I love free enterprise - so I hate greedy people who are devoid of conscience and who would happily flog their grannies to turn a quick buck because they give Capitalism a bad name.

[Matthew Oxley]

Hmm, Well I still disagree with the underlying points being made the Archers & Tory T here.

If a 'dubious deal' has been cut with the council , then this is course wrong. However I don't like the morality vs legality case being argued - it's usually an easy, populist thing to argue, but the fact is that we must stop moralising.

So you prefer local people to own Businesses, you prefer service-based companies that are less efficient as opposed to production-based companies that deliver cheaper products (so do I), and dislike businessmen whose morality may be questionable. I probably agree with you on all points but the point is that these are your views - Us dictating business must follow our values is just as bad as Labour dictating they follow thier values.

If I wan't to shop at the local butchers/bakers and pay a premium it should be my choice, the same as if I wan't to use the supermarket and save money - Free enterprise, within the rule of law, is best at deciding what is best needed.

I would like to finish by saying I am not a greedy person, and neither do I have a huge house (incase Tory T was implying I was maybe of this category of person), but simply feel it is wrong for us to impose our sense of morality on others when it comes to Business. Hey, maybe I'm a liberal ;)

[Derek]

Clearly there is a duty on a local authority to obtain the highest price if it sells an asset, unless it can show a clear benefit to the community by taking a lesser price. Here in the New Forest the council decided to dispose of a caravan park, and it decided not to accept the highest bid which was from a commercial company, but to sell to a consortium of those living on the site if they could raise an agreed lesser sum. After long negotiations the council changed its mind and decided to keep the site after all.

In another recent case the council has decided to increase the lease of land for a local sailing club from £150 per year to £27,000 on renewal to reflect the current value. The previous lease ran for 42 years and so it could be argued that the club had had a very good deal in the past. The new lease is being phased in over five years, but we cannot allow them to continue in effect to be subsidised by the council tax payers.

The other day a Conservative MP sent me details of an early day motion for a Bill called the "Sustainable Communities Bill". The idea of it was to give councils the power to introduce any measures it liked to allow local businesses to remain open with the government picking up the bill. My reaction to this was to ask what sort of action a council could take apart from some form of subsidy. Although it is very tempting to subsidise the things we like and value, in the end it is a very bad thing to do, because it is very expensive and the money has to come from everyone's taxes.

[Richard Carey]

"Cameron is going too far."

Too far for what, exactly? Or who? Surely, all those of us who helped fight this May's General Election recognise that, alongside some great local successes, we do indeed have a long way to travel. I for one welcome Cameron's making a speedy start on that journey, and expect that the vast majority here would join with me in that.