ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Mail joins chorus of concern over Cameron

I wasn't expecting to post today but I've just noticed The Mail has joined the chorus of concern about David Cameron's early steps as leader.  Today's Dail Mail editorial says:

"In a breathtaking few weeks [Mr Cameron] has issued announcements on everything from immigration to the environment, education and tax.  It has been a bravura if somewhat glib performance. His policy is clear. He believes he can afford to risk offending traditional Tories with liberal policies that reach out to people who wouldn't normally dream of voting Conservative.  This is a high risk strategy."

The Mail goes on to highlight a number of concerns:

• Oliver Letwin's remarks on redistribution;
• Backtracking on allowing schools a free hand on pupil selection;
• Silence about "the scandal of a nation that has lost control of its own borders";
• "The gimmick of appointing Bob Geldof, who says he will give a total of three hours' advice to the Tories in 2006";
• "As a new broom, Mr Cameron could have chosen to distance himself from [the Iraq] debacle. Instead, all the signs are that he wants to cosy up to the discredited Bush administration."

The Mail intervention follows The Times' suggestion that Mr Cameron was in danger of being a "political tart", The Business (which, every Sunday, offers my favourite editorial pages) warning about a lack of boldness, The Telegraph's concerns over redistribution and the delayed exit from the EPP; and yesterday's interventions by The Sun and The Spectator.

None of this means that Mr Cameron's leadership is in any kind of danger.  The same newspapers recognise Mr Cameron's political starpower and his impact on the Tories' poll rating.  Mr Cameron should not be tempted to ignore these warning shots, however.  He may have been elected Tory leader without much help from the 'Tory press' but he shouldn't unnecessarily offend them and their readers.

ConservativeHome welcomes the new leader's emphasis on environmental and justice issues but as argued on Thursday - the new issues should be locked to the more familar conservative beliefs through the discipline of the 'And Theory'.

Happy New Year!

No ToryDiary posts today but today's newslinks can be found in the usual place.

David Cameron's New Year message

A working week that began with the Tories co-opting Bob Geldof on to the globalisation and global poverty policy group ends with David Cameron co-opting Mahatma Gandhi.

Here is the Tory leader's new year message:

“The Conservative Party can look forward to 2006 confident in our values, clear about our direction, and optimistic about the future.
 
“As the world is changing, so must we. Our central objective in 2006, as a modern, compassionate Conservative Party, is to apply all our energies to tackling the big long-term challenges faced by Britain and the world.  I want us to usher in a new type of politics in this country: constructive, thoughtful and open-minded.  And I want every single member and supporter of the Conservative Party to remember that personal commitment is the most powerful way to bring about change: as Gandhi said, “we must be the change we want to see in the world.”
 
“I wish all our members and supporters a Happy New Year.  This is an exciting time to be a Conservative.  We’re at the start of a process of change, becoming a Party which is more like modern Britain, and which likes modern Britain more; a Party in tune with the aspirations of the British people; a Party with a clear message of change, optimism and hope.
 
“I hope that we can inspire many more people to be part of it in 2006.”

LibDem leader faces fresh speculation about his future

Charles Kennedy's leadership faces two new attacks today:

• An unofficial online petition of LibDem members and supporters - Kennedy Must Go -  claims to have attracted over 3,000 signatures.  That number includes 386 local councillors.  For more see this on BBCi.

• Today's Independent reports that LibDem MEPs are rebelling against Mr Kennedy's proposed new policy paper on the Common Agricultural Policy: "Chris Davies [pictured], leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the European Parliament, threatens publicly to disown the document, which is due to be published in a fortnight by the party's environment and rural affairs spokesman, Norman Baker."

Mr Cameron's advisers will see this as vindication of the new Tory leader's high profile attempts to woo LibDem voters and thus destablise the party leadership.

Bush? Blair? Hague? Letwin?

Radio 4's Today programme is currently running a Who Runs Britain? survey and it gave me an idea...

WHO IS THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON DAVID CAMERON?

Stage 1: Open Nominations

Over the next few days I'd like you to use this thread to nominate an individual (living or dead, politician or otherwise) who you think is the biggest influence on David Cameron.

• Is it George W Bush?  Some believe that DC is copying George W Bush's emphasis on compassionate conservatism.  DC is also said to be a supporter of the Bush-led war on terror.

• Is it William Hague?  The former Tory leader is DC's effective deputy and helped put Mr Cameron's shadow team together.  Other leading members of the shadow cabinet - George Osborne and Liam Fox - are key allies and supporters of Mr Hague.

• Is it Oliver Letwin?  Mr Letwin is overseeing the party's policy review and Mr Cameron has already adopted Mr Letwin's cautious approach to tax relief and his Kyoto environmentalism.

• Is it Tony Blair?  Mr Cameron has himself suggested he might be the natural heir to Blair and that he would fulfil Mr Blair's reforming ambitions in ways that Gordon Brown simply won't.  Is DC adopting the Clintonian technique of triangulation as he distances himself from the old right and Brownite left?

Please use the thread below to agree or disagree with me and to nominate others...

Stage 2: The case for five nominees is made and debated

I'll then choose five nominations and invite five people to write 400 word nominations sometime next week which we'll then discuss.

Stage 3: Voting on the nominees

Following the posting and discussion of those five nominations there'll be an email vote....

Cameron faces more friendly fire

Over the last few days there have been signs of restlessness amongst the Conservative and right-of-centre press.  Concerns were first expressed by The Business but have been more recently taken up by The Telegraph (on redistribution and the delayed exit from the EPP) and today by The Spectator.

This week's edition of The Spectator is the first after Boris Johnson's reign.  The weekly magazine prospered during that time as it moved to the centre and it often echoed the establishment views on such big issues as Iraq.  The interim team running the newspaper - no doubt influenced by Andrew Neil - have penned a leader that encourages the 'amiable' and 'skillful' new Tory leader to become more substantial.  Noting that Mr Cameron seems to be "enjoying his political ambiguity" it warns that he will not be able to"duck questions of policy for long".  It highlights Mr Cameron's consensual approach to Labour's Education White Paper and his Kyoto environmentalism as causes for concern:

Education: "Disturbingly, Mr Cameron already appears to be ditching his belief in allowing schools a free policy on selection: ‘Representing, as I do, small towns with one or two schools, the last thing you want is for one to be a selective school and the other not to be.’ But why would that be such a bad thing? And if it is, does Mr Cameron also now oppose the policy of his alma mater, Eton College, also to select its pupils on academic merit on the grounds that the only other school in the neighbourhood is a comprehensive? Mr Cameron must make it clear that he is a meritocratic Tory who wants to offer bright children from ordinary homes the chance to excel academically; otherwise he will be seen, however unfairly, as a patrician Tory who sees the needs of his own class to be different from those of lowlier birth."

Environment: "Kyoto will not stop global warming, but it will make the poor more vulnerable to climate change by restricting economic growth. For the cost of Kyoto to global development in a year, the world’s poor could be provided with clean running water and there would still be some money left over for flood defences."

All of the above titles are owned by the Barclay brothers but this morning's Murdoch-owned Sun has also fired a warning shot in Mr Cameron's direction this morning.  It warned against "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" on immigration policy.  Its 'Sun Says' column warns:

"Reminding voters they are not the Nasty Party is crucial to their re-election chances.  But is it true that ALL immigration has been “fantastic” for Britain, as their chairman says?  Not if you’re being shunted down the NHS waiting list because of benefit “tourists” who aren’t legally here.  Or if you’ve suffered crime at the hands of illegal immigrants."

The Sun was reacting to yesterday's call from Damian Green for the EU Worker Registration Scheme to be scrapped.  Download Damian_Green's_press_release here.

Let's get back to The And Theory, Mr Cameron

Since becoming leader David Cameron has championed one progressive cause after another...

• Social justice;
• Climate change;
• More Tory parliamentary candidates who are women, disabled or are from ethnic minority groups;
• Civil liberties in his 'Come And Join Us LibDems' speech;
• An 'open-hearted' policy towards asylum seekers;
• Devolution to Scotland;
• Redistribution;
• Global poverty...

And today the new Tory leader turns to equal opportunities for women.  Speaking on the thirtieth anniversary of the Equal Pay Act Mr Cameron issued the following statement:

“After thirty years of the Equal Pay Act, women’s pay is still nearly a fifth lower than men’s – and for women working part-time, the pay gap is around 40%.  This persistent injustice makes child poverty worse, prevents women in our society from reaching their full potential, and contributes to poverty in old age for many women who have worked hard all their lives.
 
“It is totally unacceptable in a modern, civilised society for there to be a pay gap between men and women doing equivalent work.  It is morally wrong, quite apart from the practical problems it creates.  There has been far too much complacency over this issue: the battle for equal pay still has to be won.
 
“One of the most powerful weapons in the battle for equal pay is transparency.  If all employers were to be more open about what they pay their employees, there would be fewer hiding places for discrimination – whether intended or accidental.
 
“That’s why we are today releasing a note that reviews the issue and sets out the case for transparency, with employers playing a leading role. I am delighted that Francis Maude is going to consider ways of how best to address this issue in his ongoing review of the Conservative Party’s organisation.
 
“We’re all in this together: we will never tackle the scandal of unequal pay by leaving it to legislation and regulation.  Employers can show leadership, and we as a society can change our cultural attitudes to pay by being much more open about this crucial issue that affects so many individuals and families.”

This approach is winning rave reviews amongst Britain's new establishment and is undoubtedly contributing to the opinion poll leads that the Tories are starting to enjoy.

Mr Cameron has yet to give much attention to more traditional Tory issues, however - like the tax burden, early prison release programmes (the danger of which was shown up by the Monckton case), localism and family values.  A leader in The Telegraph calls on Mr Cameron to remain faithful to his EPP pledge after a growing number of Old Europeans on the Tory benches have organised to torpedo it.

It is unfortunate that Mr Cameron's very necessary and correct commitment to progressive or justice causes is not being seen to be anchored in the And Theory Of Conservatism.  The And Theory (which he used throughout his leadership bid) can act as an important discipline on the Tory party - anchoring modernisers in traditional Tory beliefs and encouraging core vote Tories into broader, more progressive policy areas.   The danger of not consistently linking Euroscepticism to global poverty relief, for example, or the empowerment of the poor with targeted tax relief is that the media establishment will cry foul when (hopefully) the party does give these issues fair emphasis in the future.

Mr Cameron needs to make it clear that he is a 'total conservative'.  A conservative who believes in lower taxes, Euroscepticism and a tough approach to crime as well as in fighting global poverty and saving the environment.  Much of the media do not understand that these sets of belief are perfectly compatible but Mr Cameron has not yet given a big speech which explains that they are.  That speech - and a supportive strategy - needs to come soon.

In the meantime it is left to other groups to champion 'core vote' concerns.  The excellent Taxpayers' Alliance receives coverage in this morning's Mail, Express and Sun for its report on government non-jobs.  The report written by Peter Cuthbertson is welcomed in a Sun leader.  Andrew Green of Migration Watch UK was on Today this morning, pointing out failures in Labour's immigration policies.

The Taxpayers' Alliance and Migration Watch are rare examples of effective campaigning groups that could loosely be described as small 'c' conservative or right-of-centre.   The American conservative infrastructure is many times better organised and more powerful.  It can defeat the Republican Party when it betrays its values as President Bush appeared to do with his aborted nomination of Harriet Miers to the US Supreme Court.  Britain's conservative infrastructure is currently weak and it must become much stronger.  It must become stronger in two complementary ways:

1. It must help David Cameron to embed progressive causes like poverty relief within the Conservative Party.  Groups like the Centre for Social Justice and New Ground are examples here.
2. It must also develop more effective groups that campaign for the more traditional conservative beliefs - like small government, decentralisation and family values.

Bob Geldof boosts David Cameron's first 100 days campaign

When IDS became leader he warned that public perceptions of him would be difficult to reshape once the first few months had passed.  Writing for today's Guardian Jonathan Freedland acknowledges that this will also be true in shaping David Cameron's reputation and his early efforts are yielding positive results:

"I've noticed that friends usually bored by all matters Westminster want to talk about David Cameron; they want to know everything about him. Within the next few months the British public will reach a gut feeling about Cameron that, once in place, will be hard to shift. Will they regard him as a pretty-boy toff, too callow to be prime minister? Or will they buy the JFK hype and see him as a leader-in-waiting? The current mood suggests the latter - but it's not a done deal yet."

Today's news that Bob Geldof has joined David Cameron's globalisation and global poverty policy group is a key sign of the centrality of Mr Cameron's 'modern compassionate conservatism' in his first 100 days.  Economic competitiveness and security policy groups are being launched after those charged with social justice, the environment and now international development.

The G&GP policy group will examine:

• Aid including bilateral aid policies, microlending, disease prevention and disaster relief
• Global free trade (no specific mention of 'fair trade');
• The reform of the EU 's agricultural and aid policies;
• Civil society's role in development - plus human rights, property rights, governance and corporate responsibility;
• The role of NGOs in the World Bank, IMF and other multilateral bodies.

Peter Lilley MP will oversee the group's work.  A former Tory cabinet minister with responsibilities for trade and industry and then social security, Mr Lilley "devoted almost ten years to working on aid and development projects, mostly in Africa" before becoming an MP.  His online biography tells us little more about this 'devotion' but he was well ahead of his time in calling for a more compassionate Conservative Party.  As Deputy Tory Leader, in October 1997, Mr Lilley gave the First William Wilberforce Address to the Conservative Christian Fellowship.  He used his Address to argue for a Conservative Party that focused much more on the needs of poor Britons.  Although Mr Lilley has been a supporter of the decriminalisation of cannabis his emphasis on poverty has separated him from the narrow Soho style of modernisation championed at that time - and ever since - by the Portillistas.

The involvement of Bob Geldof, inspiration behind this year's Live8 event, is the one that has caught the attention, however, and led this morning's Radio 4 news bulletins.  It is not the first time that Mr Geldof has backed small 'c' conservative campaigns, however.  He has helped the Eurosceptic 'vote no' campaign and recently promoted traditionalist views on marriage.   Mr Lilley used an interview on this morning's Today programme to welcome Mr Geldof's involvement and he said that Mr Geldof would be helping put the group's membership together - which, he hinted, would include representatives from the developing world.   

But if Mr Geldof's early involvement is a publicity coup, The Daily Telegraph's leader writers are concerned that he might be unable to support the policy group if it recommends a truly right-of-centre anti-poverty agenda.  For The Telegraph that means "secure property rights, limited government, action against state monopolies and cronyism and, above all, independent mechanisms for judicial arbitration through which the citizen can realistically seek redress".  Alex Singleton of the Global Institute recently used this blog's Platform to argue for an intellectual revolution in international development.  He expressed concern that the Make Poverty History campaign - closely associated with Mr Geldof - was "wedded to outdated trade ideas about protecting infant industries and top-down approaches to aid". 

Mr Geldof may help to make Mr Cameron's first 100 days campaign to pass IDS' test but his maverick views may create tensions in coming months.  It will certainly fuel right-wing concerns that Mr Cameron's policy groups may include people with too divergent views.  That concern will only have been confirmed by a report in today's FT which notes Zac Goldsmith's views on big business and nuclear power.  Mr Goldsmith sits on the party's environment task force.

In addition, localists have already expressed concerns at centralising Ken Clarke's chairmanship of the Democracy Taskforce.  Most difficult is the environment policy group.  Its chairman John Gummer is a enthusiast for the Kyoto approach to climate change.  Mr Gummer's support for conventional multilateral endeavours has also manifested itself in his devout support of the euro and EU constitution.  He does not support the technologically-driven approach favoured by Australia and America (home to the world's two most successful conservative parties) even though a recent report showed that "ten of 15 European Union signatories will miss the targets without urgent action".  And the over-sold Kyoto Treaty wouldn't even make a difference to the real problem of global warming if it was implemented.  This from Michael Fumento on TownHall.com:

"Even supporters concede that if all countries complied the amount of warming prevented by 2100 would be at most 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit, except that 0.2 degrees is unmeasurable. Certainly it won’t save a single polar bear."

The PR of Mr Cameron's policy groups is impeccable but all the hard policy choices lie ahead.

Labour hypocrisy on terror exposed in Hain's attack on Tories

David Lidington MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has defended Conservative opposition to the Northern Ireland Offences Bill after the cabinet minister he shadows - Peter Hain MP - had criticised the Tory position.  Mr Hain had used a interview with ePolitix.com (that appeared on Boxing Day) to say:

"I think we are entitled to expect more bi-partisan support from the opposition than we've got in recent times.  I hope there will be a fresh approach under the new Tory leadership.  I think it is a great shame that the bipartisan policy which helped deliver peace and stability, unparalleled peace and stability for Northern Ireland, should have been broken by the opposition in recent years."

Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Lidington responded vigorously:

“We continue to operate a bipartisan policy on Northern Ireland wherever possible, which sometimes involves giving the Government the benefit of the doubt... On this Bill we are looking at something that would allow people who have committed barbaric murders, things like the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre, to go free without serving one day in prison, or even appearing themselves in court."

Mr Lidington branded Labour's proposed amnesty for 'on the run' terrorists as a one-sided concession to the IRA which, he suggested, continues to turn criminality on and off at will.  Mr Lidington noted that it was Labour which had pushed Northern Ireland bipartisanship past breaking point.   The Liberal Democrats, both Unionist parties and the nationalist SDLP have joined Tories in opposing a measure that did not appear in the Good Friday Agreement.

Tony Blair and Labour have enjoyed an opinion poll advantage when the public are asked who is most trusted with homeland security but Peter Hain's 'on the run ' bill is only the latest example of Labour's softness on Irish terror.  Charles Moore wrote this after the raid on the Northern Bank:

“Since the peace process began, the IRA has killed soldiers; it has broken into the Castlereagh headquarters of Special Branch, taking the names of informants; it has been involved in gun-running in Florida and terrorist instruction in Colombia; it has infiltrated the government buildings at Stormont, stealing confidential information and intercepting ministerial conversations. All the while, it has continued to organise crime, north and south of the border - armed robbery, cigarette smuggling, punishment beatings and the exiling of individuals whom it doesn't like. And now it grabs £26.5 million.”

Since the ‘appeasement process’ began Northern Ireland’s two moderate parties have been virtually “wiped out”. This is not the verdict of an opponent of the Good Friday Agreement but of Seamus Mallon, the recently retired SDLP MP and leading architect of the Agreement. Mr Mallon told The Daily Telegraph how Sinn Fein “damn well near lived in Downing Street” throughout the process. The nationalist electorate got the message that “these are the people we should support because they are the people doing the deals”.  At the same time that the moderate SDLP lost ground to the extremist Sinn Fein, David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists have lost votes to Ian Paisley’s hardline Democratic Unionist Party.

Letwin: We should redistribute

Oliver Letwin is one of the most influential members of David Cameron's team.  He was Mr Cameron's biggest backer in the early days of his campaign and has been appointed to oversee the new leader's policy process.  His Kyoto environmentalism and cautious approach to taxation have also been adopted by the new Tory leader.  When the Notting Hill set compared David Cameron to Frodo, Letwin was seen as a Gandalf figure - Middle Earth's older and wiser statesman (picture and story from The New Statesman).

Oliver Letwin has travelled a long way since being one of the authors of the controversial poll tax (I mean community charge) - one of the most regressive forms of taxation ever introduced in modern Britain.  Mr Letwin's journey has taken him from regressive taxation in the 1980s to redistribution today.

In an interview with The Telegraph Mr Letwin tells Rachel Sylvester: "Of course, inequality matters. Of course, it should be an aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor. . . not by trying to do down those with most but by enabling those who have least to share an increasing part of an enlarging cake."  Ms Sylvester is struck with Mr Letwin's use of "the R-word": "It's more than a matter of safety nets," he says, "We should redistribute money."

A Telegraph leader is unimpressed:

"In one sense, Mr Letwin is merely stating the obvious when he says "we do … and we should redistribute money". It is, however, a naive choice of word, with overtones of the belief that national wealth is a fixed and limited sum, to be divvied up "fairly" by the government... The way to demonstrate compassion, however, is not to echo the obsolete consensus that has delivered such tragedy. Britain has enjoyed redistribution on a vast scale since 1997, yet the degree of income inequality has remained unchanged. Unless radical reform is undertaken in the public services, more money and more people will be sucked out of the productive and into the unproductive sectors of the economy."

Adam Smith – the intellectual father of capitalism – thought more like today's Letwin, however.  In The Wealth of Nations, Smith said that a society’s idea of ‘life necessaries’ changed over time. Two centuries ago he wrote:

"By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them.”

Mr Letwin says that the Social Justice Policy Group, under the chairmanship of Iain Duncan Smith, has been charged with finding solutions to inequality.  He also tells The Telegraph that the pursuit of social justice "is not just about money... it is about the homes people live in, the lack of supportive relationships, the way parents bring up their children."

Labour's Christmas email

This is the Labour Party's Christmas email that has just landed in my in-box...

The card emphasises Labour's record of delivery...

...minimum wage...
...debt relief...
...low inflation...
...more police...
...SureStart...

There's no mention of rising violent crime or Tony Blair's £2bn raid on Mrs T's rebate handbag.

Labour's gifts all look pretty insecure in that sleigh, too.  One unexpected jolt and a few might fall to earth with a crash.

And where's Santa-lookalike Frank Dobson?  I think we should be told.

David Cameron's green Christmas message

"Dear Supporter,

First of all I want to wish you and your family a Happy Christmas. We’ve reached the end of a year that has shown that politics can be exciting and that change is possible.

One of the changes I’d like to make in 2006 is for our party to show sustained leadership on environmental issues. I want us to meet the aspirations of the millions of people who care deeply about the environment and our quality of life.  It’s the right thing to do - and we can start straight away. 

The fact is that we’re all in this together, and politics isn’t just about elections and opinion polls. Politics is about making a difference and making a personal commitment, and each of us can show our personal commitment to the environment by enjoying a green Christmas this year.

In Britain this year, we’ll send each other somewhere in the region of 1 billion Christmas cards, wrap our presents in more than 80 square kilometres of wrapping paper, and empty more than 20 million glass jars and bottles over the festive period. If we all made an effort to recycle just half of that then we’d really make a difference to the environment.

This year the Woodland Trust is placing special bins in supermarkets around the country to collect old Christmas cards, and local councils will recycle wrapping paper and glass bottles and jars. You can visit http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/cards/index.htm for more information on the Woodland Trust project. Your local council may also offer kerbside shredding facilities for your Christmas tree – your council website will have more information about this.

By showing our personal commitment to the environment, every one of us in the Conservative Party can help make our Party a voice for real environmental leadership, showing that as individuals and as a Party we’re serious about tackling the big challenges this country faces.

So once again, Happy Christmas - and let’s look forward to 2006 confident in our opportunity to become a growing voice for change, optimism and hope.

David Cameron"

Editorial: Is David Cameron a 9/11 person?

Brendan Simms of the Henry Jackson Society has written an interesting article about David Cameron's neoconservative credentials - a UK version of which appears on the Social Affairs Unit's blog and a US-tailored version on the website of the left-liberal New Republic magazine.

Mr Simms makes bold claims for Mr Cameron and there is some good evidence for thinking that the new Tory leader does have neocon credentials:

• He gave an excellent speech on Iraq during his leadership bid.  In that speech, as Mr Simms reminds us, he argued that the challenge of extremist Islamist terror is "at root ideological".  He also warned that appeasing Middle Eastern states amounted to appeasement.

• He has appointed supporters of the Iraq war to the top positions in his shadow cabinet.  William Hague as Shadow Foreign Secretary and Liam Fox at Defence are the most relevant appointments but George Osborne and David Davis are also hawkish in the war on terror.  Perhaps as significant is the fact that Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a vociferous opponent of the liberation of Iraq and author of the Major government's lamentable policy in Bosnia, is on the backbenches after being refused the job he wanted.

But there are also reasons for believing that Mr Cameron may not have fully adjusted to the realities of the 9/11 world:

• Last week he suggested that the LibDems and Conservatives that "we're on the same side now" over the Iraq situation: "We want to see the same things happen as quickly as possible: democracy established… security guaranteed… and our troops coming home, as quickly as possible."  In last Sunday's The Business, Fraser Nelson reported the reaction of Tory MPs who heard Cameron declare they “are on the same side now” as the Lib Dems on the Iraq war: "There remains a large chunk of the party for whom this is the deepest of insults.  Cameron’s enemies hope their young leader is making a naïve mistake and hope to explain to him the irreconcilable differences between the Lib Dem and Conservatives on the war on terror."  The LibDems and the Tories should not be on the same page as the Liberal Democrats on Iraq.   Brendan Simms suggests that John McCain is probably the "closest match with Cameron".  I am not (yet) persuaded by that.  As reported in a recent Ten Point Briefing John McCain knows that success in Iraq probably needs more troops.  The LibDems wouldn't support that and David Cameron hasn't hinted at such boldness.

• The Afghan and Iraq chapters are only the beginning of the war on terror.  What are we going to do about Iran and other rogue nations?   Military action may not be the best option on Iran but is David Cameron capable of the boldness that the post-9/11 world demands?  It is an impossible question to answer but his hesitant initial support for the war on Iraq is one concerning indicator.

Neoconservatism isn't just about Iraq, however.  Neoconservatism is also about foreign policy idealism.  Two more of David Cameron's positions worry me in this regard:

• He made a great deal - during his leadership bid - about Darfur: "When the Conservative Party talks about foreign affairs it can't just be Gibraltar and Zimbabwe.  We have got to show as much passion about Darfur and the millions of people living on less than a dollar a day in sub-Saharan African who are getting poorer while we are getting richer."  But when it came to explaining what he would do for the people of Darfur he only offered to explore the poseur multilateralism of a UN-based solution.   A real neocon would be looking beyond the UN and towards the sort of ideas put forward by Ruth Wedgewood of the US Center for Security Policy.   Professor Wedgwood has called for the UN's mismanagement and ineffectiveness to be challenged by what she called "competitive  multilateralism".  New and existing coalitions of the willing - from NATO to the Economic Community of West African States - could be employed to undertake security and humaniarian actions that the likes of China, Russia and France will always veto.

• Yesterday Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth gave a warm welcome to another big arms sale to Saudi Arabia.  I have big reservations about selling arms to a regime that is so unloved by its people and is guilty of so many human rights abuses.  Selling arms to the House of Saud is, I fear, short-sighted.  Read this if you want to know more about one of the world's ugliest regimes.

Another big difference between Cameron and America's conservatives is their approach to homeland security.  David Cameron is constantly emphasising civil liberties whilst George W Bush emphasises the Patriot Act.  The right balance may lie somewhere between the two.  During shadow cabinet discussions on the recent 90-days-without-trial legislation David Davis, Oliver Letwin and Liam Fox were tilting towards the most civil libertarian position.  David Willetts, George Osborne and Andrew Lansley were urging greater sensitivity towards public opinion on civil liberties.  David Cameron would do well to listen to those around him who urge a more pre-emptive approach to protecting the public from domestic threats. 

Where's the clear blue water between Blair and Cameron?

At his last press conference of 2005 Tony Blair said that David Cameron's only big idea was to become more like New Labour.

I thought we might try and make a list of differences that still exist between the more centrist Conservative Party led by David Cameron and Tony Blair's increasingly precarious New Labour project...

On tuition fees, a more cautious approach to school choice and climate change there is a coming together but where does the clear blue water still exist?

I've started by identifying David Cameron's support for marriage and his opposition to Tony Blair's "EU rebate deal".

What would you highlight?

Should Scotland become a low tax haven?

David Cameron was in Edinburgh yesterday and reaffirmed his "heart and soul" commitment to Scottish devolution.  He also touted the idea of "fiscal autonomy" for Scotland but added a number of caveats that made his position ambiguous:

"I certainly have doubts about fiscal autonomy, but the right process is for the Scottish Conservatives to look at how the Scottish Parliament is working.  If they come up with an answer that a greater degree of fiscal autonomy is the right approach, then that is a decision which we will have, with colleagues in Westminster, to work out whether that is the right thing for the UK."

In July George Osborne had already expressed support for Scottish Tories using their freedom to lower income tax (compared to England & Wales) by the permitted 3%.  Some Unionists fear that deeper fiscal autonomy is a giant step towards Scottish independence but other Scottish Tories see it as a way of rejuvenating their country's sluggish economy.   Oberon Houston described some of Scotland's socioeconomic challenges in his November Platform post.  Proponents of fiscal autonomy see Ireland's Celtic Tiger experience - built on the back of lower taxation - as a model for Scotland.

Mr Cameron also used his visit to respin his appeal to the Liberal Democrats.  In an article for The Herald (an only very slightly tartanised version of last Friday's Hereford speech) he described his own values and then wrote:

"I believe these values reach far beyond the Conservative Party. Many Liberal Democrats share these values. And many Liberal Democrats share with us a clear analysis of why Labour has failed to live up to its promise. That's why I'm so eager for Liberal Democrat voters to reject their party's coalition with Labour in the Scottish Executive. The coalition hasn't delivered liberal solutions to Scotland's problems, and it hasn't respected the values that liberals hold so dear..."

A leader in The Herald gives Mr Cameron's Scottish visit reasonably positive treatment but the danger of cosying up to the Scottish LibDems is that interesting - but controversial - ideas like fiscal autonomy may be harder to pursue.

Roger Helmer - MEP for Sun readers

There were lively exchanges in the European Parliament today as Tony Blair defended the weekend's EU budget agreement before MEPs.  Tony Blair received some stick but he gave as good as he got.

Echoing John Major's choice of words after 1991's Maastricht Treaty, UKIP's Nigel Farage said that it had been "game, set and match to President Chirac".  Mr Farage told the Parliament that Mr Blair had "been outclassed and outplayed at every turn" by a French President who, unlike Mr Blair, had defended his nation's interests.

Roger Helmer MEP held up a mock-up of a Sun story and said:

"Britain's favourite newspaper, The Sun, says "Tony Blair is to surrender billions of pounds of taxpayer's cash, and get nothing in return". In its editorial of December 1st, it says "This is treachery". Treachery, Prime Minister. Not a nice word. Not my word. The Sun's word. But I and millions of Sun readers agree. You are giving away a huge sum of money, simply as a fig-leaf for your failure. But this is not your money, or the government's money. It is our money. It is the tax-payers' money.  They say you are concerned about your legacy. Prime Minister, I can tell you what your legacy will be. You will be remembered as the man who squandered Margaret Thatcher's legacy."

A visibly angry Mr Blair told his critics that "This is 2005, not 1945... We are not fighting each other any more."  Looking towards Mr Farage and Mr Helmer he said: "You sit with our country's flag, you do not represent our country's interest".

Radio 4's World at One said that the most prominent voice in support of the Prime Minister's "deal" was EPP leader  Hans-Gert Poettering MEP.  He described the agreement as a "positive compromise".

Underlining the contradictions within the EPP-ED grouping, the Tory MEPs used their share of the “Information Budget” to place an advertisement in The Independent attacking this "positive compromise".  A scan of the ad appears on the right.

The group of Tory MEPs are currently permitted to spend only a third of the Information Budget.  The wider group controls the rest and used it to fund 'Yes' campaigns earlier in the year.

Supporters of EPP withdrawal suggest that leaving the EPP will mean that Conservative MEPs will control all of the budget and have millions of pounds to invest in Eurosceptic campaigns over coming years.

Nigel Farage made this point in a mischievous letter (again in today's Independent):

"In the current parliamentary term the 27 Conservative Members will hand over £2m from their information budgets to campaign for the EU superstate. If, as he claims, David Cameron really wants to be "consistent" he should leave the EPP before the end of the year, to halt a further €700,000 being transferred to causes his party claims it opposes."

Cameron's lead would grow if Blair went

Another new day.  Another opinion poll.  Another Tory lead.

Today's ICM poll for the Guardian gives the Conservatives a 37% to 36% lead over Labour with the LibDems on 21%.  More interestingly, perhaps, is ICM's finding that the Tory lead would grow to 41% over 36% if Gordon Brown was in charge of Labour.  Populus found something similar just last week for The Times.

The survey also finds that 66% of people regard David Cameron as a potential Prime Minister (this figure includes a majority of supporters of all the main parties).  Nearly as many - 62% - think that "David Cameron seems like someone who could change the way they think about the Conservative Party".

The leader writers at The Guardian clearly see the poll as significant.  Under a "The Tories are back" headline, they warn against Labour hoping for the polls to turn once Tony Blair fulfils his promise to step down:

"But surely it will all be different when Tony Blair goes? Do not count on it. There is little comfort for this view in a second part of today's poll. Labour and Lib Dem voters continue to rate Gordon Brown - Mr Blair's likeliest successor - as a good chancellor of the exchequer. Yet, faced with the possibility of Mr Brown as Labour leader, things change dramatically. Asked which way they would vote in a three-party general election contest under Mr Cameron, Mr Brown and Charles Kennedy, the Tory lead stretches from the current 1% (with Mr Blair as Labour leader) to 5% over Mr Brown. Under Mr Brown, the Labour vote holds steady, but the much more volatile Lib Dem vote fragments powerfully in favour of the Tories. On the basis of this poll, therefore, Mr Brown may prove to be a polarising figure who will frighten floating voters back into the arms of the Tories."

Gordon Brown remains the bookies' overwhelming favourite to succeed Tony Blair but a run of similar polls - perhaps coinciding with bad economic news - may yet cause panic in Labour ranks and the touting of alternative leadership candidates...

Cameron: Tony Blair's £7bn EU rebate surrender

During furious Commons exchanges David Cameron taunted the Prime Minister over his "£7bn EU rebate surrender":

"On the budget, does the Prime Minister remember having three clear objectives?  First, to limit its size, when almost every country in Europe is taxing and borrowing too much.  Second, to ensure fundamental reform of the CAP.  And third, to keep the British rebate unless such reform occurs.  Isn't it now clear that he failed in every single one?"

Mr Cameron concluded with these words:

Why did he give up £7 billion for next to nothing?  And - vitally - how is the Chancellor going to pay for it?  More taxes?  More borrowing?  Or cuts in spending?  Which is it?  A good budget deal would have limited spending.  It would have reformed the CAP.  And it would have helped change Europe's direction.  Isn't it the case that none of those things happened under the British Presidency?  Europe needed to be led in a new direction.  Aren't we simply heading in the same direction, but paying a bigger bill?"

Mr Blair defended the deal by saying that Britain had invested in the future prosperity of Eastern Europe:

"To have championed the cause of these new states; to have welcomed them into NATO and Europe and then to have refused to agree a budget that protects their future economic development would have been a betrayal of everything Britain has rightly stood for in the past 15 years or more since the fall of the Berlin wall.  They are our allies. It is our duty to stand by them. But it is also massively in our interest."

Read the full text of David Cameron's Commons speech.

'Infrequent drinker' Kennedy goes for nuclear option in attack on wannabe green Tories

Responding (again) to David Cameron's audacious attempt to steal LibDem supporters, Charles Kennedy has targeted the environment in a speech to green groups:

“The reality is the Liberal Democrats diverge radically from the Conservatives on environmental policy. The Conservatives wish to scrap the climate change levy but have offered no viable alternative. They are pro–Nuclear. The new Leader, David Cameron, used his acceptance speech to call for a major new road building programme. This suggests that Cameron remains wedded to the old-fashioned thinking that ignores the root of the problem... The Conservatives are the jonny-come-latelys to the green agenda. If the Tories are to make good on the green agenda they will have to shift radically – 180 degrees in some cases – because they are simply not credible on the environment.  Take David Cameron’s speech on Friday. He made claims on the environment but carefully avoided any specifics. At the moment, without any substance to speak of, Cameron is merely relying on the spin that has blackened Tony Blair’s reputation.  And let no-one be in any doubt – the Liberal Democrats are not about to cede our emphatic, sincere and longstanding green credentials for some spray on aerosol version.”

Despite co-operation between the LibDems and Conservatives on Kyoto, Mr Kennedy made it clear that differences on nuclear power were the real dividing line between the LibDems and the Conservatives (and Labour) on nuclear energy:

“Nuclear power has proven itself to be grossly expensive, environmentally disastrous and an unacceptable drain on the public purse. British taxpayers are currently facing a £56bn bill just to clear up the nuclear waste we already have - equivalent to bill of over £800 for every person in the UK.”

A poll last week put Mr Kennedy on just 11% as the public's favoured choice for PM.  The weekend's newspapers carried more allegations about Charles Kennedy's drinking habits but he insisted that he was an "extremely moderate and infrequent consumer of alcohol" during an interview on ITV1's Dimbleby Programme.

Libertarian Davis backs Liberal Cameron

David Davis was on the Today programme this morning - to discuss Tory opposition to Labour's plans to reduce the 43 police forces of England and Wales to something between 12 and 19 in total.   The LibDems and Tories are uniting - again - in their opposition to this Labour project.

This was Mr Davis' first major interview since losing the Tory leadership and he took the opportunity to welcome the progress that "Cameron's Conservatives" have made over the last twelve days.  Describing himself as a libertarian he welcomed Mr Cameron's efforts to tackle the perception that Tories stood against immigrant communities.  He said that Tories needed to combine a policy of controlled immigration with respect for minority communities.

With Mr Davis united behind his leadership rival Tory harmony could hardly be more different from the situation in the Labour party.  The Eton Mafia's Education Bill tactics have propelled the normally loyal John Prescott into public opposition to Tony Blair's education reforms and Gordon Brown is said to be unhappy at Tony Blair's EU retreat.  This is how The Sun sees the changing political landscape this morning:

"When Margaret Thatcher beat Neil Kinnock in 1987 many political experts said Labour were finished for all time.  They could not have been more wrong.  When John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard all sank as Tory leader the same experts said the Conservatives would never come back.  Yet a weekend poll puts new Tory leader David Cameron an astonishing NINE percentage points ahead of Labour.  It just goes to show that in politics it’s dangerous to try to be wise even after the event."

Rory Bremner: 'Cameron actually does Blair a lot better than I do'

The New Statesman hosted the first serious comparison of Tony Blair and David Cameron.  Back in August Nick Cohen examined the similarities between the speeches of the two men.  The acerbic Cohen was unimpressed:

”Derivative and dated, Conservative modernism is ultimately a counterfeit. You can almost catch the sweet reek of the caramelised sugar that holds the confection together. A public grown weary of PR will turn up its nose in an instant.”

Rory Bremner – whose regular NS column confirms why Bremner, Bird and Fortune is so culturally leftish – has another go at the comparison in his review of the year:

“I'm relieved that David Davis didn't win, as I didn't fancy having my nose broken in make-up every week; the arrival of Cameron at least gives me a new character to impersonate. I'm still working on him; but then so is he, along with a large number of dedicated advisers…

Cameron actually does Blair a lot better than I do. (And, in fact, a lot better than Blair does, now.) You only have to listen to his acceptance speech: all the talk is of opportunity, future, positive politics. It's absolutely Blair circa 1995. Like the Labour Party, the Tories have realised that they need someone young, charismatic and appealing (relatively speaking) if they want to win power; and, like Blair, Cameron knows that if you want to be prime minister, you need to be the leader of a major political party. Now all he has to do is change that party completely.

If he can do that, he'll deserve to do well. But not one of the major issues in recent politics has been solved by charisma alone. Once again, a political party may have fallen for the appeal of what someone once memorably described as "the winning yesterday"."

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.

Blair's European retreat coincides with Cameron's advance

A MORI survey for this morning's Observer gives David Cameron's Conservative Party a 9% lead over Labour.  This is a much bigger lead than that recorded by competitor pollsters but appears to confirm Michael Portillo's argument that the tectonic plates of politics are moving.

The chances of a Labour recovery have been undermined by Tony Blair's "EU climbdown".   The Sunday Times reports how (1) the French are overjoyed at Britain's summit humiliation  and (2) how Gordon Brown was not consulted by Tony Blair:

THE HAPPY FRENCH: "Alan Posener, chief leader writer for Germany’s influential Welt am Sonntag newspaper, said the prime minister had gone away virtually empty handed after being outmanoeuvred by the French president.  “Chirac’s praise for Blair is the kiss of death because Blair couldn’t get anything he wanted,” Posener said. “He was so desperate for a deal that he was willing to settle for a vague promise that France would some day review its farm subsidies. That is worthless.  “It is a black day for Europe and a black day for Tony Blair because France was unwilling to move.”"

THE UNHAPPY CHANCELLOR: "The Treasury is said to be "quietly fuming" about the deal agreed by Blair, which will see Britain paying 60% more to the European budget and the UK rebate cut by £1 billion a year for seven years, in return for a mere review of farm subsidies."

The French promise talks in exchange for £7bn from British taxpayers

William Hague has responded to Tony Blair's EU budget "deal" which sees Margaret Thatcher's EU rebate reduced by £7bn:

“This is a poor deal for Britain, for the EU, and for the developing world.  We agree with the Government on the need to help the new Member States, and on the fundamental need to reform the EU budget and the CAP. We agreed that Britain should have been ready to negotiate in exchange for guarantees that those reforms would happen.  But the Government have spectacularly failed to achieve any such guarantees – merely vague promises of a process of reform in the future, in exchange for which they have surrendered £7 billion in Britain’s rebate alone. Those vague promises have come with a very high price tag.  Seldom in the course of European negotiations has so much been surrendered for so little.”

UKIP issued the following press release:

"Speaking on the BBC’s ‘Today’ program this morning (17.12.05), Nigel Farage MEP poured scorn on any claims that the European Union Budget deal had any benefits for Britain, “I think that people would prefer spending £1 billion of our money a year on district hospitals”, he said “rather than building a metro system for Warsaw”.  Claims made by Mr Blair that this was a good deal for the UK were “fiction”, he said.

“Mr Blair has given up the rebate, and Mr Chirac has merely offered talks about talks on reforming the subsidy junket that favours French farmers”, he said later. Blair has always said that he would not give up the rebate without reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. As a swansong to a dying British Presidency, this summit was an abject failure."

South Ayrshire becomes Scottish Tories' one local government outpost

The Scotsman: "South Ayrshire became Scotland's only Conservative-led local authority yesterday.  The switch came after the resignation of Andy Hill, the Labour leader, last month which left Labour with 14 councillors and the Conservatives 15.  The Conservatives sought a special meeting of the council at which, by a 15-14 vote, they secured the posts of council leader and deputy leader."