Is British politics at a turning point?

Peter Oborne (a candidate for Boris Johnson's vacated post?) concludes a very interesting article in this week's Spectator with these words:

"David Cameron has become Tory leader at an extraordinary moment, with Tony Blair’s Labour and Charles Kennedy’s Lib Dems not far from falling apart. Suddenly, in a very startling turn of events, the Conservatives are the only united party in British politics."

Mr Oborne lists four main reasons why British politics may be at a breaking point:

• Britain is now near the bottom of the world growth league.  Gordon Brown's taxes and regulations have finally caught up with him.  The economic feel-good factor may no longer be on Labour's side.  As IDS has warned, however, a bad economy doesn't necessarily help the opposition if Labour - like John Major in 1992 - can convince voters to 'hold on to nurse for fear of something worse'.
• The collapse in Tony Blair's standing.  TB has dominated politics for a decade.  He has confused the Conservative Party at every turn.  His reign is now over.  Oborne puts it brilliantly: "Blair remains at the centre of the political landscape, but as an almost irrelevant figure.  He is simultaneously present and absent, a most curious state of affairs."
• Eurosceptic victory.  Acceptance that the euro and EU constitution are not going to happen any time soon closes the faultline that has so injured the Conservative Party for the same Blair-dominated decade.  Oborne: "The defeat of the federal dream in the French and Dutch referendums earlier this year seems to have brought this bitter and rotten period of Conservative politics to an end. In a healing moment, Hurd and (I hope) Patten will both come back into the Tory centre under David Cameron as significant members of his outer circle of advisers."  Some of us - who don't share Oborne's views on Iraq - are not so keen!
• LibDem stasis.  As noted on this site on Thursday, Cameron's moderation and consensual approach poses a big threat to the LibDems.  Oborne suggests that the LibDems are "in a state of inanition" (a new word for me).  Charles Kennedy appears unable or unwilling to reconcile his party's very different factions and the result is zero coherence on strategy and policy: "There are some senior Liberal Democrats who seem to advocate an old-fashioned corporate state and whose most articulate spokesman is Simon Hughes. Meanwhile there is a rising generation of buzzing, technocratic reformers. Neither faction has much, if any, respect for Charles Kennedy. Both factions yearn for a more dynamic leader. But there is no agreement on a replacement; quite the contrary. The Right of the Liberal Democrats greatly fear that disposing of Kennedy would simply have the undesired result of installing Simon Hughes... Many of the recent very damaging leaks about apparently improper Lib Dem financial dealings are thought to have come from within. It is a miracle that this comic state of affairs has not so far been brought to wider public attention."

Comments

[Mid-Atlantic]

Agree: this is a great article. Interesting point about Europe, though. The last thing that we need is to get the European argument staunched, but then fought by proxy by the "realists" through attitudes over Iraq. That would get even BETTER coverage on the Beeb.

[Selsdon Man]

The EU constitution has not been defeated. That is what the Euro fanatics want the public to believe. It is "happening now". The Commission is introducing key measures by stealth, often without the necessary legislation. The anti-constitution campaign needs to be re-started to fight these stealth initiatives.

[Derek]

Hear, hear Selsdon. We need to oppose this, but the public are not interested, and so it gets very little attention from the media. Will our new modern party want to give time to unfashionable issues or will it want to concentrate elsewhere. It's a question of principle or image?

[Blimpish]

But because European integration's by stealth, the public don't really care. The best way to stop further European integration is for our lot to get elected - the party is now Eurosceptic; it is only in the BBC's delusions that pro-Europeans are anything but a remnant.

"He used to be the future, once." Best one-sentence political putdown I've heard in years - it cut Blair right down to size, in seconds, emphasising exactly what he has become.

[Mid-Atlantic]

The point I was making is precisely that the EU argument has now been won inside the Party. The only question is how to combat the stealth introduction of the constitution by other means. EPP withdrawal will be a good indicator of the willpower behind that, of course. We just have to avoid situations which the BBC and others can paint as Tory business as usual on Europe. Allowing the same argument to spill out in another form would allow such a presentation.

[SINISTER]

It's truly scary that a political commentator as intelligent as Peter Oborne feels the need to conform to the media lies about Europe being a non-issue after the defeated referenda in France and Holland.

It just shows that he dares not tell the truth. Why not? What's he frightened of? Who's threatening him? He's not stupid and must know that what he is writing makes no sense. Really it's terrifying how craven the media have become - it's not just stealth tactics. Oborne must be frightened to talk such utter rubbish. The EU programme is powering ahead and he knows it.

If Dr Goebbels was screaming lies out loud I would understand anyone being circumspect about exposing them, but who or what is it that so stifles the likes of Oborne into restraining his pen?