Expect Brown and Cameron to turn competing shades of Orange

LibDem MP Vince Cable, one of 23 parliamentary supporters of Ming Campbell, has written an interesting article for today's Telegraph.  There are references to his opposition to the Iraq war and support for a more proportional form of electoral system but some of his arguments could easily have been crafted by David Cameron:

Exhibit 1: "I am currently working with a tax commission to produce recommendations for taxation that is simpler, fairer and greener, but not higher. There is, in my view, no public appetite for a higher overall tax burden when the results of significantly higher spending levels by the Labour Government have yet to produce commensurate improvements in public services."

Exhibit 2: "If there is a common thread to reform, it has to be decentralisation and localism. As someone with a background in a large company, I find it inconceivable that any serious private sector operator would manage itself in the highly centralised, micro-managing style favoured by Labour."

He begins his article by rejecting the idea of joining 'Cameron's Conservatives' but his article appears to tease Conservatives with its emphasis on economic liberalism and devolution.

Whatever happens in the LibDem leadership race the two main parties will compete for the favour of the LibDem parliamentary party.  Even if the next General Election sees the LibDems lose a third of their 62 MPs (unlikely given the way they fight so hard locally) there is every prospect of the third party holding the balance of power in a closely-fought General Election.  That, no doubt, is why Gordon Brown hasn't allowed David Cameron to make exclusive appeals to the LibDem vote.  Last week The Independent suggested that Mr Brown would be offering a very LibDem-friendly package of constitutional reforms.  More of the same is very likely.

Expect David Cameron to spend a lot more time wooing Messrs Cable, Laws and Clegg than Messrs Heffer, Hitchens and Forsyth.  The talk of the Orange Book liberals formally defecting to the Conservative Party is probably exaggerated but they might be actively sought as coalition partners...

Comments

[Frank Young]

I'm actually reading bits of the Orange Book at the moment and frankly, can see no significant distinction between the views expressed in there and much of mainstream Conservatism.

We have to, and are showing signs of, responding to reality of the situation we find ourselves in. Convergence is here and it demands a new style of consensual politics. There is no point making differences where none exist, rather to emphasis concerns where there are some and a multi-lateral intention to improve our public services and support and better society.

We shouldn't be afraid of working with politicians of other parties. It's a sensible way to approach many of the entrenched problems we face.

[Orange Booker]

Those Tories who think there are going to be defections are sadly mistaken. This is a quote from David Laws in today's Guardian:

The Orange Book, which I co-wrote, was an attempt to persuade the party to value all the liberal strands - including the economic. The book was caricatured as an attempt to turn the clock back to some dry Gladstonian liberalism of the 19th century. It was never any such thing. But I accept my responsibility to show that I and my Orange Book colleagues are as committed to social liberalism, or social justice, as they are. If I was not, I would be in the Conservative party or pursuing my own financial interests in the City - less bumpy career paths than being a Lib Dem MP.

Paddy Ashdown was correct on Radio 4 this morning to state that the dominant political philosophy in British politics at present is Liberalism. Its now up to the Liberal Democrats to ensure that the voters recognise that it is us that stands for it, not the lukewarm ersatz versions being pedalled by brown and Cameron.

[Orange Booker]

I would add, editor, that the obvious conclusion is not "they could easily have been crafted by Cameron", but that Cameron is trying to steal our ideas for his own. The public will see through this charade; Cameron is a PR spin-meister not a died in the wool Liberal.

[Frank Young]

I think I made an attempt to emphasis the need for a sensible and co-operative politics where it's the case that we share both common thinking and objectives.

I tend to have a very high regard for most politicians who have often made enormous sacrifices to represents both their parties and their opinions in parliament. I think it would be sad to caricature each other in unflattering ways and ultimately would diminishing politics.

[Frank Young]

I think I made an attempt to emphasis the need for a sensible and co-operative politics where it's the case that we share both common thinking and objectives.

I tend to have a very high regard for most politicians who have often made enormous sacrifices to represents both their parties and their opinions in parliament. I think it would be sad to caricature each other in unflattering ways and ultimately would diminish politics.

[Basil Blogger]

Charles Kennedy to defect to Cameron's Conservatives?

[Sean Fear]

I'd have thought George Galloway would feel more at home in Cameron's Conservative Party.

[Basil Blogger]

Of the 16,000 new members to the Cameron's Tory Party 92% are Lib Dems.

[Biodun]

I tend to have a very high regard for most politicians who have often made enormous sacrifices to represents both their parties and their opinions in parliament. I think it would be sad to caricature each other in unflattering ways and ultimately would diminish politics.

Well said, Frank. My sentiments exactly.
The "Anyone who doesn't agree exactly with my thinking is silly" view just doesn't hold any water in this day and age.

The Conservatives are not the only party that come up with good ideas, and we should stop pretending that is the case.

[Chris Palmer]

If the Conservatives are not careful, then the BBC will be making it look as though the Conservative are adopting Lib Dem policies rather than the other way around. They seem to be successfully creating the illusion that the Conservatives are becoming more like New Labour, when from 1992-1997, it was New Labour adopting more Conservative policies.

[Simon C]

"Of the 16,000 new members to the Cameron's Tory Party 92% are Lib Dems."

What's your source for this Basil, and what precisely does it mean - that of our 16,000 new members, 14,700 claim to have voted Lib Dem in 2005?

[Editor]

Basil Blogger's post seems VERY unlikely to be true.

[James Hellyer]

Since when did the party ask how members had voted before?

[RobD]

As a recent new member (October) I can confirm at no stage was I asked how I had voted or which parties I had been a member of before.

[lambo]

The party doesn't even ask how its CCHQ staff have voted before.

I can't begin to think why Twickenham MP Vince Cable might think of suddenly joining the increasingly popular Tory party.

[Simon C]

"Basil Blogger's post seems VERY unlikely to be true."

Agreed, but I thought I would ask him anyway.

[Derek]

I agree that it is very unlikely that senior Lib Dem MPs will come over to us, though a number of their voters are quite likely to. However we do not agree with the Lib Dems on every issue and it is important to mention those differences - on drugs and proportional representation for example.

If they have now dropped their high tax policies and come round to our way of thinking, that is good. But it is they who have moved not us. On the EU we have very major differences - they believe in further integration, whereas we believe in returning power to the nation states. That is unless they have moved to our long held position.

[Graeme Archer]

It's not "them and us" though, is it - it's bits of them, and bits of us. That's why the "ultras" in our party are so frightened - so frightened that they lash out with intemperate language - at any sign that Cameron is moving to the "centre" (a mixture of One Nation toryism and social liberalism, is that the centre? I dunno. I think the left-right thing shows the lack of good mathematical education for sociology students, anyway as usual I'm digressing. No, it's worse than digressing, I'm going to be a bore and repeat myself...) All parties are coalitions, and (pace Orange-booker, who will no doubt come back and slap me down again!) I think the libdem coalition is more fragile and less tenable than ours; and Orange-booker and the decent folk like him/her must at least have countenanced the idea that we could be on the verge of a dramatic realignment of politics, which would enable us to be free of the electoral hold of the ultras, and them to be free of the Hughesian tendency.

[Graeme Archer]

I'm tempted to be marxist here (no surprise to John Hustings I know! ha ha). Anyway I mean, a marxist critique of recent political happenings might be quite useful. What do I mean? Just that, given that we are living through the death knell of New Labour; that the old Conservative party had proven itself unelectable thrice in a row; that the Nazi-Soviet antiwar tactics of the LibDems in the last election had not displaced the Tory group in parliament & had left LibDems in hock to a group of voters who in no sense could be termed "liberal": then a realignment of the centre-right political parties could be predicted to occur, because it HAD to occur, because there exists a body of centre-right opinion in the country that had no useful political outlet. Seen in this light, the election of Mr Cameron and the defenestration of Mr Kennedy are inevitable.

The next step (to me, OK I would say this wouldn't I, but come on the electoral calculus is on my side apart from anything else) is for the centre-right LibDems to live up to this historical opportunity and recast the structure of centre-right politics in Britain by joining the new Conservatives. I didn't study history, pathetic eh? I blame the ending of the 11plus (OF COURSE) but one thing I do remember studying with joy was the deliverables of the 19th century liberal Tory administrations ... I doubt if I'm alone on this website in swellling with pride when I read Disraeli telling the Tory party what its purpose on Earth was for ... surely a liberal democratic (small l, small d) mission best delivered by a regenerated Tory partym back in touch with its historical instincts?

The only posts I've read here which attempt to say why Orange Bookers and liberal Tories somehow are fundamentally different EITHER talk about Europe (which is a non sequitur, as there are many Tories more europhile than the Tory average (by definition, of course, fnarr)) OR criticise the tax and spend approach of the odd left wing LibDems.

So I have a question to the LibDems who've been posting and the other Tories who are interested in this: where, fundamentally, do an Orange Booker LibDem, and a liberal-conservative (the mix of one Nation and libertarianism) disagree? I'm not asking because I know the answer ...

[Orange Booker]

Graeme - hurrah! But given our wonderful electoral system, which tightens the mutually destructive embrace of your ultras and cosial liberals, I fear your side will have to embrace PR first. I'm not holding my breath.

[Orange Booker]

And re your second post, yes - agreed. partly its personal (have you ever met student Conservatives?), partly cultural, parlty historical, and parly due to your ultras. And a perverse streak that says we were here first, you come and join us!

There is a realignment coming, and the next few elections (like the 1920s/1930s) could produce some shocks ...

[Sean Fear]

There are however, very few Tories whose views on Europe coincide with those of the large majority of Liberal Democrats.

[Graeme Archer]

Orange Booker, I was a student Conservative for what felt like a hundred of your earth years ... though my first snog was at a liberal party. It was a disaster. Who said the personal wasn't political?

[John Hustings]

Graeme, you say that the Lib Dems' europhilia isn't a problem because there are europhile Tories...

But that subject almost tore this party apart! Just when the party begins to develop some kind of consensus (a kind of soft, gutless euroscepticism) you want to reintroduce the division?

Furthermore, there is foreign policy in general. The Lib Dems subscribe to the general leftist idea that all the problems in the world are caused by the United States and all the solutions are to be found in supra-national institutions like the UN and the EU.

That is the bigger point about the EU: The Lib Dems support it because they dislike America, and they dislike Britain. They fail on the first, most basic prerequisite of being a Tory: belief in the nation state.

Also, the beliefs of Orange Book Lib Dems on Law and Order are totally bizarre. I remember Mark Oaten suggesting that his idea of "tough liberalism" was to take joy-riders go-carting on weekends!

I think this is my fundamental disagreement with you Graeme. You make out we disagree about a lot of things, but I don't think that's true. Our main disagreement is about the Lib Dems and whether our philosophy is compatible with theirs. You believe it is, I don't.

[Graeme Archer]

Actually - I'm not sure whether our philosophies are compatible or not (ie us and the LibDems). The points about europhilia are well made, I think all I was suggesting was that euroscepticism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient determinant of conservatism. I do think there is overlap with the orange-bookers, but I'm no expert on what makes a libdem tick! so I am genuinely interested in all that is being posted here. In my heart I would like to see one of those generational realignments that put the LibDem party to sleep, once and for all - I hope what I've posted has shown that I believe: there is always going to be a need for centre-right political grouping; the liberal/SDP/Libdem party is no longer able to deliver that type of vehicle; we conservatives are very much back in the game now (our volcano was dormant, not extinct) ...so, let's see whether there is sufficient intersection for centre-right libdems to join with us.