Have the Conservatives had a "Clause Four" moment?

Nick Bourne, the Conservative leader in the Welsh Assembly is today reported as saying that accepting devolution was a "Clause Four" moment for the party.

He was, of course, making the comparison with Tony Blair's abolition of the long-standing Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution which had committed his party to nationalisation - a defining moment in the creation of New Labour which saw past dogma rejected in the face of a new political environment.

But aren't there other candidates for the Tories Clause Four moment?

What about the party's commitment not to abolish the minimum wage?

Or its acceptance that it would not reintroduce Section 28?

Are any of these genuinely comparable with Labour's abolition of Clause Four?

Or does the Conservative Party's historic lack of codified ideology render the comparison tenuous?

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[Mark Clarke]

Cameron's speech to conference in 2006 in which he stated his personal commitment to the NHS.

"Tony Blair explained his priorities in three words: education, education, education. I can do it in three letters: NHS. When your family relies on the NHS all of the time - day after day, night after night - you know how precious it is. So, for me, it is not just a question of saying the NHS is safe in my hands - of course it will be. My family is so often in the hands of the NHS, so I want them to be safe there."

[Malcolm Dunn]

I think it's tenuous actually. We've always been a more practical rather than ideological party, for example I think most of us have different views on the EU from those we held 25 years ago.
As regards devolution I'm not sure Nick Bourne is correct. This is an ongoing situation and there are many Conservatives deeply sceptical about the current 'settlement'.

[Rachel Joyce]

We are the party of freedom, responsibility and real fairness. How this is relevant changes over the decades and generations, and great new leaders such as Thatcher and Cameron define the relevance in their times with appropriate policies for our times.

[tally]

Does this mean the Conswervatives will have a clause 4 moment for England too?

[Sally Roberts]

"Or does the Conservative Party's historic lack of codified ideology render the comparison tenuous?"

You've got a point, Jonathan! Labour has always tended far more towards blind ideology. The Conservative Party has mainly been more pragmatic.

[James Sproule]

Clearly the acceptance of Labours spending plans was meant to be our clause 4 moment, where the leadership would get into a public row with the right of the party at large and prove to the wider public that the Conservative Party has changed.

The fact that the economic situation has changed so radically has put the leadership in a difficult spot. How can the party’s leadership heed what people want, the country needs, without appearing to cave into the right? Obviously the solution is to prevaricate while our poll lead vanishes…

[Ken Stevens]

The defining moment is yet to come - when you accept that England has a devolutionary status alongside that of Scotland, Wales & NI and is not synonymous with "UK" , as governmental structures and your own party organisation imply.

[Bill]

"Or does the Conservative Party's historic lack of codified ideology render the comparison tenuous?": precisely.

[Martin Jee]

As a young Conservative, it surprises me that we ever were "against" devolution. It seems to me the most perfectly Conservative notion: bringing power away from state and delivering closer to the hands of individual people. We are afterall the party of the individualist.

Great point by Tally: we need devolution in England - cue Mr Carswell.

[Bill]

Mr Sproule's second para also hits the nail on the head. How does the party get back to the issues that really matter without looking foolish?

[Martin Jee]

As a young Conservative, it surprises me that we ever were "against" devolution. It seems to me the most perfectly Conservative notion: bringing power away from state and delivering closer to the hands of individual people. We are afterall the party of the individualist.

Great point by Tally: we need devolution in England - cue Mr Carswell.

[Bill]

Re "we need devolution in England", yes provided it is for England.

[Hannibal Lector]

WERE the conservative Party to have a clause 4 moment it would be to steadily unbind us from being governed by the foreign power of the EU - in other words leave the blasted EU. Under the silly Cameron who could only ever work in PR the Tories are screwed. They won't get my vote or my family's votes or our money. Compare Boris Johnson to Cameron and that examples the problem - Johnson shuts up and does - Cameron emotes and does SFA. Your party has to either get rid of the lightweights of Cameron Osborne and Letwin or disappear. Perhaps it will be better if the party does disappear.

[P Watson]

Using the words English and England more frequently might help. Labour eschews all knowledge of it. And clarifying the truth regarding the recent French statement that the pound will be replaced by the Euro in 2010 BECAUSE IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED would be useful. The clause 4 moment was I suggest when the socialist globalist cabal in the Party stabbed Mrs Thatcher in the back - they could not stand her NO NO NO to the European Community (as then was) because they needed to destroy the UK to render us neutered indefensible "Regions" in the (now) EU. The Conservative Party has too much **** left in the stable to be considered fit for government at a time like this.

[Matt Wright]

Martin, I very strongly agree. Conservatives are inherently for devolution however the problem is that it is highly debatable what form that devolution takes. What we need is real devolution to communities and to people.

[Bill]

Well Mr Watson, if Europe is the issue, surely 1972 was the moment.

[Mark Riley]

Very tenuous. Cameron built a coalition and never needed a Clause 4 moment. Too late now. There was once an opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of the Cornerstone group but he decided just to waive the garlic.

[Tom Greeves]

Tenuous in my opinion in terms of the wider electorate, but some things may have had a profound impact on smaller groups.

I remember a gay friend saying that when Cameron acknowledged the status of gay relationships in a Conference speech it really did make a difference.

What I think is very dangerous (and I'm not saying Jonathan is advocating this) is the idea that we should try to relive the New Labour experience in our own way. Their challenges and ours are not the same.

[resident leftie]

Margaret Thatcher signing the Single European Act and setting us on the road to European integration.

[brian hunwicks]

The clause 4 moment will come when the party stops being afraid of the top 1% of the country's earners and concentrates on the rest of us.
Hopefully when the manifesto is written someone will have the courage to say not only will we not reduce back the 45% upper tax bracket but we will increase it to 50%.( so you upset ONE % most of whom probably don't vote for us anyway). In addition we will "follow the money" and go after the tax avoiders who have stashed the cash in off-shore tax havens---get the billions back, lets go "american" and have no escapes. This is fairness and not when a millionaire's cleaner pays more tax than her boss.

[Ken Stevens]

resident leftie
"Margaret Thatcher signing the Single European Act and setting us on the road to European integration."

No, RL, it would have been a 'Clause 4 Creation' moment!

... if in fact it could be defined even as that. It is evident that the Tories have never been of one mind on the question of a political EU, so it hasn't really counted as dogma. That is why I never included it in my rant above, within the context of this particular discussion.

[Norm Brainer]

so you upset ONE % most of whom probably don't vote for us anyway

No.. that upsets everyone as it looks like you want to punish achievement (well, that doesn't upset labour people, that's their aim)
It's more symbolic than anything as it won't raise that much, or won't cost that much to cut again later either.

I think the 'clause 4' link is a bit tenous, there's been lots of little ones but not having such a standardised unadaptable idealology that labourites have then there won't be one big one, unless a leader decides to do something that isn't conservative at all... like join the euro or something.

[Helen Wright]

Cameron's Glasgow speech - "Why did Scots beat up a disabled English man and a young child wearing a top with the English flag during the World Cup? Because the English are ignorant and don't show Scotland enough respect. The decent ones ought to re-educate themselves."

And - "There's a lot of Scottish blood flowing through these veins. I will not abolish the Barnett Formula (Scotland's preferential higher funding.)"

"The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are great, but England must NEVER have their own Parliament or national assembly and I will not stop Scots interfering in English affairs."

It looks like a trend here. Any day now, Cameron will morph into Gordon Brown. Or worse, Speaker Martin and play his bagpipes every morning in Westminster, rather a dog marking its territory.

Nice one, Tories. This one will come back to bite the Party in the arse.

[The Rifle]

Well we can't have had a Clause 4 moment on devolution - because actually we still DON'T agree with it!

Otherwise we would be supporting devolutiuon for England. (Real devolution I mean - a parliament like Scotland's).

[The Bishop Swine]

Melcom Dunn said:

"As regards devolution I'm not sure Nick Bourne is correct. This is an ongoing situation and there are many Conservatives deeply sceptical about the current 'settlement'"

Deeply sceptical is putting it very mildly.

I hope that this issue has not been settled. Whilst I accept that the Northern Ireland assembly is here to stay. I cannot contain my distaste for the expensive and destructive talking shop in Scotland. Of course I am in favor of decentralization and so it is logical that all four countries should have assemblies with control over local matters. What I do not want to see is the union being broken up by a minority of malcontents. As for this being a “Clause 4” moment, I don’t think we need to or should emulate the Nu-labour experiment in any way what so ever, with the single exception of winning the next election with a landslide.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Ken Stevens | December 05, 2008 at 10:57

resident leftie
"Margaret Thatcher signing the Single European Act and setting us on the road to European integration."

No, RL, it would have been a 'Clause 4 Creation' moment!

... if in fact it could be defined even as that. It is evident that the Tories have never been of one mind on the question of a political EU, so it hasn't really counted as dogma. That is why I never included it in my rant above, within the context of this particular discussion.

The point of Clause 4 to me was that it ensured the hegemony of a certain strand of the Labour party, and kicked the rest into the long grass. In the case of the Tories, the pro-Europeans won, even if the party itself remains divided.

This has a distinctive Tory flavour, that is the Tory leadership still talk the Eurosceptic talk for pragmatic reasons, but their actions show they are signed up to the EU project, for pragmatic reasons.

It could have gone either way, and it was only the Tories who could have kept us on the periphery of EU, or even taken us out, but thanks to Thatcher and the SEA that option is dead, and the Tories will never offer the option to withdraw from the EU, or do more than drag their heels over integration.

[rugfish]

Two clause 4's I would wish for would be :-

1 - The Party Leadership's dogged stance to alienation of the Russian Federation which Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Mikel Gorbachev, together helped to create, and instead see it for what it is, a young vibrant sapling of democracy which should be encouraged and aided in its endeavours to be at peace with its neighbours.

If real political moves were made toward this aim rather than against it, then the entire world would be at peace and our money wouldn't be deemed so necessary to be wasted on war and proxy antagonisic regimes such as Georgia with which we otherwise have no affiliation except that it wants in to a world order which is collapsing around our collective ears.

Number two would be Europe.
The Party should acknowledge the grave democratic upset being caused by its 'non-stance' on the issue.
Our current 'fudged' membership brings us nothing but insidious point scoring by the opposition, when in fact ( as plenty of polls show ), the majority feel they have been hoodwinked.

Take it to the people but state a case that we should be in EFTA or nothing at all!

The argument for 'globalisation' which fails to include the global players ( as above namely Russia ), and cannot seem to seek togetherness and agreement without robbing the British people of their sovereignty, must be damned by our party and no amount of arguing within it will bring us any closer together on this one clause 4 issue which needs to be sorted for the country and not just the party.

If we're global then be global but that would surely mean that we are not part of a protected trading area which restricts us from being global players ourselves.

In short - LEAD US TO BETTER AIMS AND CLEARER DEMOCRACY WHICH ALL BUT THOSE WHO ARE BLIND CAN SEE WE NEED IS NEEDED FOR BRITAIN, THE PARTY AND THE WORLD.

[wonkotsane]

The day the Tories accept the fact that they are an English party and that they will never have any more than the odd token seat in Scotland and Wales will be the turning point for the Tories.

If the Tories are really about localism and devolving power to communities then it must be done in England the same way as in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Local government is a devolved issue and it is for national governments to decide what power should be devolved to what level. And by national, I mean the Scots for the Scots, the Welsh for the Welsh and the English for the English - not the British for the English.

Give England a government like the one the Scots have with English politicians elected to represent English interests and let those politicians decide the best way to govern the country they were elected to represent.

[Bill]

Labour will never allow England to have powers devolved to England as they object to the idea ideologically and because it would be electoral suicide. Notwithstanding that it would be to the Tories advantage, I believe the Tories are too spineless to do what is in the country's and their interests.

[Steve Tierney]

Yes, Conservatives are for placing power in the hands of more local groups rather than the state. But that doesn't make us "inherently in favour of devolution". Otherwise, wouldn't Conservatives be for a county to devolve, or a town, or a street? If you follow that assumption to its logical conclusion couldn't we have little nation-states peppered all over the UK map?

Devolution carries with it some baggage which goes a lot further than just "putting power in local hands". This is just one small island, after all. Do we really want it to be three (or more) different countries? (I leave Ireland out of this, as its a different issue, being offshore).

I think its very dangerous for security and stability to cede control of your ports and shores to other countries. One small island should be one small nation, in my humble opinion.

[John Bell]

"How can the party’s leadership heed what people want, the country needs, without appearing to cave into the right?". Perhaps by accepting that 'The Right' were right all along? As for devolution; it will only mean anything that all Conservatives can believe in when it means power being really devolved down from Brussels/Edinburgh/ Cardiff/Westminster to local authorities, schools, local health authorities and, most importantly, individual families - empowered with the financial were-with-all to enable them to make there own decisions free of interfering and expensive politicians and bureaucrats. This should then mean that all the central arms of government could then be drastically reduced in size and cost. If decisions are being made lower down the system. we don't need massive depts of state.

[P Watson]

Bill 10:24 - what a stupid comment. In 1974 the bastards lied to the people. Your national history is disappearing along with your pubs, pints, history and freedoms and you have the impertinence to suggest that the majority of voters now living, who have been denied a vote on the continuation of these United Kingdoms should watch as the pound and the Crown disappear under this fascist and mutually agreed plot? Time for either the ballot box or the ammunition box.

[wtf]

The true Clause 4 moment will come when ConservativeHome can carry a thread about devolution without a bunch of vile, twisted lunatics like Helen Wright dripping pure poison about Scots and Scotland.

[Alex]

Regarding Labour's abandonment of Clause 4 - it's abandonment of its commitment to nationalisation - given what's gone on recently, Clause 4 has certainly not been abandoned.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Alex | December 05, 2008 at 13:03

Regarding Labour's abandonment of Clause 4 - it's abandonment of its commitment to nationalisation - given what's gone on recently, Clause 4 has certainly not been abandoned.

It was the end to the ideological commitment to the workers owning the means of production (in other words, the default way of doing things is the public sector), not the pragamatic use of nationalisation in the national interest which Clause 4 was about.

[Stuart Crow]

The Conservative Party was born in a "clause 4 moment" and it has survived many shocks of equal magnitude. The difference between us and Labour is that we adapt to change, even when it is forced on us (which it often has been), and actually make a change. For instance, the man who initiated the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS was Enoch Powell.

Labour has supposedly changed all sorts of things since 1992, but when the lacquer rubs off you find that underneath they still cling to the same totalitarian instincts as ever. We've seen it over and over again since 1997.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: wtf | December 05, 2008 at 12

The true Clause 4 moment will come when ConservativeHome can carry a thread about devolution without a bunch of vile, twisted lunatics like Helen Wright dripping pure poison about Scots and Scotland.

The Tories, not so long ago, got 50% of the vote in Scotland. Unless you engage there again, your Little England tribe will take over. Xenophobia is a disease, and the same strain of nationalist suspicion which leads to EU conspiracy theories also informs the virulent anti-Scottish hatred you see on this thread.

[Iain]

"Xenophobia is a disease, and the same strain of nationalist suspicion "

Leftie isn't Devolution a manifestation of Xenophobia?

[Iain]

" twisted lunatics like Helen Wright dripping pure poison about Scots and Scotland. "

wtf, if you are talking twisted then you don't have to look any further than your post for Helen Wright was quoting comments we've heard from Cameron. Quoting these racist anti English comments we have heard from Cameron isn't being nasty to Scots, its just pointing out the racism Cameron has against English people.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Iain | December 05, 2008 at 13:37

"Xenophobia is a disease, and the same strain of nationalist suspicion "

Leftie isn't Devolution a manifestation of Xenophobia?

No, I would say it is a fine example of subsidiarity.

[Iain]

"No, I would say it is a fine example of subsidiarity."

No subsidiarity determines the best level to establish Government, that the Government established to rule over the Highlands, Lothians etc, was determined on a Scottish nationalistic level rubbishes your subsidiarity argument and confirms it was driven by xenophobia.

[JS]

They party had its Clause 4 moment when it elected Cameron as leader and thus turned its back on all the traditional Tory policies substituting diluted New labour ones in their place.

[E Justice]

Lets hear it for a English Parliament!
FREE the English 6.000.000!!!!!!

[Iain]

"They party had its Clause 4 moment when it elected Cameron"

Yes, where as Labour had to have a clause 4 moment to ditch policies that were electoral liabilities and just plain wrong, the Uber modernisers in the Conservative party wanted to copy them with one minor flaw, they were ditching policies and values that were correct for policies that were wrong.

[TomTom]

Labour stuffed Clause IV into its Constitution in 1918 and never got elected until 1924 as a minority government when it abolished the Corporation Tax Austen Chamberlain had introduced for the Conservatives.

The whole thing is a farce. If the Tories want a Clause IV Moment simply reject the EU a\nd pledge a referendum on withdrawal, or else stop trying to ape Labour.

People want FREEDOM from the Bureaucracy and its Apparatchiki to live their lives as they choose - that is all the Conservatives need to focus on - less of Heath's Corporatism and less of Thatcher's Authoritarianism....

[wtf]

Lets hear it for a English Parliament!
FREE the English 6.000.000!!!!!!

Posted by: E Justice | December 05, 2008 at 14:52

You'd think someone who professes herself to be concerned about England would know how to use English punctuation, grammar and the difference between a comma and a decimal point.

I don't get the reference to "the English 6.000.000" [sic]. Are you trying to compare the lack of an English Parliament with the holocaust? You sick, sick woman!

[Opinicus]

The Clause 4 moment for Blair was when he abandoned a hundred year old shibboleth, which was deeply felt by his members but impractical in modern politics and the electoral kiss of death . Any other use of the term is slack journalese.

The Tories were voted out in 1997 because they were sleazy and incompetent, not because their policies were unpopular. Most of their policies were pinched and continue to be pinched by Brown and Blair.

The only Tory policy dearly held by the old guard but unworkable in modern politics and electorally unpopular is Unionism. It has cost us all but one seat in Scotland for twenty years and is seriously underestimated as an election issue in England because there is a conspiracy of omerta amongst the political classes.
Cameron's Clause 4 moment will be accepting that devolution is the way forward to a truly federal UK. Interestingly, unlike in Blair's case in 1997, it is the leadership that needs to make the psychological sacrifice and conversion and the members who recognise the present and are looking to the future, not the other way around.

[Dorian the Englandism]

‘Mr Bourne described devolution as “irreversible” in an address to the Brecon Political and Theological Discussion Group.’

Fair play to the Welsh Conservatives. They have hoisted the red dragon and are out-Welshing Plaid with calls for a bi-lingual Wales and enhanced Assembly powers. The Scottish Tories are shifting in a less coherent but equally self-regarding fashion and in NI the Conservatives are advancing via the UUP into an identifiably Northern Irish variant of Conservatism.

Here, here, well done everybody. Devolution is irreversible so let us embrace the Land of Our Fathers and the assorted flowers of Scotland, thistles, Sweet William and Shamrocks.

Meanwhile, the English Conservative party in the English Executive is experiencing its own revelation on the road to Damascus. Were it not for the devolved English Assembly the one party state now in power at the British Federal Parliament could so easily have plunged England into an irreversible societal and economic collapse.

As English First Minister Frank Field said: ‘An English Parliament? Necessity hath no law’ in a warts and all reference to the gentleman from Huntingdon.

Behind our Frank, on a bank of multi-screens erected by the BBC state media, Baron Von Mandelson was acknowledging the dutiful applause from the ten thousand newly appointed Mandelclones from the Department of Joy. Today's message was something about the Weimar Republic being the new Cool Brittania. A point appropriately illustrated by the burning of books and banknotes.

Guest speaker, Thabo Mbeke, is rumoured to be in talks with the current British President and president elect, Boris Johnson.

[Philip]

If a "clause 4 moment" means accepting the agenda of the liberal-left and their media friends (things such as an “everyone do as they please regardless of harm to society” type of liberalism, or surrendering us to the control of the EU, for two examples) which we should never accept (or never should have accepted), then there cannot be a Clause 4 moment.

However perhaps there may be one good change that could qualify as a Clause 4 type change: demonstrating that we care for more than financial profit and big corporate interests. This is not to say we should not be in favour of profits, or (particularly in the present circumstances) financial responsibility and living within our means, and easing the burdens on businesses, but that we also care the about family, society, the vulnerable, and the environment and so on. Perhaps Theresa Villiers opposition to a 3rd runway at Heathrow against powerful corporate interests, as Douglas Carswell points out here on CR is a good example. Also that David Cameron has said there is such a thing as society, (but it is not the same thing as the state), not to mention IDS’s anti-poverty work, demonstrate a changing party.

[Steve Foley]

I would say the Clause Four moment was when Cameron espoused all this Green nonsense and changed the Party Logo to a badly drawn picture of a tree rather than the Torch of Freedom. We already have the Nut Cutlet Eco-Loonies in the Green Party for those who support that sort of thing which I personally consider to be anti-Industry and Commerce. Perhaps one good thing may come from the current Recession, Cameron now has a perfect excuse to ditch all this Eco-trash without loss of face as the Country simply cannot afford such polices at this time. And finally, as I have said many times before , David....SACK ZAC!

[Mr Angry]

There hasn't been, and will not be, a Clause Four moment for us Tories because we are not tied to a party constitution that mandates specific ideological dogma in the way that Labour were.

All of the above suggestions for such a moment are valid examples of changes of views within the party on what are important issues but none of them radically changes the entire raison d'etre of the party in the way that dropping Clause Four changed Labour.

[J Hutchings]

"I remember a gay friend saying that when Cameron acknowledged the status of gay relationships in a Conference speech it really did make a difference."

So far, we English are cast in a similar position. Reviled, ignored, only ever paid attention to with exasperated disdain and then only briefly, we are endlessly informed that we are British and not English and yet the Scots are revered as Scots,the Welsh as Welsh etc. Any political expression of England and the English is relentlessly supressed not least by the Conservative party.

The British political class, a phrase which lamentably includes the Conservative party and from which they have made no effort at all to separate themselves as a new and profoundly reforming force, makes it very plain that the English are an iritation and a difficulty. The best we ever get is a dismissive exhortion to be second rate Britishers as expressed in the very pointed discrimination against us in British government funding and Westminster parliamentary representation.
If we are so impertinent as to point out the inequity of it all the response is invariably a snort of dislike and a quick display of the usual weapon of accusation of racial dsicrimination. And this by by the very people who discriminate against us!

They would really rather we were not there at all. Different in degree and yet not so terribly different in essence than the attitude of a trying-to-be passingly benign liberal of late 19nth century Russia to the Jews of the western pale.

Any Clause 4 moment has to include a recognition of England and her separateness, her history, her culture,her own requirements and preferences and her very name. Contrary to the attitudes and wishes of many in the present Westminster class, we are not simply going to dissapear. We are English, we are here and we mean to have specific national political recognition.

English separateness and identity, must, in this devolved age, be accorded political expression and this must be on an equal basis with that accorded to the other nations of the United Kingdom.
This has to come in the end anyway and the Conservative party should develope the wit and alertness both to history and present political reality to harness the the trend.

The Conservatives need to appeal to the 85% of the British who are English with a commitment to a referendum in England only on the subject of an English Parliament and home rule. This would make devolution complete, would be logical and above all would be fair, an important philosophical consideration to anyone who is English.

It will save the British Union
(as a confederal Union which it should always have been anyway)