Did we have a dress rehearsal for the next General Election on this morning’s Breakfast with Frost?
David Davis was Sir David’s first main guest this morning. Gordon Brown followed. Many predict that these are going to be the two men who be leading their respective parties at the next General Election.
David Davis used his interview to press his case to be in that leadership position. He worked hard to prove that he is not a man who can easily be caricatured as ‘of the right’. He said: “What I really want to see is that people understand what [Conservatives] stand for is in their interest, whether they're less well off, whether they're weak, whether they're vulnerable, whatever.”
Davis’ message was a clear echo of Iain Duncan Smith’s emphasis on social justice. Mr Davis was Chairman of the Conservative Party when IDS began the ‘helping the vulnerable’ campaign and his own humble origins lend weight to his message.
Iain Duncan Smith was also in the media today. On BBC1’s Politics Show and in The Sunday Times he urged the Conservative Party to keep faith with its core ‘good for me’ policies on Europe, tax and crime but supplement them with ‘good for my neighbour’ messages on domestic and international poverty.
The three quotations below summarise the former Tory leader’s arguments:
A GLASS CEILING ABOVE CONSERVATIVE SUPPORT
“YouGov has just completed a survey for my Centre for Social Justice. It reveals that the Conservative Party is hunched beneath a low glass ceiling. Just 42% of voters are even open to the possibility of voting Conservative at the next General Election. 50% would consider supporting the Liberal Democrats. 56% would consider voting Labour… Conservatives look at Tony Blair’s poor record of delivery and cannot understand [the] continued goodwill towards Labour. Conservatives fail to comprehend Labour’s greatest strength – its moral clarity. It is a strength that also explains the persistent popularity of institutions like the NHS and the United Nations. Their good intentions are so enshrined in their identity that they command more loyalty than their actual performance merits. Labour’s moral earnestness is the real ‘dog-whistle’ in British politics. It inspires and reassures its base without disturbing others.”
THE GLASS CEILING IS A PRODUCT OF THE CONSERVATIVE FAILURE TO DEMONSTRATE A COMPASSIONATE AGENDA
“Modernisers that emerged from Michael Portillo’s circle were first to discuss this Conservative [glass ceiling] problem. Unfortunately most have never understood how to solve it. They knew that ‘pendulum politics’ was over. They knew that voters would not naturally drift back to us when they became disillusioned with Labour. But they have consistently proposed ineffective remedies. The right response to the defeats of 1997, 2001 and 2005 is not to fight the same battles again. But nor is it to surrender. Many of these open-shirted modernisers emphasise cosmetic changes. Many seek to junk core Tory beliefs. They have become embarrassed about our euroscepticism, our support for lower taxation, our tough approach to crime. But these beliefs remain enduringly popular with the public. The problem is that those beliefs are much more popular than we are.
Britain’s conservative majority may see our core Conservative beliefs – patriotism, low taxes, crime-fighting – as good for them and their families, but too many feel guilty about voting Tory. Too many have come to believe that the Conservative Party does not care about society’s most vulnerable people. Many voters who prospered during the Tory years stopped voting for us in 1997. They had done well for themselves but they didn’t like our apparent indifference to those people being left behind. Our policies were too narrow. They didn’t just want a government that was good for them. They wanted a government that was good for their neighbour, too.”
SOCIAL JUSTICE IS THE ANSWER TO THE GLASS CEILING
”70% of voters who are inclined to support the Conservative Party at the next election say that an emphasis on social justice is attractive to them. By social justice they don’t mean massive financial transfers from rich and poor. Two-thirds believe that fairness cuts both ways – involving fairness to those who provide help, as well as those who need it. They want more money channelled through community-based poverty-fighting organisations. They want the welfare state reformed so that it focuses on children, pensioners and the seriously disabled. Most support the rebuilding of family and community life.”
It's typical that the people who have offered the best analysis of what's wrong with the Conservative Party and how to fix it, are the leader the MPs didn't want and the leadership candidate the rules look like they're being changed to stop.
Posted by: James Hellyer | 23 May 2005 at 13:46