Andrew Lansley: Policies cannot exist in a values vacuum

Talk of Andrew Lansley as a leadership candidate has stopped.  One of the party’s most telegenic performers, Mr Lansley has failed to attract parliamentary support and conservativehome.com expects him to endorse Ken Clarke very soon.  The two men share opposition to the Iraq war and Mr Lansley backed Mr Clarke in his unsuccessful 2001 duel with IDS.

Mr Lansley’s early interventions in the leadership race were not well received.  Floating the idea that ‘Reform Conservatives’ could be a new name for our party was scorned by visitors to this blog and his support for even more liberal sex education upset social conservatives at The Telegraph. 

So why is Mr Lansley featuring on this blog today?

He was the latest leadership candidate to get the ‘Newsnight treatment’.  Jeremy Paxman’s colleagues have been giving every candidate an opportunity to make a short film for the Newsnight audience.  It was Mr Lansley’s turn last night.

We saw him soft-focus-filmed on a beach with his family.  We saw young kids – the Freddie Flintoffs of tomorrow – playing cricket in the sandy background.  Having delivered my gratuitous Ashes reference for the day I can now move on...

Mr Lansley's basic message was that Tories must pay more attention to values and, perhaps, a little less attention to policies.  Clear majorities, he contended, were never that keen on Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation policy but enough voters overlooked that specific policy because they identified with her basic values.  Those values included a sense of Britain’s place in the world and her ambition for an upwardly mobile society.

This values/policy tension may explain his recent suggestion that the Tories’ Patient Passport policy be junked.  The policy, devised by Liam Fox and Iain Duncan Smith, would have paid a proportion of a private healthcare bill to a patient who had already waited for a long period for state-provided care.  Mr Lansley appears to believe it fed a sense that Tories were not committed to the universality of the NHS.  He believes that the Tories should now concentrate singlemindedly on raising standards for every internal user of the NHS.

Comments

[Selsdon Man]

Reform Conservatives? What a terrible name - very Westminster Village!

It is not your name that counts - it is what you stand for, what you will do and the language that you use.

[James Hellyer]

Does Mister Lansley not think that our policies are informed by our values? Conservatives believe that individuals are essentially rational, and that they and not bureaucrats are best placed to determine how to spend their own money. The Patient Passport was in line with those values. Mister Lansley's views appear to be in tune with some other party's values.

[Blimpish]

Bizarrely (considering what I thought of his previous suggestions), I've got some sympathy for what he says. The Patient's Passport smacks of escape routes for rich folk - it's pretty difficult to deflect such criticism. We need to remember that the vast bulk of the British people are conservative, but only with a small 'c' - they don't go much for big ideas, only practicality and results. (This isn't to say I don't support radical health reform; I do. But I'd rather get elected and make some improvement than remain simply talking about it.)

[Wat Tyler]

We watched 'Lansley: The Movie' last night. And we wanted his life- it looked warm and sunny, set in a magical England where the beaches are golden, the land green and pleasant, and his daughter's delightfully civilised comprehensive more like St Mary's Wantage than Fort Apache Brixton.

Actually, Lansley's not someone I know much about, but he looked very decent in a John Majorish sort of way. But he didn't really say much.

[malcolm]

Editor,references to Englands Ashes victory are never gratuitous!

[Selsdon Man]

Is it not strange that our national cricket team, which has included Scots (e.g. ex-captain Mike Denness) and Welshmen (Simon Jones), is called England? Surely the team should be Britain or United Kingdom!

[[email protected]]

Going back to Mr Lansley, is he ashamed of privatisation? What sort of country would we live in now if we had not privatised the nationalisised industries, especially the utilities and transport? The voters were keen enough to cash in! Privatisation was real reform. How sad that many in our party that we have turned against it!