toryleadership

When Tony Blair met Tory Blair

I was in Portcullis House today - one of the Commons' buildings - having coffee and Tony Blair walked through.  David Cameron went up to him and thirty seconds of words and broad smiles were exchanged.

What do you think they said?

Another competition for you...

New declarations for Cameron and Clarke

Ken Clarke's public support reaches 26 this evening with the news that James Arbuthnot (William Hague's Chief Whip) and former Rifkind supporter, Andrew Pelling have endorsed him.  David Cameron picks up the support of three more MPs: Maria Miller (the new MP for Basingstoke), Peter Lilley (a leadership candidate in 1997 and former Deputy Tory Leader) and Graham Stuart (a new MP associated with the Cornerstone Group).

The 25% strategy

Andrew Pierce authors the following intriguing paragraphs in this morning’s Times:

“[David Cameron] has privately pledged to sacrifice some of the party’s core voters, who loathe the modernisers’ talk of inclusivity and social liberalism, in an attempt to reach out to a new generation of younger voters. He would do so by deliberately alienating the Daily Mail and its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday, whose vitriolic tone he abhors…

One leading supporter, an MP who accepts he could lose his seat because of the strategy, said: “We may, for a while, lose up to 7 per cent of our vote, taking us down to 25 per cent. But it is worth it if we can fundamentally change the party.””

Perhaps the “leading supporter” of Mr Cameron, identified by Mr Pierce, is offering a freelance opinion.  It is perfectly possible that Mr Cameron does not know of this strategy and probably does not support it.  Speculation of this kind might have been planted by Mr Cameron’s opponents but Mr Pierce is a respected journalist who is not easily duped.  In any case: What might Mr Cameron’s “leading supporter” have in mind in order to send us crashing in the polls?  A simple tonal shift - away from the vitriol pursued by what the uber-modernisers call ‘The Hate Mail’?  Or, perhaps, there are some more significant policy shifts under discussion?  More questions for Mr Cameron…

Editorial: Cameron on substance

Today's newspapers are full of speculation about David Cameron's possible past use of illegal drugs and what revelations might appear in Sunday's press.  On the whole the papers are sympathetic to Mr Cameron.  You can get access to some of the stories from this site's homepage.

One news feature you can't access from that homepage is the most important one.  In today's Mail (not available online) Mr Cameron sets out his "attitude towards drugs".  The Cameron campaign kindly rang me last night and said that the Mail article would help to answer the policy questions that have been raised on this site.  I've just fetched the newspaper from Smiths and the article is reassuring but doesn't go far enough.

Mr Cameron begins the article by saying that he has said all he intends to say about whether or not he has used drugs in the past.  Fair enough.  Instead, he uses the article to counter what he describes as the "suspicion" that he has a "tolerant attitude towards drugs".  "Nothing could be further from the truth," he writes: "Whoever you are, wherever you live, drugs wreck lives.  And they wreck the lives not just of those who use drugs, but the lives of their families and the lives of the many people who are victims of drug-related crime."

So what does Mr Cameron say he'll do about the "terrible scourge of drugs in our country"?

He suggests two priorities:

1. "Proper education about drugs".  He describes sitting in the back of a classroom where the "sordid reality of drugs" was described to pupils.  More first-hand exposure to what drugs do to real people will, he hopes, discourage impressionable children from believing that drugs are in any way cool: "The Government's current drugs education campaign sends mixed messages with too much emphasis on reducing the harm from drugs and not enough on reducing the use of drugs."
2. "Treatment and rehabilitation".  David Cameron cites good models of rehabilitation in Sweden, Holland and the USA.  He writes that it is a "scandal and a disgrace" (two words designed to satisfy the Daily Mail's appetite for outrage) that "intensive residential rehab" is so scarce in Britain: "We have to make it available for each and every young addict.  Indeed, we have to make it compulsory for each and every young addict.  That is both tough and compassionate."

So far, so good, but the article fails to address two important questions...

Mr Cameron does not say anything about cannabis.  At the last election the Tories said Labour had been wrong to downgrade the legal status of cannabis - a decision (unfortunately) supported by Mr Cameron when he was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee.  All Mr Cameron will say now (and not in the Mail article) is that he wants the class of drug assigned to cannabis to be "credible".  The Telegraph went further yesterday by suggesting that Mr Cameron "rejects a tough line on cannabis".  All this risks sending the "mixed messages" that DC criticises Labour for sending.  There is a real danger that - with Labour likely to toughen its stance on cannabis - the Tories are about to elect a leader that could be painted as soft on drugs (as The Sun rightly did to the LibDems at the last election).

Neither does Mr Cameron use his Mail article to renounce the views that he held when on the Home Affairs Committee.  Then he appeared to favour the condom compassion of 'harm reduction'.  Harm reduction is the drug establishment's equivalent of the welfare establishment's benefits empire.  Harm reduction schemes like methadone prescriptions and  needle exchanges maintain people as addicts in the same way that an undemanding benefits system maintains people in non-work.  The humanising approach is to get people off benefits or off drugs and into work and citizenship.  I was on Radio Five Live last night and a leading representative of the drug establishment's harm reduction approach was enthusiastically singing Mr Cameron's praises.  That makes me worried.

None of my concerns mean that I oppose Mr Cameron as the next Tory leader.  I expect him to succeed Michael Howard and I may vote for him myself.  But, but, but... This vital issue of drugs policy is his achilles heel.

David Cameron on Question Time

I've just got home and I've missed 80% of David Cameron's Question Time performance (just ending on BBC1 as I post).  What happened friends?

More progress for David Cameron (at the expense of Ken Clarke)

The Cameron campaign has just announced that it has won the backing of two MPs who backed Ken Clarke's 2001 leadership bid.  Robert Key (who previously had not declared) and Jacqui Lait (who had been one of Sir Malcolm Rifkind's six public supporters) take Mr Cameron's level of parliamentary support up to 34.

David Cameron offers Euroscepticism to '92 hustings

Three sources have told me that David Cameron performed 'well enough' at tonight's '92 hustings.  He certainly suffered no 'blow' of the kind that his rivals had hoped for.

Angela Watkinson did raise the issue of drugs and his position on the legal status of ecstasy.  Mrs Watkinson served with him on the Home Affairs Select Committee when he adopted liberal policy positions.  Mr Cameron said that he acted on the best scientific advice of the time and he now appreciated that that advice had changed.

Mr Cameron made very Eurosceptic pledges.  Like Liam Fox he promised to take Tory MEPs out of the EPP.  He also said that he would consider writing the supremacy of the British parliament into law.  What this means will have to be revisited but is potentially very significant.

The least clear position, he adopted, was (reportedly) on how his support for increased university access would be funded.

Ken Clarke might serve the right leader

There have been a few endorsements this afternoon - Douglas Carswell and Bernard Jenkin have both endorsed David Cameron and John Penrose has joined Ken Clarke's list of public backers.  John Penrose is (I think) the first of the 2005 intake to back Mr Clarke.

The hustings of the '92 group are now underway and Ken Clarke has been the first of the four candidates to be grilled.  Interestingly he did not rule out serving the next leader (if his own bid is unsuccessful) - if that leader follows 'the right approach'.  In 1997 and 2001 Mr Clarke ruled out serving his opponents, if he was defeated.  His response could, of course, be merely tactical but let's not be too cynical!

Theresa May declares for David Cameron

We had confirmation yesterday that Cornerstone would not be fielding a leadership candidate and I've just heard Theresa May announce her backing for David Cameron (on the Today programme).  This means - almost certainly - that there will be just four riders in the race to succeed Michael Howard: David Cameron, Ken Clarke, David Davis and Dr Liam Fox.

A leadership bid from Theresa May had always looked unlikely but in her passionate defence of members' voting rights Mrs May has already played an important role in this election process - one which earned her many new admirers.

The two Davids set out their policy platforms in The Telegraph

Over the last two days The Telegraph's editorial pages have given us an opportunity to directly compare the policy platforms of the two Davids battling it out for the Tory leadership.  On Monday Mr Cameron made his pitch.  Yesterday Mr Davis made a slightly shorter case for his agenda.

Listed below is a colour-coded comparison of what the two men said about key policy areas.  I've chosen magenta for Mr Cameron and cyan for Mr Davis.  [And please don't read anything into my choice of colours!]

EUROPE: "The flow of new regulation from the EU must also be reduced: our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation" / "I want to see an open Europe, with a lightly regulated single market at its core, in which other powers are returned to Parliament. And let me be absolutely clear: as prime minister, I would insist on powers being returned."

TAX: "We must reduce and simplify taxes." / "We need an unequivocal commitment to lower and simplify taxes."

TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT (FOR MORE): "We need to harness the power of the market... to generate the advance in technology needed to control climate change." / "We should, for instance, harness new thinking and technology that could... drive real progress in tackling climate change."

URBAN BRITAIN: "Create the urban revival that can alone prevent the urban exodus that threatens our countryside and natural environment." / "Unless the party offers hope to the hard-working urban majority, it won't deserve to win power."

LAW & ORDER: "Elected police commissioners responding to the priorities of local people." / "In New York... no-nonsense "zero tolerance" and "broken windows" policing, has reduced crime."

HEALTHCARE: "Opening up the right to supply healthcare to all qualified providers." / "France and Germany provide first-class healthcare even for the least well-off through mixing private and public provision."

SCHOOLING: "Real school autonomy and more parental choice, freeing schools over admissions and allowing them to establish their own identities. But that autonomy must operate against the background of strong leadership to ensure rigour throughout the system. Restoring the credibility of A-levels, radical reform of the QCA, synthetic phonics at the heart of literacy... I'm ready for a huge battle with the educational establishment to banish the "progressive" theories that have done such damage for so long." [A longer list - reflecting, no doubt, that DC is Shadow Education Secretary!] / "Sweden funds parents to exercise school choice." + "Anyone who aspires to be prime minister has to be able to offer a coherent programme to deliver excellence in health and education to the majority who can't buy their way to a better deal."

FAMILY: "I've never believed in preaching... My approach will be guided by the evidence, which shows that children do best when both parents are involved in their upbringing. So we should ensure that the tax and benefits system encourages couples to get together and stay together." / "Without judging anyone, we should recognise the central position of the family in underpinning strong and stable communities. The tax-and-benefit system should help this aim, not hinder it."

POLICY FORMULATION: "We must use the next three years to make the Conservative Party the engine room of new political ideas - engaging with academics and think tanks; the brightest and the best minds producing detailed policy for the long term, not policy by headline." / "We need to build lasting new solutions and a new consensus, using centre-Right ideas to achieve social justice. That means re-energising the party's policy-making, opening it up to the think tanks, academia and public service professionals, spreading our ideas among Britain's opinion-formers."

My goodness!  These two men appear to believe in very similar things!  There's hope for a united Conservative Party...

Themes addressed by DC but not by DD:

• "We will never get good schools, universities, hospitals, transport or police on the cheap - so we must share the proceeds of economic growth between tax reduction and public service investment."
• Co-payment ideas like tuition fees and road pricing.
• "No ID cards, No religious hatred laws."
• Sub-Sahraran Africa's poverty.

Themes addressed by DD but not by DC:

• Asset-based welfare and prosperity:  "So I want to build an Opportunity Society in which every citizen has the chance to claim a stake in Britain's success. We should empower people through increased ownership of property, shares and capital."
• "We should reverse welfare dependency through brave reform that supports the weak but rewards those who work hard."

Some themes addressed by neither (in these articles):

• Drugs!
• Nuclear energy.
• Pensions.
• Iraq.
• Arms trading and defence spending...

I apologise to all the Fox and Clarke supporters who feel left out but Dr Fox has written for The Telegraph today and I'll try to blog something on it later!  Those interested in the case for Dr Fox should please click here for Simon Chapman's compelling Platform piece about the Shadow Foreign Secretary.