toryleadership

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.

Editorial: Could Cameron be ‘Braziered’?

Things couldn’t have gone much better for David Cameron over the last fortnight.  First there was the launch, then the speech, then the opinion polls and then lots of endorsements.  For an increasing number of observers DC seems to be the highly likeable kind of person that Daniel Finkelstein says the Tories need (see today’s Times).  The one blight on Mr Cameron’s fortnight has been a simmering row about his possible use of illegal drugs at university.  In today’s Telegraph Matthew d’Ancona dismisses the cannabis row as a sideshow.  It’s not.  The cannabis row has got legs because there are well-founded concerns at the policy views of David-Cameron-the-politician that have been awakened by what David-Cameron-the-student may or may not have inhaled.  People who don’t care what David Cameron did when he was ‘young and irresponsible’ do worry what Mr Cameron might enact as a hopefully ‘mature and informed’ Prime Minister.  Talk of ‘shooting galleries’ has got them worried.

Mr Cameron has an opportunity to clarify his views tonight, at the first of a number of hustings before MPs.  If he doesn’t he might get monstered.  It might be more accurate to say he might get ‘Braziered’.  Julian Brazier MP’s role in the Portillo campaign’s 2001 demise is also noted by Mr d’Ancona, in his column of today.  Mr Brazier asked Mr Portillo about his views on Section 28 and answer by answer Mr Portillo’s liberal views on lifestyle issues started to alarm a sufficient number of Tory MPs.  Mr Cameron should be prepared for similarly tough questioning tonight.  If the Davis and Fox camps aren’t orchestrating that questioning their candidates don’t deserve the leadership.  The evasiveness that characterised his performance before Andrew Rawnsley last week (noted yesterday by Tim Hames) won’t wash with his parliamentary colleagues. 

It is better that his colleagues test him now; because the Labour machine will certainly test him later.  After a wrong turn on cannabis in the last parliament Labour is becoming increasingly tough towards drugs.  Mr Cameron supports an excellent policy on increasing the number drug rehab places but he’ll be in political trouble if he still holds the liberal views that characterised his membership of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

Drugs matter because of the way they contribute to educational failure, crime and social exclusion.  Getting this issue right isn’t just a major test of Mr Cameron’s leadership bid - it’s a major test of the content of his ‘modern compassionate conservatism’.

Editorial: David Davis should fear a Cameron-Fox ticket

It keeps getting better for David Cameron.  After Wednesday's warmly-received speech he has become the bookies' favourite and a steady trickle, trickle, trickle of endorsements has installed him as the clear second-placed candidate in this blog's list of publicly declared MPs.

Last week proved that a week can be a very long time in politics but a long eight or nine weeks stands between DC and the Tory crown.  That's a lot of time for his candidacy to be unpicked by the serious scrutiny he should now face.  The big weakness of his campaign is his lack of clear policy positions.  Behind this weakness are two different questions:

1. Is David Cameron substantial enough?
2. Is David Cameron conservative enough?

The three older candidates in this race - each with a substantial history of policy positions - might be forgiven a lack of detail.  DC, with only four years in parliament, must not get away with vagueness.

We think we know where DC stands on marriage, Iraq, co-payment for public services and that he shares George Osborne's commitment to tax reform.  We also know that he shares much of Iain Duncan Smith's passion for social justice but we don't know much else.  [I'm currently compiling a long list of questions for Mr Cameron that should be answered over the course of this campaign.  If you have an essential question please email it to me at [email protected] and I'll post it later this week.]

The great fear of the right is that David Cameron will reduce the Conservative Party to a pale blue imitation of Tony Blair.  One way of correcting that will be to install his tennis buddy, Liam Fox, as his running mate.  Dr Fox, of course, is still pursuing his own leadership bid but he may have pinned too much hope on the socially conservative Cornerstone group, who appear to have all the unity of Monty Python's People's Front of Judea.  If Liam Fox offered Cornerstone withdrawal from the EU they'd probably splinter over how quickly it should be delivered.  We'll know more after Tuesday's parliamentary meeting of Cornerstone...

If Dr Fox did join David Cameron's team it could threaten David Davis' base on the right of the party.  DC would still have to address the substance issues but that could partly be achieved by giving Oliver Letwin and George Osborne (an outstanding Shadow Chancellor over the last few months) more prominent roles in his campaign.  If DC is seen to be at the head of a formidable team he could become unstoppable.

Editorial: Is everyone a Portillista now? No.

Francis Maude will tell today's conference that the Conservative Party must "change or die".  But Mr Maude arrives in Blackpool with his stock very low.  Post-election periods are not happy times for Francis Maude. He was responsible for directing Michael Portillo’s unsuccessful 2001 leadership bid and has just overseen the defeat of Michael Howard’s post-election reforms to party procedure. He appears to be seeking consolation in the idea that he was right in 2001 and that we are all Portillistas now:

Ollie Stone-Lee, reporting for BBCi: “Does [Francis Maude] think the battle for the agenda pursued by Mr Portillo’s [2001] campaign has been won?”

Francis Maude:”I think broadly yes.”

I think broadly ‘no’. Superficially there appears to have been a lot of acceptance of Michael Portillo’s leadership manifesto but on many substantial questions there remains enormous disagreement. Take four key features of Mr Portillo’s thinking, starting with the one where consensus might be thought to be greatest:

Candidate diversity: Nearly all accept the Portillo belief in a candidate selection policy that seeks more people who can ably represent today’s Britain. Whereas MP stressed more blacks, gays and women, today’s leadership contenders are prioritising people from local communities and candidates who have worked in the public services or the voluntary sector. Portillo’s face-deep diversity can only deliver a limited kind of progress if we end up with black barristers, female merchant bankers and gay men who have never worked outside of the Westminster village.

Social liberalism: The party leadership has moved in a socially liberal direction with support, for example, for gay partnerships but the approach has two main weaknesses. Few voters think it matters. When the Centre for Social Justice/ YouGov asked voters who were society’s most vulnerable members gay people hardly registered. Pensioners, children, people with mental illnesses and those living in crime-ridden inner cities were peoples’ top concerns. The other main weakness is that there can be big tensions between a genuinely compassionate conservatism and a socially liberal conservatism. The Portillistas’ support for drug liberalisation and indifference to the importance of the family are only like to abet socially destructive forces. The fact that all of the leading candidates (except Ken Clarke) are advocating support for marriage and all (except David Cameron) are intolerant of drug use suggests that the party is not so Portillista.

War on terror: Michael Portillo began as a supporter of the war in Iraq but, for last November’s US elections, he ended up advocating a vote for the flip-flopping John ‘Wrong War At The Wrong Time In The Wrong Place’ Kerry. It is now difficult to find any coherent anti-terror strategy in his meandering columns on the subject. The lack of coherence may be the one area where the Conservative Party, as a whole, may, indeed, have become Portillista.

Party discipline: And, finally, let’s hope few Conservatives are adopting the Portillista-approach to “loyalty”. He briefed against John Major throughout the Maastricht years whilst serving as one of his ministers. He battled against William Hague’s strategy when he was Mr Hague’s Shadow Chancellor. He launched broadside attacks on Iain Duncan Smith’s leadership. He used his Sunday Times column to regularly criticise Michael Howard. Many of those criticisms were justified but they were less than helpful in the run-up to an election. And where MP himself was unhelpful his ‘Portillista’ disciples were regularly very corrosive with their constant briefings to journalists.

Editorial: Dr Fox's extra mile compassion

Continuing to explore his theme of mending Britain's 'broken society' Dr Liam Fox has focused on mental health problems in a speech to the SANE mental health charity.  Dr Fox used his speech to link Tony Blair's "irresponsible reclassification of cannabis" with "an increased number of young people suffering from psychotic illness".  He identified helping people with serious mental health problems as the "last great social reform":

“The way in which a society treats those at least able to play a full role is a measure of how civilised that society is.  Sadly, I believe that we accept a level of care for those with mental illness that we simply would not accept for those with other types of illness.  When we walk around our major cities, and see people, many of whom will suffer from a mental illness, sleeping in the doorways of some of our most beautiful buildings and venerable institutions then we are witnessing a policy failure that a humane society should not tolerate.”

This speech needs to be read alongside Dr Fox's earlier remarks to the Centre for Social Justice about domestic violence and his establishment of a Tory party human rights group.  They mark what might be called an 'extra mile compassion'.  On many occasions when Tories turn to issues of social justice they focus on helping people to stand on their own two feet and to begin leading independent and dignified lives.  That compassion is an essential ingredient of one nation conservatism and is vital in a Labour Britain where social mobility has stopped and welfare challenges have been ducked.  But it is not enough.

There are some people who will always need special care and Conservatives should be proud to provide it.  People with serious mentally health problems and the very old are two such deserving causes.  'Extra mile compassion' is not a compassion that will save money in the way that many necessary welfare reforms eventually will.  It is a form of compassion that voters don't readily associate with Tories.  Suspicious voters often think we dress old money-saving welfare reform policies in new clothes and they don't trust us to deliver them.

Dr Fox is demonstrating to younger and values voters that the economic bottom line is not the defining characteristic of his 'extra mile compassion'.  He is presenting an unconditionally compassionate Conservatism that will genuinely help repressed people living under totalitarian regimes and, at home, he wants to fashion policies that will bring hope to women who have been victims of terrible domestic violence.    

Editorial: Two cheers for Francis Maude

This blog hasn't given Francis Maude an easy ride since he became Tory Chairman.  He has tried to push the rollback of party democracy that sits so uneasily with our party's great democratic traditions.  For this exercise in disenfranchisement the Chairman of the ultra-modernising C-Change organisation deserved his Moderniser Against Democracy label (given to him by Tim Hames).

An interview in today's Independent suggests that he may be repenting of recent sins.  He talks warmly of primary-style elections.  Primaries, enthusiastically championed by Theresa May, would fix 'the problem' of unrepresentative Tory grassroots by widening the franchise (rather than narrowing it further to the much less representative parliamentary party). 

But if FM gets one cheer for raising the possibility of primary elections he gets another cheer for thinking the unthinkable about forming a coalition with the LibDems:

"Asked whether there could be a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, he replied: "There's no reason why that should be out of the question If you end up with a hung parliament, there is either a minority government, which is unwieldy, or a coalition. You deal with what the electorate gives you... You look round the country and you see a number of councils where Conservatives are in alliance with Lib Dems, Birmingham, for example. There's no great drama about that.""

One of the failings of this leadership campaign has been the ducking of big issues.  One of the biggest issues is our relationship with the LibDems.  With their 60-odd MPs it is going to be very difficult for the Tories to win a parliamentary majority at the next election unless we find a way of winning seats like Winchester, Eastleigh, Twickenham, Northavon and Cheadle back from Charles Kennedy's party.  Short of finding a way of winning those seats back we need to think about reaching out to the Cable-Clegg-Davey-Huhne-Laws-Oaten-Webb group of Orange Book LibDems.   We could be exploring possible areas of common action?  We could be working on a defections strategy?  We don't need anything like a formal pact and we should still be working hard to beat LibDems (mainly by reassuring voters who have deserted blue for yellow that Conservatives are decent, compassionate human beings).  We do, however, need to start contemplating the possibilities of needing to work with the LibDems.  What do you think?

Editorial: Making abortion rare

During the last leadership election Ann Widdecombe was furious to learn that a Christian MP was backing Michael Portillo.  Michael Portillo’s social libertarianism was beyond her pale – as, four years earlier, Michael ‘something of the night’ Howard had been.  A few weeks later, when the race was down to two contenders, she had announced her support for Ken Clarke.  Pro-life Ann was backing the former Health Secretary who had presided over 1990’s relaxation of Britain’s abortion laws.  I made the mistake of accusing Miss W of inconsistency.  How could she be furious with a Christian MP for backing Michael Portillo, I asked her, when she was backing pro-abortion Ken over pro-life IDS?  I was lucky to escape the confrontation alive.  My expose of the contradiction was not welcomed.  Miss W’s calculated pragmatism was trumping an uncompromising interpretation of principle.  Miss W was backing Ken because he was a winner, she insisted, and IDS was not a winner.

My little story is a little proof that abortion is not the litmus issue that it is in American politics.  Even the impeccably pro-life Miss W isn’t prepared to decide her vote on the issue.  Abortion is unlikely to feature much in this leadership issue but I was encouraged to hear Dr Fox mention Britain’s abortion rate in both his interview and speech of yesterday.  Speaking to the CPS he said:

“The signs of a broken society are all around us. In the increase in violent crime. In the growth of family breakdown. In worsening domestic violence. In record rates of abortion. In rising teenage pregnancy rates. Increasing numbers of suicides.”

You don’t have to be against abortion to be worried at “record rates of abortion”.  Supporters of abortion recognise that terminations of pregnancy are often very traumatic for women.  Much evidence links abortion with subsequent depression, infertility problems and other medical conditions.  Hillary and Bill Clinton, staunch defenders of Roe versus Wade, always talk about abortion being “safe, legal and rare”.  “Rare”.  How can Britain make abortion rare – or, at least, reduce the number of abortions?  It is a legitimate question for Liam Fox to answer given that he has had the courage to raise the issue.  It is a question that other candidates could be pressed on, too.  David Davis has a consistently pro-life parliamentary voting record on abortion, cloning and euthanasia. I don’t know where David Cameron or Malcolm Rifkind stand on abortion. 

Abortion numbers could be reduced without altering a woman’s ‘right’ to an abortion.  I personally favour introducing a policy of full-informed consent that would educate the expectant mother about the reality of the baby growing inside her and the risks of termination.  I think a 24 to 48 hour cooling off period should exist between requesting an abortion and being granted one.  Australia’s policy could be a model.  Such a policy would not remove a woman’s right but, along with best practice in medicine generally, it would allow her to make be more aware of the medical implications of her decision.

It would be great if issues like this could be discussed in Britain without hate and bile. It would be great if issues like this could be discussed on this blog without hate and bile.  Impress me friends…

Editorial: Liam Fox endorses an electoral college

"It is already apparent that the current system is proving unwieldy and liable to present MPs with a potentially unsuitable leader while the changes under discussion will severely restrict democracy within the party - clearly an undesirable move for a modern twenty-first century party...

An electoral college would offer the best of all worlds.  It will be provide quick and simple answers to leadership contests - involve the wider membership and ensure our MPs have a leader they will be happy to unite under."

With those words Liam Fox confirms his principled defence of membership democracy. 

Francis Maude won't be happy that three of his predecessors as party chairman (Fox, Ancram and May) now oppose the disenfranchisement of party members that he and Michael Howard have proposed.

Davids Cameron and Davis have been reluctant to comment on the rules of a contest in which they are participants but they should now follow Liam Fox's lead.

Both men support the Conservative Party's localisation ideas and the great Bush-led mission to spread democracy in the Middle East.  This blog is issuing 'WANTED' posters for both men.  They're currently AWOL in the battle to save party democracy.  Big principles are at stake...

Your party needs you, Mr Davis!
Your party needs you, Mr Cameron!

Editorial: An anti-Iraq war Ken Clarke is credible... but an anti-Iraq war Conservative Party is incredible

Ken Clarke has given his much-trailed speech on Iraq.  The first few sentences set the picture for the whole speech:

"The disastrous decision to invade Iraq has made Britain a more dangerous place. The war did not create the danger of Islamic terrorism in this country, which had been growing internationally even before the tragedy of the attacks on 9/11. However the decision by the U.K. Government to become the leading ally of President Bush in the Iraq debacle has made Britain one of the foremost targets for Islamic extremists."

Ken Clarke argues against withdrawal now, however:

"We cannot just walk out of Iraq. That would be shameful. We started the job and we have to finish it. No one who believes in democracy and the rule of law could want the insurgents to win in Iraq. Whatever any of us felt before we went to war with Saddam Hussein, there can be no turning back now."

Fair enough but only the most extremist peaceniks are arguing for withdrawal now.  The speech offers little clue as to how a Ken Clarke-led government would have dealt with the threat posed by Saddam.  Ken Clarke makes positive references to the United Nations (a institution of poseur multilateralism  - just like his beloved EU) but does anyone really believe that the UN would have ever acted against Iraq?  France, Russia and China, all up to their necks in oil-for-oil-for-food contracts, would have vetoed action in order to protect their cosy arrangements with Baathist Baghdad.  The same morally compromised inactivity characterises the UN's failure to act in Darfur where up to 400,000 people have been slaughtered.

The speech is populated with lots of references to Northern Ireland.  Mr Clarke leans on his considerable experience of fighting Irish Nationalist terrorism to make his case for how he would deal with Islamic terrorism.  They're not the same, Mr Clarke.  The IRA - evil though it was (and is) - respected certain moral limits.  It gave notice of bombings and attempted to limit civilian casulaties.  It had certain demands like a a united Ireland.  The terrorists of al-Qaeda have no such limits and no such comparable aims.  Surely 9/11, 3/11 and 7/7 taught us that?  They will kill anyone and will accept no surrender terms that could be acceptable to a civilised country.

It is, of course, perfectly possible for Ken Clarke to be a credible opponent of the Iraq war.  He opposed it from the start and no-one can accuse him of the same trimming that has characterised his recent repositioning on the euro. Becoming anti-war is not a serious option for the Conservative Party, however.  90% of Tory MPs voted for the overthrow of Saddam.  Then, if not now, they all understood that pre-emptive, take-it-to-the-enemy wars were necessary if we were to avoid Taliban Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq - at a time of those regimes' choosing - bringing the war to us.  If Ken Clarke became Tory leader, Tony Blair would be able to taunt him over the desptach box by pointing to the huge number of his colleagues who once took a very different position.  The Tory reputation for 'if I knew then what I know now' opportunism would be set in concrete.  Iraq is proving more difficult than most of us feared but Iraq was always going to implode or explode at some point.  It was better that the uncertain transition from Saddam's brutal regime happened with our involvement - than without it. 

Editorial: Is Sir Malcolm Rifkind's 'real choice' actually a false choice?

Sir Malcolm Rifkind is the candidate who won't give up.  Neither this blog nor The Telegraph can identify any supporters for him outside of his campaign manager, Crispin Blunt. But, a few weeks after he attacked the last eight Tory years as "deeply defective", he now distances himself from the "right" of the Conservative Party:

"If the Conservative Party wants to choose the one nation tradition of Conservatism as the way in which it will regain the confidence and support of the public, then I would be proud to be its leader... If the party, in its wisdom, comes to the view that a more right wing policy concentrating on immigration, on Europe and issues of that kind are the way forward then obviously it should look elsewhere.  I think that's a real choice and I think it's important that in appealing to the public, the party should first be clear what its own priorities are."

But is this a real choice or a false choice?  Is it not possible to combine Euroscepticism with a compassionate engagement with the problems of Britain's inner cities?  Is a commitment to secure borders in conflict with a willingness to trade more fairly with developing nations?  This blog is a big advocate of the 'And theory of conservatism' and regards the idea of 'core beliefs' versus  a 'broader conservatism' as distracting.  We don't need to abandon our core beliefs.  We just need a broader conservatism.