The MoS is the only Tory newspaper not to have endorsed David Cameron but they come close to doing so today in a leading article (not online) entitled "At last, a Tory who is capable of turning the tide".
The leader states:
"After eight years of circling hopelessly in the wilderness, the Conservative Party seems at last to have found a direction which may take it back to power... We do not really know very much about Mr Cameron except that he is new. Many of his ideas seem vaguely Leftish... But to many his detailed plans matter a great deal less than the fact that he is not Mr Blair, and his party is not New Labour."
The MoS believes that we could be close to one of those rare turning points in British politics "when the government is weary, and when a fresh generation is growing ready to take over." It pinpoints 1964's election of Harold Wilson - replacing "the dreary staleness of the Tory cabinet". The 1979 Thatcher victory. And, of course, the dawn of New Labour in 1997.
Turn over the page, however, and MoS columnist Peter Hitchens sees David Cameron as more of a continuity man - rather than a turning point.
Hitchens, author of The Abolition of Britain, argues that from 1970 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1997 the Tory governments only made "a few misleading noises" about reversing the socially revolutionary Labour policies of the 1960s. "Marriage was not defended," he says, "grammar schools were not reopened, the anti-family welfare state was not slowed and crime was not fought. The EU's tentacles were allowed to wriggle into every corner of our lives".
Hitchens has called Tony Blair Princess Tony ever since the PM's allegedly cloying tribute to the late Princess Diana. Princess Tory is his new name for David Cameron. Cameron and the Tory elite "would rather be loved by The Guardian than by the oppressed, ignored people who foolishly trust them":
"So Mr Cameron, slashing away any last signs of conservatism, will turn his party into a middle-class, Southern versiuon of New Labour... The task of creating a real Opposition is put off once again, perhaps until it is too late."
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