Tebbit wades into the "Heir to Blair" debate.

Kevyn Bodman

The noble Lord is correct.

Verity

I second Kevyn Bodman. This is a lucid and well-grounded indictment of Cameron and today's Tory Party. Lord Tebbit rightly asks who there is for Conservatives to vote for.

sturgess

Agreed. Blair was not liked at the end even by members of his own party. Voters would sooner have the mumbling and stumbling of Gordon than that loathsome guy back. Cameron is Blair, and that's why you will be in opposition for many years to come. We've done slick and we didn't care for it.

Max Kaye

Norman: Please do an 'Anthony Wedgwood Benn' - renounce the peerage and return to the Commons. Your country needs you!

Tiberius

Not quite right, is he. The Iraq war was bungled by Dubya because he listened to Donald Rumsfeld rather than Colin Powell. The surge, with higher troop numbers, is working now after all. On the domestic front, Brown carries the can for the damage, which he is perpetuating now he is PM. Blair's biggest fault was failing to tether his Chancellor. Many Labour supporters count Blair as a Tory, do they not.

Gnosis

Thank the Lord for the Lord

Puncheon

I agree with Tiberius - the real culprit is Brown. Iraq aside, Blair's bigggest failing was not sacking Brown at an early stage.

Nicholas

I'm not sure I agree with Lord Tebbit that David Cameron is perceived to be, or aspires to be, the "heir to Blair". That seems a superficial judgement and to disregard the direction of much of Cameron's real arguments - as opposed to those that are attributed to him, even on this forum. Because Cameron seeks to distance himself from some traditional Tory ground and has identified with the need to modernise the party does not mean that he is a Blairite or has embraced the politics of spin. In fact I believe his performance so far to be the opposite of this. I also thought that Michael Gove's article was more an attack on Brown than an aspirational articulation of a modern Conservative alignment to Blair. It may be mythical but the constant reminder that Brown is in fact worse than Blair strikes at the heart of the current New Labour strategy of pretending a mandated renewal. That is not to say that Lord Tebbit is not quite correct in his summary of New Labour's "achievements". He has characterised the pernicious regime most succinctly. But I doubt that Cameron would sign up to any of these follies as directions for a modernised Conservative government. His ommissions in directly criticising them is another matter entirely and may be down to a strategy of de-contamination that has yet to become clear. Were he to pick up Lord Tebbit's cudgel it would be easy for New Labour, with overwhelming media bias, to misrepresent and characterise the party. I also believe that the majority are more perceptive of the New Labour fiasco than they are given credit and rather than looking backward at their vandalism Cameron is already looking forwards to what can be done to repair the damage.

Perry

I’m not so concerned about the heir to that unmentionable inflated ego as I am about WHO will be the heir to the Noble Lord – and carry HIS work forward!

Oscar Miller

David Cameron is not the heir to Blair - he's a breath of fresh air and his own man. Watching his performance at today's PMQs today I thought again how ahead of the game he is - just like the conference speech, he is offering a new approach to politics. I admire Tebbitt - but he is coming from another age - and as for Brown - he is out of the ark. Cameron is the future.

The Wonderful Jones

Why no name attributed to this posting?

RW

Perhaps we could all step back for a moment and remember that David Cameron never claimed to be the "heir to Blair" - just as Maggie never said "there is no such thing as society". Another urban myth which has become too well entrenched to dislodge, and too convenient a rhetorical debating point for some. In fact it was that squitty obnoxious little schoolboy Giddy Osborne who originally made the remark, in a speech to Policy Exchange at the end of May 2007. I suspect he may have come to regret it.

David Lindsay

Yes, but "the dispatch of men and women to fight without the equipment they need, the sensational increases in tax without measurable improvement in services, the debauchment of the civil service, the criminal justice fiasco, the surrender of British sovereignty to Brussels, the remorseless attacks on the conventional family, the despoliation of education, use of the benefit system to deepen the poverty trap, lesser incentives to work or save, and the fuelling of the culture of drugs, alcohol, yobbery and violent crime" were all features of the Thatcher years, too. Indeed, they largely began during those years.

Danielle

Although it has become fashionable by the political elite and the BBC in particular to marginalise Tebbit I think he is bang on in the letter he has sent and the majority of the voting public will agree with him. Cameron should read the letter carefully and take it very seriously, what puzzles me most about the tories at the moment is why they are shifting left when the attitudes of the country seem to be shifting right once again after the ten years of Labour failure. Tebbit's message is the one that can get the tories back into power its just a matter of how they present it. An example is Clinton and Obama they both have the same message but very different vote winning strategies, one negative and one positive.