The Tories cannot continue to fight the election on the vague promise of ‘change’

6 February 2010

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

Even the Tories accept that they can’t go like this. For a while, David Cameron thought he could maintain his safety-first strategy and leave Labour to tear itself apart. But with the polls returning to hung parliament territory, the high command now accepts that there is a need for a course correction. This is welcome news. Recognising there is a problem is the first step to recovery.

The problem is that the Tories are barely hitting 40 per cent in the polls despite the fact that they are running against a tired and discredited government led by a man whom most of the Cabinet, let alone the public, can’t abide. The root cause of this problem is that they have no central message. The party’s posters all bear the tagline ‘year for change’. But beyond this, the Tories struggle to explain what change they will bring apart from not being Gordon Brown. Admittedly, the biggest change that the Tories are committed to — their plan to make the workings of government transparent — is inherently abstract. But it is hard to see what the change they are offering is when they are flying off to Davos, signing up the government’s former adviser Lord Stern, committing to carry on with Mr Brown’s style of inflation targeting and promising that any cuts made in 2010-11 will not be ‘particularly extensive’.

By downplaying the cuts, the Tories have given Labour an opening to argue that everyone accepts the deficit is a problem that must be put off for another day. Tory rhetoric about the deficit being a ‘clear and present danger’ to the economy loses its impact when they are going to do so little about it in year one. As one Labour spin doctor said to me gleefully on Monday, after the Tories could only name £1.5 billion that they wouldn’t spend in 2010-11, it stretches credulity to argue that a deficit of £178 billion is a moral failure but one of £176.5 billion is fine.

Something harder is needed. For some time now, George Osborne has been arguing that the party needs a ‘retail offering’ — selling not words like ‘change’ but concrete policies, something to show the public what they will get in return for their vote. This has encountered opposition from Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron’s closest aide, who is arguing for more vision and less detail. He was working from California when the Obama campaign was at its most impressive, and is said to be pushing for an election fought more on the concept of ‘change’ — which should not be spelled out too clearly. But the problem with this approach is that Cameron, who is trying to become the 19th Old Etonian to become prime minister, cannot embody change in the way that Barack Obama, who was trying to be the first black man elected president, could.

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oldtimer

February 4th, 2010 2:51pm Report this comment

Vision alone will not cut it. The Conservatives needs some, not too many, specifics of what they will do. Unless people know what is soming the next government will lack the political authority to do it.

This point was powerfully reinforced by Gillian Tett (author of Fools Gold) on the Daily Politics. She said this was the concern she encountered at Davos when speaking to potential foreign investors about the state of UK government debt. Do the politicians have the popular support necessary to do the unpleasant things that must be done to get the debt down and under control. It seems they are not convinced.

Then there is the question of Cameron`s backbone. Is it made of blancmange or billets of steel? I have no idea. We shall only find out if/when he is elected if he is to be a Heath or a Thatcher.

The Man

February 4th, 2010 3:06pm Report this comment

If Hilton was responsible for the vain and hubristic poster campaign then he should be dismissed immediately. It was obvious from the outset that it invited ridicule and parody and should have never got beyond the earliest planning stage.

I haven't been impressed by Osborne thus far but if he is successful in bringing detail and substance to the policy and strategy, then he'll have my respect, although it's really no more than common sense.

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