Cameron’s big idea is simple: he doesn’t need one

Wednesday, 6th January 2010

The Tories have opened the new year in a blaze of speeches and promises. But what does it all add up to? Nothing, says James Forsyth — and that’s deliberate. There will never be such a thing as Cameronism

Baroness Thatcher was never as ideologically rigid a politician as legend has it. But she could still, as leader of the opposition, turn up to a meeting and slam a volume of Hayek down on the table and declare: ‘This is what we believe.’ Her convictions were strong enough for her to push through a radical budget in 1981 that outraged conventional opinion — so much so that 364 economists wrote to the Times to denounce it. She was at war with conventional wisdom. Cameron will have no equivalent intellectual driving force when he contemplates the emergency budget the Tories will have to deliver if they win power.

A Cameron premiership will be a test of the utility of traditional English conservatism. If its insights are not sufficient, Prime Minister Cameron, pragmatist that he is, will become more ideological. That is the paradox of his pragmatism. But if Cameron succeeds on his own terms, if he is the prime minister who guides Britain out of this new spiral of decline, there will not be a creed called ‘Cameronism’. To create an ‘ism’, you have to believe in ‘isms’.

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Minnie Ovens

January 7th, 2010 1:39pm Report this comment

There is a distinct possibility Cameron can win the election with an ethereal Manifesto.
Which will lead to a hung ethreal (no, that is not delicate and refined) parliament.
The worst of all scenarios.
A new revitalized leadership in the Labour party, seeing the possibility of another quick election, will dump all the ills of the UK on Cameron's shoulders and Clegg doing what LD's do best; being an opportunist.
That is the last thing needed by Britain at this time.

Yam Yam

January 7th, 2010 3:16pm Report this comment

"What matters is what works". Now where have I heard that matntra before.

Hugh

January 7th, 2010 6:18pm Report this comment

Pragmatism - and he and Osborne and Hammond are going to have to be supremely pragmatic for two or three years. As pragmatic as any Receiver or Liquidator.

djw2009

January 7th, 2010 11:54pm Report this comment

James, it is a very lazy point you are making, that English conservatism is pragmatic and non-ideological. The reason is that that pragmatism was fine in the years before the state took over society and before the cultural revolution of the past 40 years or so. Conservatives in the 19th century could simply support the status quo and oppose -isms, which were all grand theories that would lead to state intervention in pursuit of some end or other.

But now those -isms have been implemented. Socialism. Egalitarianism. Multiculturalism. All -isms, and all fully implemented in England today. If Cameron is a pragmatist, he will just lazily go with the flow and not take on the managerial state - and that means that he is lying when he says he doesn't believe in -isms. Those -isms will continue to flourish unless the Tories cut them down, and if Cameron won't cut them down, he supports them. The worst has already happened to our society - any leader who is pragmatic in the face of that is simply complacent at best and a traitor at worst.

Teck Khong

January 8th, 2010 1:05am Report this comment

Cameroonism is I believe a living political organism that is building its core with new additions that are constantly being sucked in, filtered and sanitized from a range of gathering systems – you only have to look around at the mechanisms adopted and various receptacles specially created for that as well as those casually visited by Cameron for substrates.

That way, a broad consensus is achieved in Stage 1 of the project – getting elected. Stage 2 – consolidation of a Cameron government – will be implemented on a clearer definition of what is required, so there should be no surprises if various policies in the future have no consistent ideology but are guided only by evolving necessities.

David Bouvier

January 8th, 2010 11:38am Report this comment

James - Do you not appreciate that "a mix of fiscal conservatism, supply-side economics and political pragmatism." is a pretty could summary of Thatcher and Howe's approach in the early 80s. Hopefully Cameron realises that this is only moderate conventional wisdom because of the battles won by Thatcher and her government.

If after his experiences at the Treasury, Cameron really does not have any understanding of economic history and is instead "the slave of some defunct economist" we are real trouble.

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