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Saturday 22 November 2008

Politics

The hoodie-hugging, Polly-praising, huskie-drawn days are over. The Tories are back

Fraser Nelson on what happened at the Tory conference

The ink is barely dry on these proposals. Even on the eve of Mr Cameron’s speech, there were flashes of tension among shadow Cabinet members about the precise scope or true significance of these policies. But behind all this lies a collective recognition that Mr Cameron’s initial strategy — conveyed in messages like ‘social responsibility’ and ‘general well being’ — was too fuzzy and limited in its appeal. It could not contain, and seemed to exclude, fundamental aspects of Conservatism.

In the soul-searching which followed the Brown bounce, the Cameron high command concluded that the approach which won him the leadership election in 2005 had exhausted itself. There needed to be a change — and this is it. The party recognised a new face this week, and cheered up immensely. It senses the demise of the species identified by Mr Osborne in his interview with me last week as the ‘über modernisers’. The hoodie-hugging, Polly-praising, huskie-drawn days are over. Their wake was held this week at Blackpool.

If the Prime Minister was hoping for the Tories to implode, he must now be sorely disappointed. His aides are talking ever more openly about  an election next month. Mr Brown is currently digesting reams of polling data from marginal seats, they say, and if the figures are good enough then he will go to the country. Next Tuesday is being earmarked as a possible day for an announcement. It is becoming increasingly hard to imagine Mr Brown marching us all down to the bottom of the hill.

Ironically, Mr Cameron’s strong performance this week is unlikely to deter the PM from an early election. It is now clear that the Tories have rediscovered their sense of direction and purpose. The risk, of course, is that Mr Brown now copies the proposals unveiled this week: he is a practised jackdaw. He could levy his own tax on non-domiciled workers — and promise to spend the proceeds on health or education. Perhaps this was, all along, a cunning plan to flush the Tories out.

But Mr Brown did not look relaxed, or cunning, as he released his Iraq withdrawal plans ahead of schedule — and assembled a frenetic programme of parliamentary activity when the Commons returns next week. He looks like a rattled Prime Minister who has seen his enemy strengthen, rather than crumble, on the eve of battle. The odds facing the Tories are still daunting — they need to translate today’s 11-point Labour lead into an eight-point Tory lead to have a simple majority. I met no sensible Tory in Blackpool who claimed such odds were surmountable.

But spirits are high, nonetheless. There was a palpable ideological fusion this week, a reconciliation between party and leadership and a coded mea culpa from the Cameroons who now appreciate that they could have done much of this earlier. Their apology has been accepted, and the distinctive sound of Tory reconciliation could be heard in Mr Cameron’s ovation. The Conservatives may still lose the next election, but at least they have found an agenda. And for many in Blackpool, this was the greater accomplishment.

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