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Monday 7 July 2008

The Tories should fear the dynamic new team of professionals that Brown is assembling

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

Those who remain grumble about lack of direction. Caroline Spelman, the party chairman, is regarded as a cipher, and there is no chief of staff figure running Central Office in the way Lord Ashcroft leads his marginal seat team. There are few veterans of old campaigns and one staffer says the building lacks ‘institutional memory’. There is a feeling of being dragged into a succession of short-term battles with no central narrative, or mission, established.

Take, for example, Mr Cameron’s pledge last month to clear parks of teenage gangs so children are better able to play outside. This was inspired not to highlight any principle, but by an internal polling presentation from Lord Ashcroft showing that Mr Cameron is losing the support of mothers. More proposals, on subjects like maternity leave, are on the way. Prisons on Monday, defence on Tuesday — the party hops from one topic to another with little time taken to hammer any point home.

‘You can get it if you really want’ runs the current Tory advertising slogan. But get what? The problem is not that Mr Cameron has no answer. The problem is that he has about a dozen — and cannot narrow them down. Many of his policies, such as welfare reform, are radical and urgently needed. Some are worth casting a Tory vote just to see them enacted, such as Michael Gove’s promise of school reform. But no policy has yet been explained in a way the ordinary voter can understand.

Yet the successes of Team Cameron have been profound. Intellectual headway since the Blackpool conference has been remarkable and the Tory press operation outguns the government so often that ministers are whingeing to (and on) the BBC. Yet without a palpable core message or strategy, such as the Stepping Stones document Thatcher commissioned in opposition, progress will inevitably be limited. ‘It’s like the Somme in 1916,’ says a shadow cabinet member. ‘We’re fighting all out, all the time, and we gain a little bit of ground. They fight back, win a little territory back. Neither of us is getting far.’

A 57-year-old man may not change his personality, but he will change his tactics if he believes the old ones are leading him to oblivion. Of course Mr Brown’s new team may yet collapse and lose confidence. They may tire of him, or vice versa. The Prime Minister is a recovering control freak on a 12-step rehabilitation plan, and could relapse at any time. But the Tories should focus on a just as likely outcome: that his plan works. And that the enemy so many MPs had written off may become stronger than ever before.

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