There is a certain type of bovine political intelligence which hates David Cameron. It cannot forgive the Tory leader his popularity, his beautiful wife, his upper-middle-class ease — and above all his astonishing success in rebuilding the Conservative party. The core criticism works like this: David Cameron is an empty and opportunistic former PR executive, interested only in power for its own sake, utterly devoid of ideas let alone principles, morally indistinguishable from Tony Blair, and in the pocket of Rupert Murdoch.
And it must be acknowledged that this portrait contains some truth. He also lacks that visceral connection with ordinary voters that marked out Margaret Thatcher. But it is partly for these very reasons that Cameron has been able to rescue Conservatism from the angry factionalism and relentless search for ideological purity of ten years ago. Cameron recognises that great political parties tend to be coalitions.
So he has created an environment where Kenneth Clarke and William Hague can both occupy major positions in the same shadow Cabinet, and where social liberals like Michael Gove can rub shoulders with social conservatives like Iain Duncan Smith. Of course, this kind of co-existence involves compromise and, sometimes, lack of clarity.
David Cameron has also substantially repudiated the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. He calls himself a ‘one-nation Tory’ — the label chosen by her opponents. It is worth recalling, however, that circumstances obliged Thatcher to be a centraliser, who worked against the grain of the traditional British state. It should also be recalled that it was only late in her brilliant career that she abandoned pragmatism for the radical ideology that has defined — and to some extent obscured — her legacy.
Cameron’s own political philosophy predates Thatcher and, for that matter, Heath. It can be traced back to a purer school of Conservatism which was first articulated by Burke, reached its apotheosis with Disraeli and Baldwin, and appeared to have died out when Macmillan left office in 1963. This kind of Conservatism sees itself as above class or faction and profoundly believes that it acts only in the national interest. This is why Cameron says again and again that he feels as profound a sense of responsibility for the poor and the unprivileged as New Labour claims to do. It’s just that he believes that New Labour’s target-setting, centralised edicts, and top-down government have failed miserably.
So a Cameron Tory party will seek to restore the local structures of the British state that have been wiped out over the last 50 years, and rebuild our great institutions, above all the family, which have been undermined by New Labour. He believes that only society, and emphatically not the state, can solve Britain’s most wicked problems of crime, poverty and so on.
He has come into politics out of a sense of personal service and duty. He believes in self-reliance, patriotism and personal independence. He will not, as Tony Blair did, abuse his office for personal enrichment. He will not be intoxicated, as Blair was, by power for its own sake. He will not go weak at the knees when he meets an American president or international tycoon. He may very well fail, but he is rooted in a very clear and purely British set of values. I can think of no Conservative leader who stands so squarely in the Tory intellectual, social, moral and political tradition.
Peter Oborne is political columnist on the Daily Mail and associate editor of The Spectator.
Comments