How the Tories plan to avoid a cultural beating

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics.

Mud sticks. In politics everyone remembers the charge and not the denials — something Labour has exploited for years. Typically, it would denounce the Conservatives for being heartless, privileged bigots who care nothing for the poor, eat foxes and have no place in modern Britain. But that doesn’t work anymore, as people have stopped listening to Labour. So Labour has had to pin its hopes on independent left-leaning groups hurling accusations and making people think that the Tories are still the nasty party, whatever David Cameron says.

This new lie of the land could be seen at Conservative conference where the most damaging blows to the party did not come from Labour but from two outside groups. Ben Summerskill, who runs the gay rights group Stonewall, pulled out of the Gay Pride event complaining about homophobes from the European parliament being given a platform at conference. On the same night the Jewish Board of Deputies also sprang a surprise, revealing that its president Vivian Wineman had written to Mr Cameron expressing concern about the views of the party’s new European allies.

These events sent chills down Cameroon spines. The Tory leader remains very sensitive to anything suggesting that his reforms are cosmetic and that the Tories remain the ‘nasty party’. Huskies have been hugged and glaciers crossed to bury this image. That news of the Board of Deputies’ letter broke almost immediately in the Guardian exacerbated Tory concerns. It felt like they had been hit by the opening barrage in a war declared on them by the cultural left, a far more formidable opponent than Gordon Brown.

Senior Conservatives are worried that this might be only the beginning. They fear that the run-up to the next election will be dominated by distracting cultural wars, which would be far more damaging to the party’s image than the usual botched attacks from this dysfunctional government.