Right-wingers have a bad reputation, but we do more for the poor than anyone else

I am a right-winger. There, I’ve said it. I’m out of the closet and proud about it. And what have I communicated to you in this act of confession? Do you picture me in a wide, pin-striped suit? Do you fear that I wouldn’t stop talking about the evils of the European Union if you ever made the mistake of inviting me to dinner? Do you imagine me as someone who doesn’t much like paying taxes unless they go to the purchase of tanks, nuclear weapons and battleships?

The right’s traditional way of selling themselves to doubters is to rely on the, well, rightness of their arguments and the Tory right has, to be fair, got a very good record on the big issues of the last ten years.

Eurosceptics insisted that Britain shouldn’t join the euro until the new single currency had been tested in good times and bad. Aren’t we all now glad that Bill Cash, John Redwood and the ‘head-banging’ crowd banged on about it when they did? The Greeks, Spanish and Irish would love to have the flexibility of a floating currency now.

The Tory right also said there was too much public spending. If Gordon Brown had heeded that advice and spent more carefully, we wouldn’t now have one of the largest deficits in Europe. And what about the right’s complaints about uncontrolled immigration? Even the Mother of the Left — Polly Toynbee — is now recognising that Britain’s swollen population kept wages down at the expense of working class and often unemployed Britons.

But insisting that we have been vindicated on the big issues is typical of the right. Michael Howard, for example, was always good at winning arguments on an intellectual level but he didn’t convert many hearts to conservatism.