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Cameron lights Tory fire
Local Government Chronicle -
5 January 2006
So who expects to wake up and smell the coffee this New Year?
Step forth the Tory wunderkind David Cameron. He is fired up. There is one essential ingredient to political success – timing- and Cameron can claim it. The Tory party, at last, has got over its long catharsis over the matricide of Mrs Thatcher. The country has got over its long infatuation with Tony Blair and is interested in doing a bit of window shopping. The Media is looking for a new political narrative – a post-Blair narrative.
And into this script walks Cameron. He has begun in exactly the right way- by sending hard messages to the Conservative Party and soft messages to the wider electorate. His demand for changes to candidate selection tell the party that it must embrace contemporary society rather than allow their collective body language to radiate dislike. His speeches claiming “ownership” by the Tories of environmental concern, social justice and liberal values are intended to win back the professional and managerial middle classes from which the Tories had parted company.
Cameron will go through his blacker moments: indeed, the real test of his mettle will be whether he can keep to his reformist policy and organisational agenda when the going gets tough. But for the first time in a decade the party is beginning to believe in itself – a necessary if not sufficient precondition to getting the electorate to believe in it. As my French wife might put it, at last the Tories feel well in their skin.
Which is more than can be said for the Liberal Democrats. Any translation of current opinion polls into general election seats shows a shoal of Tory gains. In part the Liberal malaise reflects the party’s inability to make up its mind whether it is in favour of the mixed economy in public services or remains the party of the public sector producer. In part it is the price being paid for spending the interminable time it took the Tories to select a new leader doing nothing very much. Paddy Ashdown, stuck in his Balkan fastness, must have watched with stupefaction this quite extraordinary capacity to look a gift horse in the mouth.
And it is going to get worse. Once the vultures scent a wounded animal they start to circle. Or, to put it more prosaically, once the media has decided the story is the demise of Charles Kennedy the only way the story will be killed off is by the fulfilment of the expectation. If one of Charlie’s true friends told him to get out while he was ahead and could still earn good money on Have I Got News for You he might well live to receive Kennedy’s gratitude.
Having presented the Tories with a wonderful free lunch by their inactivity over the summer and autumn the Liberals now appear ready to throw in dinner as well by having their own leadership crisis.
And how does Labour come out of Hogmanay? Well, still with a majority of 158 over the Tories, just to put things into perspective. But the overall majority is 66 so at least a plausible outcome of the next election is that Labour will lost its overall majority but that the Tories will not win big enough to get one. In other words, coalition or a government depending on minority party support.
And who might contemplate this prospect with just a hint of queasiness, a little feeling of frustration and let-down. Step forward the Son of the Manse, the glowering figure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is he absolutely certain of his inheritance? Is he absolutely confident that everything that can be stitched up has been stitched up? Is he, deep down, utterly confident that it is only a matter of getting the present tenant out of No 10 before he walks into his own?
Or is there the niggling doubt that if Cameron really does seem to reach the parts other Tories cannot reach (the Eton effect?) there might be one or two people on the Labour side wondering if Gordon is such a sure-fire bet for victory. Dr John Reid, for example? Perhaps even the present incumbent of No 10 who, care-worn and embattled though he might be, does not seem to view his neighbour with the same messianic eyes as some of Gordon’s most fervent admirers.
The Tories think they could win out both ways. If Gordon and Tony pursue their guerrilla war it will spell a divided and divisive government. If Gordon takes over the public might find it hard to appreciate the surly charm of their new leader with his signature on so many of their tax bills.
One leadership contest decided: two to go. Verily hath the Gods smiled upon David Cameron. Was that the faintest whiff of coffee?
© Local Government Chronicle
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