There’s a fascinating article today in the Telegraph by George Bridges: The Tories have gone astray – and I helped. Who’s George Bridges, you ask? Here’s his summary of his political career to date:
First a researcher for the Conservative Party machine, then a tour of duty in the bunker of No 10 for the last three Major years, followed by a few years advising Michael Howard and David Cameron.
It’s a hefty 1,000-word ‘Consevatism: my part in its downfall’ mea culpa, and it’s fascinating in two ways.
First, for its call to arms for Conservatives to ignore the polling and simply stand up for what they believe in. George Bridges freely admits, though not in quite these words, that the whole Cameron modernising project was a sham, that the party put its desperation for votes ahead of its deeply held convictions.
Fair enough, you might say. After all, many Lib Dems were pointing out how inauthentic the Cameron Project was in real-time, back when the media hack-pack was in thrall to his shiny newness.
But the second reason the article is fascinating is for the three issues George Bridges highlights as the key ones where the Tory party made the wrong call for fear of frightening the voters:
1) The Tory promise to ‘match Labour’s commitment to spend more and more on public services’. This Cameron/Osborne pledge was designed to neutralise fears the Tories would slash public spending. (It mirrored the Blair/Brown promise in ’97 to stick to Tory tax-and-spend plans.) Here George Bridges has a point, I think. Labour was right to pump money back into our public services after years of neglect; but it wasn’t all spent effectively; and there was an over-correction which meant the UK ran a too-large deficit in the belief the good times would keep on rolling. The Tories and Lib Dems (notwithstanding Vince’s warnings about private debt bubbles) were both complicit in allowing that situation to continue unchallenged.
2) ‘For years, politicians dared not admit that exam standards were being devalued by grade inflation.’ Assertion isn’t evidence. I’ve made the same glib comments myself in the past, been challenged on it, and looked at the evidence — there is some, but it’s limited and very hard to disentangle from a multitude of other explanations, including improvements in teaching and/or teachers ‘teaching to the test’ and/or pupils getting smarter.
3) ‘Immigration. Fear of being labelled a racist quashed public debate during the Blair years.’ Well, it was either going to be Europe or immigration: no Tory list of Evil Policies is complete without these two horsemen of the apocalypse galloping forth. Perhaps it was fear of the R-label which self-censored Tories. I had hoped it was recognition that the free movement of labour drives better economic growth, that the party had at last recognised that supply-side economics includes freeing employers to hire people with the skills required to do the jobs they want to create. But I was clearly naive: the traditional Tory argument remains, immovable: there are just too many foreign-types in the UK.
So there we have it: George Bridges’ clarion call for a return to authentic Conservative values that’s being applauded by right-wing commentators this morning. Which is fine: absolutely, people should stick up for what they believe, no matter how evidence-free or irrational. George Bridges, I suspect, speaks for many and perhaps most Tories. Ironically, he is, once again, going with the flow of his party, which is drifting irresistibly to the right.
That’s causing tensions within the Coalition (just ask Ed Davey) yet it also makes the Lib Dem task that much easier. Eighteen months ago Nick Clegg worried in a hot-mic moment that he and David Cameron ‘won’t find anything to bloody disagree on in the bloody TV debates!’ There’s no danger now.
The Tories are beating a hasty exit away from the mainstream of British politics, back to their comfort zone of Little Englander nimbyism. The tide of Conservative modernism has gone out, leaving their few, sensible pragmatists beached. That’s a shame for them, but it’s an opportunity for the Lib Dems.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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8 Comments
‘Immigration. Fear of being labelled a racist quashed public debate during the Blair years.’
Except for most of the newspapers in this country running overwhelmingly negative stories on it every. single. day.
And the numerous promises (many of them ‘successful’) from Labour and the Tories to crack down on ‘bogus asylum seekers’, ‘sponging’ migrants, or whoever the devil of the week might happen to be.
And, of course, the fact that the Tories ran largely on an anti-immigration platform for two successive elections (clue: it didn’t go that well!)
Of course, the ultimate example of the PC brigade’s successful attempt to shut down free debate on the issue is the fact that immigration came up as an issue in only three out of three leaders’ debates in 2010.
“I was clearly naive: the traditional Tory argument remains, immovable: there are just too many foreign-types in the UK.”
That is an overly simplistic interpretation that does little service in the cause of advancing the lib-dem’s as an electoral force.
It ignores two important points:
1. The representative-democracy argument – The rise in support for anti-immigration parties as a direct response to the perceived disinterest of the established political parties in britain. In short, many of the least advantaged in society, who most depend on their community for support in daily life, no longer feel like their concerns matter.
2. The high-tory argument – Framing this as a Colonel Blimp moment where bigoted country-shires types rail against johnny-foreigner taking up residence on these shores is stupid. There are plenty of tories who take the paternal bent that recognises the threat to the welfare and wellbeing of those who they consider should matter, i.e. British subjects.
Where I differ from the party-line, I suspect, is on whether what we saw in the noughties was sensible, fair and balanced migration.
Was it [fair] that unmanaged and unrestricted immigrants were allowed to pool disproportionally in disadvantaged neighbourhoods?
Was it [sensible] to have such large scale immigration without a policy at least expecting assimilation, rather than leaving those who depend on their community the most isolated in a multi-cultural ‘paradise’?
Was it [balanced] to, without public mandate, increase Britain’s population by 7% in less than a decade, in what is one of the most densely populated nations in the world?
Immigration is a great thing, for a whole host of reasons that I am happy to endorse, but labour has soured public perception of that with their cavalier and irresponsible internationalism.
The scale, and uncontrolled nature, of immigration is reducing the welfare and wellbeing of a significant chunk of the electorate, or at least they perceive it as so, and they are lashing out inappropriately.
Want a solution? Reduce immigration
Then, hopefully, immigrants of all stripes can pursue their lives in Britain free from injustice.
2) ‘For years, politicians dared not admit that exam standards were being devalued by grade inflation.’ Assertion isn’t evidence.
You have linked to evidence that this assertion is perfectly true, and not to any evidence that it is untrue.
Actually we are the 52nd most densely populated country in the world, the Netherlands are24th and Belgium is 35th and Germany just behind us at 56th. It is quite possible to drive through swathes of the UK that are almost empty (come up to North Yorshire for example). Our problem is quite simply that the area around London and the South East is grossly overcrowded, how are we going to solve that?
“First, for its call to arms for Conservatives to ignore the polling and simply stand up for what they believe in. George Bridges freely admits, though not in quite these words, that the whole Cameron modernising project was a sham, that the party put its desperation for votes ahead of its deeply held convictions.”
Seems to me exactly what your party has done!
@ roger – I was referring to england specifically, but perhaps i should have said so explicitly rather than left it at “nation”.
At nearly double that of the UK as a whole, and only marginally less than the netherlands, england is indeed one of the most densely populated nations on earth.
Please note:
1. i do not live in england, in fact i live in very sparsely populated part indeed
2. i support immigration as a matter of principle, it enriches the country (and me given my partner).
3. i should point out that immigration is not a hot-button issue for me, it is not something i usually concern myself with.
Well if the Tories are seen to move to the right this will certainly put more distance between us and help us be seen as the reasonable voice of government!
‘For years, politicians dared not admit that exam standards were being devalued by grade inflation.’
I can only comment that I did a degree course back in the 1970,’s (failed) and I’m doing another one now – at the Open University – to while away the days of my declining years. This second time round it’s a piece of p***. The pass mark for assignments is only 40% for goodness sake. On personal experience alone standards have fallen over the last couple of generations!