David Cameron has written an ARTICLE in the Telegraph this morning which has one aim - to reassure the Right that he is the heir to Margaret Thatcher and not the heir to Blair. It's the first time he has sought to do this in such overt terms, and I welcome it. Here are the highlight of the article, but I would encourage you to read the whole thing HERE.
Far from copying Tony Blair, I am learning from his many and serious mistakes. Instead of simply accepting the political consensus of the time, as Blair did, I am challenging it. New Labour was all about coming to terms with Conservative victory in the battle of ideas. The modern Conservative Party is about replacing the failed New Labour experiment, not aping it. Those who ask whether I am a Conservative need to know that the foundation stones of the alternative government that we're building are the ideas that should unite us all: the ideas that encouraged me as a young man to join the Conservative Party and work for Margaret Thatcher.
Those ideas are profound and enduring: freedom under the law, personal responsibility, sound money, strong defence and national sovereignty.
That is why, under my leadership, we have opposed ID cards and will replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights that better protects both our security and our freedom. It is why I have made the strongest commitment to supporting the family and marriage that any Conservative leader has made for a generation. It is why we are pledged to share the proceeds of economic growth between public services and lower taxes, thereby ensuring that over time the state takes a smaller share of national wealth.
It is why we support the replacement of Britain's nuclear deterrent and have led the campaign for better conditions for Forces families. It is why we will restore Britain's opt-out from the European Social Chapter, and it is why we have announced our withdrawal from the federalist European People's Party.
Commentators such as Tim Congdon seem to have forgotten much of what Mrs Thatcher said and did. It was Mrs Thatcher who launched the Scarman inquiry in 1981 in an attempt to understand the alienation of young black men. And it was Mrs Thatcher who launched modern environmental politics with her Royal Society speech in 1988. The reduction of Thatcherism into a sort of laissez-faire libertarianism does not do justice to her record. She was animated by a vision of the good society – a vision obscured by decades of economic dirigisme and cultural relativism. The task she set herself was to restore not only personal liberty in economic matters, but also a sense of duty, respect and moral obligation in social matters.
If 2006 was about changing the party, 2007 is about preparing to change the country. Over the coming months our policy review will report. We will be going firmly on to the offensive against Labour, and the record and plans of Gordon Brown in particular.
42 comments:
Its interesting- I've just written an article here on Cameron and I don't think you understand him by saying that he is just moving the Tories to the left- rather than doing that I think he is trying to make the Tories acceptable to young middle class people who ought to be conservatism's natural future voters. He is trying to get away from the situation in which for many people because of homosexuality, race and immigration it was unacceptable to vote Tory even if you beleived other things that they supported. This isn't coherent but there was an image problem the Tories had and still to some degree have which is that they are not compassionate but angry, doom ridden, big business supporting skinheads and I think that's what Cameron is trying to take the party away from- I'm not sure that that means abandoning Thatcherism for example.
Cameron says:
"But these Conservative intellectual foundations are just the start."
This 'social responsibility' stuff is not only deeply dull, it's also not exactly 'The Right Approach' or 'Stepping Stones', is it?
We don't need policy to see a direction, and I don't want a hard right Party, but all we've heard so far is bourgeois nonsense.
Yawn! Waffle, waffle, sharing proceeds of growth, drone, spin (omit any real ideas), waffle, soundbite soundbite, bow about to tumultuous applause (in his head)
You actually believe/approve of that drivel? The spin era is over ....
Gracchii it isn`t just image .Daviod Cameron`s position is that we need a new sense of responsibility to replace the outdated one the Conservative were tied to. This is precisley in order to sustain individual freedom.
Yes , I have long since seen that David Cameron has been unfairly abused by some in the party who , frankly , should grow up.
I have already written about it extensively myself.(Both on my blog and Croydonian.)
the article was good and his performance with Andrew Marr reassurres me that he is the most talented politician we have seen for a long time .
We are lucky to have him.
Or to put it another way . Stop whining like a lot of runny nosed Labour style doctrinal teenagers and support the Party.
Don`t make me come over there and sort you out !!
The spin era should be over yes, but unfortunately it has left you all scarred with scepticism. Spin still exsists in your perception and it is thanks to the Labour machine.
Words are cheap - especially from an ex-PR merchant.
I see nothing substantive in this article. Indeed, the promotion of 'personal responsibility' hardly sits comfortably with the beeb report that his pet think tank is recommending that permits be introduced to allow acoholic or fatty foods to be marketed, and for said permits to be traded much like carbon credits. After all, we can't trust the public to make rational
decisions, can we? So let's legislate and eliminate the possibility that they have the freedom to choose.
All of a piece, really. Tory MPs were to be allowed freedom of expression on the EU so long as they weren't on the front bench. Now that is being curtailed as well - the Better Off Out campaign is a cross-party organisation, but is now off-limits to cons MPs.
"You can say what you like so long as I agree with it."
Nice.
What a tosser.
"We're against ID cards."
Really? The only objection that was raised was the cost of the damn things.
They really are an untrustworthy bunch.
With rumours that more heavyweight donors and an ex-minister are thinking of jumping ship you'd think that the message would get through. Obviously not.
Oh, and there's a piece on Samizdata entitled 'Circling the drain' that he and his hench-wimps ought to take note of.
Right, so Cameron's article seeks to appease a loony implacable ultra-minority, who are going to ignore it anyway, scream "Socialist!" at him regardless, and stage-whisper about defecting to UKIP, or as I suppose we should now call it, the Keep-Cameron-Out-At-Any-Cost Party.
Meanwhile the broad mass of floating voters who outnumber the loonies 100 to 1, and who we need to win, say "Heir to THATCHER?! Ugh...."
And you call that a result?
Tory MPs were to be allowed freedom of expression on the EU so long as they weren't on the front bench. ...blah blah blah
You seriously cannot understand why David Cameron needs discipline on Europe. Have you been watching what happens to the Conservative Party when it divides? He has done all he can for the Euro Sceptics but he cannot have self serving squabbles breaking out and undermining our chances with the electorate.
As far as I am concerned anyone against the Conservative Party from this point is a craven welp of the Lying Scotsman. That goes for you BT ..traitor!! How do you like your new friends in the Labour Party . They love you
The article seems to have got critics into a frenzy, but as a young, middle class, urban voter he's reassured me that he's not a Norman Tebbit nasty-Tory but that he does have my concerns (taxes, education, NHS, Europe, environment) at the top of his list.
He's said about as much as he can say without leaving himself beholden to the passage of time so far away from an election.
Those who would vote UKIP just to spite Mr Cameron should really consider their position.
In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"
This cuts no ice.
Blair certainly claimed when in opposition that he was out to replace a (supposedly) failed Thatcherite/Major government, not coming to terms with it--Snap!
Blairs New Labour would certainly also claim devotion to freedom under the law, personal responsibility, sound money, strong defence and national sovereignty--Snap!
And if only in 2007 will he be "going firmly on to the offensive against Labour," what's he been playing at for the last year or so? Tilting at windmills?
All we have here are the vacuous PR words of (I am afraid is) a vacuous PR man.
There is no beef and no sign of beef. I despair.
Dear, oh dear.
newmania is getting a little piqued.
Anyone who doesn't immediately buy into NuCon is a traitorous cad, so there.
Of course, there will always be those who, like a Strasbourg goose, will stand for any amount of pap being stuffed down their throats, and like the goose find out too late that the exercise wasn't for the benefit of goose-dom after all.
Lenin's phrase "useful idiots" comes to mind.
I've been a connservative for longer than Mr Potato Head has been on this earth and by now I've got the hang of being able to recognise one - and this person leading the CP doesn't fit the bill.
Like the labs in the 90s, the tories are desperate to get back into power, some may be willing (as the labs were) to sacrifice their political principles to do so. Not I, though I've no objection to alliances that may benefit both parties. Were's the benefit to an old-style tory from putting up with the Boy Wonder? None that I can see, he's apparently not interested in compromising his own agenda even when large segments of the party disagree with it.
An apposite quote fom a piece on EUreferendum:
"...who warns us that the re-election of Gordon Brown "will be assured unless people get behind the Tory party and rally to our flag".
How interesting it is that these sophisticates - who understand the political process so well - simply do not get it: we, the electorate, as my colleague is so fond of saying, owe you politicians nothing. If you want our vote, you are going to have to earn it. The message "vote for us or Gordon Brown will get in" is not enough - not anything like enough."
He's still on that human rights bill thing.
He still hasn't answered the question.
If he scraps the human rights act, British citizens will still have the right to appeal to the ECHR, via Europe, it'll just take longer and be more expensive.
If he pulls the UK out of the ECHR, he'll be placing himself and the UK outside the EU - it's a requirement of membership, and was drawn up by British lawyers after WWII.
So, which is is going to be? If I was a Tory right-winger, I'd be pretty honked off at the fact that Cameron was trying to bullshit me like this.
It's exactly what happened to the left under Blair: promise some vague things that you never quite define, half deliver them, then rout the left on everything else.
You can't say you haven't been warned.
He has nothing to learn from Mr
Blair as we have all found out to our cost
If you cannot be true to your principles then you have nothing.
Let have some honesty,
I would put DC nearer to Ted Heath than Margaret.
Tell me I am wrong ?
Sorry Newmania if I gave the wrong impression- I don't beleive that it is just image either- I think Cameron is trying to ally together values that match the twenty first century- ie environmentalism, responsibility and toleration with an enduring conservative outlook. So for example I would expect him to support gay marriage- because long term relationships are the best way for humans to be organised (conservative) but there is no difference between gay people and heterosexual people (the progressive bit). I think there is a strategy there but I am also willing to think that is what he beleives.
BT- Boasting about your Methuselan vintage is hardly a recommendation . Old people like to collect principles , they also collect , brass rubbings ,and gurgle toothlessly on completing the cross word.
For them everything is a game to be played whilst watching the world from beneath a cosy tartan rug.Tony Benn , Edward Heath perhaps lead the role of dishomour and the iresponsible old must be treated to a short sharp shock..
They cannot beallowed to hang around causing trouble.National Serivice would do them good .
BTW I `m 43 so I am not at all clear which of us us actually older.Now I must proivide for the brood .
Cheerio
Here he goes again telling different audiences what they want to here.
And Thatcher's legacy is the Scarman Report - which reported the same racism in the police in the early 1980s as did the Lawrence report in 1998 (so that was really effective!) and some quotes about promoting a "good society" - when she is much more famous for saying that there was "no such thing as society".
As rewrites of history go this must be one of the most fatuous.
newmania-
No Methusela, though I was voting while you were a mewling babe (and the voting age was 21 at the time).
Still have my own teeth, too.
Over the years politicians have come and gone, and damn few of 'em have proved trust-worthy. Out of sheer self-preservation one learns to read between the lines, to sniff out the flannel-merchants and those for whom power is an end in itself. Cameron has just such a stench about him. He wants the top job but is unable to communicate clearly why he wants it, what he'd do when he got there and how he would be better than the current batch.
He's engaged in a marketing campaign but his product has no definable advantages over his competitors. So bring on the touchy-feely ad-speak, be fashionable, chase a few bandwaggons, try to be all things to all men by making promises that somehow never get implemented.
In old-fashioned phraseology, he lacks bottom.
And with the way the economy, the public services, the relationship between the governers and the governed, the institutionalised corruption and the castration of parliament are heading, the last thing we need is a vapid lightweight in Number 10.
He just won't do.
He is trying to get away from the situation in which for many people because of homosexuality, race and immigration
YouGov
Immigration 'out of control and harming our culture'
Call for EU to give us back power over our borders
Exclusive
Lizzie Murphy
THE influx of immigrants into Britain is damaging its culture and corroding community relations, a damning new survey warns.
Exclusively revealed by the Yorkshire Post, the YouGov poll of more than 1,000 people across the region shows that politicians have lost voters' trust on immigration and an overwhelming number believe the recent rush of foreigners is having a detrimental effect on our already overcrowded country.
So I guess Yorkshire will not have many Tory MPs
Trying to get an opt-out from the Social Chapter eh? And how is Cameron going to do that? The only way to change a treaty is through an IGC where there has to be a unanimous agreement, which then has to pass through the legislatures of every member state. And, naturally, they will all agree to Britain getting out of the Social Chapter. And pigs will happily take to the skies.
One would be just a little more impressed by Camerons's latest pronouncements if a.) he displayed any understanding of what he is talking about and b.) had not suddenly decided to write that article just as several much-derided senior members of the party announced that they would support UKIP.
I fail to understand this British Bill of Rights thing. Can someone please tell me what will be different?
Im with BT
Although younger than him, similar age to the appropriately named "mania" I also see Cameron for what he is, a power hungry bullshitter, surrounded by a gaggle of power hungry pols who would give anything for the chance to play with the levers of power.
The conservative party isnt a football team and cannot rely on tribal support.
My vote will be going to either UKIP or the BNP,i don't expect them to get any seats but I will not be supporting the Conservatives just to get rid of Labour and elect another group of tosspots with nothing but self interest in mind, all three main parties deserve a broken nose on polling day.
So I take it this article on the BBC site (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6262069.stm) is just a further extension of these 'reassurances' to the core of the Party?
Really, I'm pleased to see that he has reinvigorated the Party's standing with the electorate, but is it all really worth it if we're selling out on our beliefs and guiding principles?
It leaves me in a quagmire somewhat, because at the moment, after reading articles like this, week in, week out, I feel compelled to lean towards UKIP after the next general election (a pragmatic approach to a change of government ensures that I want to see a Conservative government after this one). However, I see the commitment and effort that my Assocation's candidates and councillors put in for the community and see that they are guided by similar principles to my own. I support them and will continue to do so, so long as they stay true to their original intentions. How am I supposed to protest (and do something) about the bizarre antics of the Conservatives at Shadow Cabinet level without withdrawing my support for the people I admire and believe in locally?
I thought that sooner or later, David Cameron would have make a pitch to the Right, and here he makes a start. Like BT, I am just not convinced. Neither am I moved by the argument to the effect that a vote for UKIP might as well be a vote Labour. When it comes to a vision about what kind of country we want to live in I think there is just too much at stake to indulge in double-think.
I feel that no matter which mainstream party gets in, the future looks like a Britain more subject to the EU, its Parliament more vitiated, its polititians more in thrall to hidden agendas than the electorate. It will take more than a few scraps thrown to the Right to reverse where we are going.
Unless convinced otherwise (and it will take some doing! - but I'll keep listening) my vote goes to UKIP. It comes down quite simply to this: I believe in what they say, and I think they mean what they say. And the best I can do is have my vote counted for what they say.
and why would a Tory MP want to put the FOI gag on MP's correspondence.
Freedom of Information Bill - 2nd reading
The following private members bill will have its 2nd reading in the HoC on the 19th January.
Freedom of Information (amendment)
David Maclean presented a Bill to amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to exempt from its provisions the House of Commons and House of Lords and correspondence between Members of Parliament and public authorities: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 January, and to be printed. [Bill 39]
blackacre -
Now let's see... how would they screw up this one...
Well, it'll be the political class that decides which 'freedoms' and 'rights' are on offer. These and only these will be presented to the great unwashed for comment - as a 'consultation exercise', you understand - suggestions from outside the magic circle will not be welcome and will be dismissed as 'unworkable' or 'undesirable'.
Oh - and exceptions to those rights and freedoms will be built-in from the start, so it'll be no good appealing to the Hague, Strasbourg or wherever about perversions of justice. Can't have habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, guaranteed trial by jury and the like available to all and sundry, can we? It might limit the power of the executive.
It'll be for our own good, of course.
As Reagan said:
The most frightening ten words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
Too true.
Hey David Cameron may be a son of a bitch but he's OUR son of a bitch!
PHITCH- I am not horrified by UKIP in fact as a rightish Tory I need a few out riders to scare Cameron into line.I take a fairly dim view of the BNP though. It is an outright racist party and it is also a Socialist Party. It is voted for in areas where one lot of scroungers are worried that other people’s money is bring given to another lot of scroungers. I`m not even entirely unsympathetic to working class communities that have been betrayed by New Labour on immigration , but the BNP constitution actually prevents people joining on the grounds of their skin colour. A very different thing to UKIP. For all the many failings of that Party there are good, if misguided, people in it .
You appreciate that a wish to kick the newmanias out of the country might delay you invitation to tea .Shame ; we had home made upside down cake with a lemon drizzled sponge especially.
You might at least help us pack
Giovanni,
...and you're welcome to him!
I cannot believe Hitchens has said he is going to support the ukip. THEY under Farage are worse than Cameron.
After everything Hitchens has said about Ukip and the Bnp he has just proved, to me,he has NO principles.
More of the same "hustings" waffle.
Can't he get Hilton to write some sharper stuff?
The comments about "Dave" Cameron's article on the Daily Telegraph's web site make very interesting reading. As at 4.45 p.m. I counted 61 hostile comments and a total of 15 either supportive or non-committal (mostly the latter). I appreciate that this is no opinion poll, but it doesn't look good for "Dave", does it?
This takes no account of the likelihood of the Telegraph having failed to post particularly hostile comments (as the Sunday Telegraph refused to publish my hostile but polite correction of the blatant errors and lies in its leading article on the EU yesterday).
His remark that the products of economic growth would be shared between more government spending & tax cuts (in what ratio please) may be slightly better than the growth in state spending now going on but is not going to role it back to any appreciable extent.
With this we cannot look forward to any significant business tax cut. To be fair on Sunday he did mention business tax cut as in 2nd place only to Family tax cuts. Without corporation tax cuts we cannot hope to emulate even a little of Ireland's growth.
Johnny Norfolk - Bullseye! I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, Cameron is Edward Heath redux. Disloyal, evasive and slippery.
PHitch - agree with every word. I will be voting preferably for UKIP, but if they're not running in my old constitutency, then it will be the BNP - much as I loathe hardline socialism and much as I don't like their racial policy. I too am not going to vote Conservative just to keep slaggy Labour out when the Tories are offering us no alternative. And the only alternative acceptable to me is conservatism. Not NuConservatism. Just straightforward, pragmatic conservatism. No fancy ideas that don't mean diddly. The worst is this lefty, anti-progress commitment to "the environment", which demonstrates both the man's abject ignorance and his eagerness for a front seat on the band wagon.
Thanks, but no thanks.
BT - agreed.
Cameron has gotten the message. Congdon and Wheeler cannot see a clear distinction between between NuLab and Cameron's vision of NuCon. Cameron has followed a deliberate policy of 'softening' Con image and should be given credit for this. The acid test will arrive when he publishes policies on which the next election will be fought. Until then these 'cyber defections' to UKIP/BNP are premature. Cameron irritates me but then he has to deliver while I can snipe from sidelines.
However much we hope that Cameron will toughen up and become more right-wing experience seems to suggest that politicians find it easier just to spend more taxpayers money on the problem the longer they are in office.
He has to start off relatively right-wing for any soundness to actually make it into policy against the attacks of the media and the Labour Party. At the moment he is too far to the left for my liking.
I agree with Peter Hitchens entirely. I shall not be voting for Dave unless he starts talking about the things that worry ordinary folk. i.e immigration (totally out of control), crime (it seems to pay - no meaningful deterrent) and lower taxes (the pips are squeaking now).
New-maniac, you are pretty funny today. Keep it up!
I am no fan of Dave, and his message in the Telegraph leaves me cold.
The real problem for the Conservative Party is that they have another loser. Even worse there is no one who looks like a winner. They cann't even spaek our language. Its no wonder so many will vote UKIP as we've lost before we begin so what difference will it make.
I would like our failed politicians to be accountable like they are in Iraq!
Keep going David! You're winning.
It's this sort of thinking - updating conservative principles to the new century - which won elections in the 80's and 90's.
Mrs Thatcher was so successful at this way of working - that her influance is STILL with us - and will be in British politics for quite a few years yet.
So if a handful of odd bods want to wonder off to a fringe party - let them. They'll soon be back!
David is on the winning track - sadly some people can't handle that...
Does anyone believe that if Dave gets into power he will do anything at all about the seizure of power by Brussels?
I sure I know the answer.
bt's comments here are spot on! Cameron is a typical "ideas man" and not many of them are any good, but instead are full of superficial claptrap!
Personally, I think we need someone much, much stronger with a bark that carries some bite.
With Cameron it's just words, words and more words. Tackle the economy for God's sake man. Tell the people about what New Labour has done to our balance of payments since coming to power and what the future holds for us with no jobs for the worker-bees. Blast Blair's failed "new-economy" experiment that has cost thousands of manufacturing jobs. Tell the people what you are going to do to stop employers taking on low-cost immigrant workers and throwing British workers on the scrap heap.
I personally doubt that Mr Potato Head (I like that description bt - it fits!)would actually want to make an attack on New Labour, but would rather boast about putting another useless bloody propeller on the roof of his house!
I fail to understand this British Bill of Rights thing. Can someone please tell me what will be different
OK...if it is done properly with certain clearly-defined rights - like say to free speech, to a trial within say 12 months (as in Scotland), and similar clear rights that people assume they already have but do not.
If this was done the ECHR does not get involved. In Germany the Constitution has clear rights and so the ECHR interprets its rulings in the light of those defined rights.
Because Britain does not have those rights defined the ECHR has to look at each case afresh with respect to how any ruling would affect all the other signatory nations to the Convention.
On the other hand British Judges are obliged to implement rulings of the ECHR in their Judgments so legislative power has passed to the Judges because Parliament fails to exercise it.
This is why Parliament is by-passed - simply because it does not take a lead and leaves laws (such as Divorce) to the Courts to make new law with increasingly unpredictable judgments as people bring more and more cases as Test Cases to get a ruling
If a Bill of Rights made Prenuptial Agreements legal the Courts could not ignore them
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