Apologies for not posting yesterday - I'm in going-away mode, which means chasing round the house looking for travel adaptors, mini-alarm-clocks, a purse which is not the size of Hamburg and can be easily concealed about one's person (and in one's hand luggage going through security at Gatwick, since Tony Blair allegedly found a nest of terrorists about to blow up half the US and UK with a bottle of Evian and a tube of toothpaste) and thinking which shoes to wear that won't take years to undo before they go on the security conveyer belt and the whole of Surrey passes out from the smell of my feet. Owlperson must be right about the fact I was a German soldier in my last life, I don't set off on holiday with a book, a towel and a bikini, I end up tramping round Eastern Europe as if I was on the way to raise the red flag over Berlin using a paintbox, two boxes of WHSmith's pencils and a caseload of Soviet sex manuals in an obscure Moratovian dialect. (I have an Estonian copy of The Non-Joy of Seks in which the only recognisable word is "pederast" and the exhortation to "Just Say No, Comrade - V I Lenin" is reprinted at the top of each chapter just like Pravda always used to carry the strapline "Workers of the World, Unite!" and the Torygraph carries the current slogan: "Only 18 months to a Conservative government, chaps!").
However, my addiction to Soviet Balticana can wait while I explain my feelings about the current Conservative direction and the prospects for the PBR. My feeling is that in turning away from Labour's spending plans Cameron has earned my grudging praise - however, I don't believe it is wholly a good idea even if it is more necessary than it was in 2005.
My regard for Michael Howard is well known but it does not mean I am absolutely uncritical of the platform proposed in 2005. First of all, Howard's Shadow Cabinet was rubbish and consists of mostly the same flotsam that make up Cameron's. Personnel changes made by Cameron have largely ignored The Times' criticism of Howard at conference that he would have made a good presidential candidate but in the British parliamentary system he had to buy off too many chancers like Letwin to have a credible team. Who he would have chosen instead is difficult to say, because of the 1997 holocaust wiping out the key 50-60 year old generation which is currently lacking in the Tory Party at the moment, but Letwin being brought back to help Osborne out in my opinion compounds the problem - an over-reliance on academics and part-time bankers - rather than ameliorates it.
Letwin may be behind the current spending-plan volte-face; the Tories may well be damned if they do and damned if they don't at this point but Howard always looked rather stupid touring round a maze of cardboard bureaucrats with Let-lose because it always demeaned the Tories in my opinion that they decided programmes like Sure Start, the centralised NHS computer system and other initiatives which, if implemented properly, could assist the civil service to do their jobs properly and give a "hand-up, not a hand-out" to the less fortunate in society. The Tories are handicapped rather than enhanced by a petty and mean-spirited outlook on public service and public policy. The reason I liked the 2005 manifesto was because it was based around the central premise that the Tories should appeal to ordinary people rather than the City, the shires and squires, and business. Howard appeared to me to be proposing a Christian Democrat version of Tory values, and as a result inspired more personal loyalty on the ground in 2005 than I believe Cameron does now.
I think now it is more "politically correct" - for the want of a better term - to be anti-Labour, and hence the Tories for a while gained a lot of disgruntled support released from the shy Tory syndrome, but for those who believe the polls always swing in the Conservatives' favour during an election, I can only refer them to an article by William Rees-Mogg after the Bournemouth conference in 2004 that confidently asserted that, because the polls had usually been 10% out in Labour's favour at the previous two elections (comparing polling data to actual votes cast) then since the Tories and Labour were level-pegging after the 2004 conference this indicated a Howard victory of considerable proportions. In the event, the polls turned out to be reasonably accurate. Now I suspect there is a "shy Labour" factor built in which is beginning to come out of its shell, thereby Tory leads of 28% were based on the fact that for a year or so admitting to liking Gordon Brown was akin to admitting that they liked being boiled alive. The current readjustment may still leave Labour shy of outright victory, but relying on personalised campaigning, the slogan "We told you so" and "It's their fault" may not win them the election when confronted with typical Labour policy fare - stodgy, calorific, horrifically bad for you but rather filling and hearty nonetheless.
I am glad that the Tories now have a different slogan to fight on than "more of the same whoever you elect". However it may be a tactical gain for a strategic loss. Letting go of Labour's spending plans may pacify people now, but it will mean a winter of number-crunching while they figure out what they now want to plan to spend if they win. How long it takes depends on George and Oliver coming up with something that pinpoints proper waste - not just policies or organisations they take ideological exception to, and if they even think about closing down NHS Direct I'm off - and solutions of their own. Given that they have had three years for this, I suspect George and Oliver will emerge in 2011 with blueprints for government only to learn that Generalissimo Brown and his cabinet are now sitting on an increased majority and David Cameron is remembered only for his stolen bike and a faint whiff of something stronger than tobacco floating about the Leader of the Opposition's office.
My hope is that the Conservative Party now take the opportunity to establish some sort of dynamic message which, while not giving too much detail away, is credible enough to appeal to people who at the last election were - on discovering I was a Tory activist - saying "Michael Howard - pretty forward guy!" and words to that effect (and from another former member of the Labour Party as well). My hope is Cameron will survive the winter. But if he fails to make an impact next week at the PBR, he should stand aside for the time being (with perhaps even an option on inheriting the throne later on once traction in government has been established) and allow someone with more robust substance to carry the party on towards the election victory that should rightly be ours. I'm not naive enough to want him to succeed by words alone - I've been in both parties, in fact I've been a supporter of all three at various points in time - and I feel therefore semi-detached from ideological persuasions. I'm more of a Christian Democrat than a convinced Tory, judging by some of the opinions on Conservative Home which proves to me that the Cameron modernisation was more of a Changing Rooms style makeover, a Potemkin village for those who understand the term, than anything more substantial. Louise Bagshawe profoundly demonstrates that the party has not moved on from the troglodyte days of the 1950s thin-lipped curtain-twitcher brigade, and like IDS is prepared to use a profound human tragedy to push a repressive and prudish social agenda light-years from the "metrosexual" image the Tories have tried hard to cultivate. Fiscal conservatism can march hand in hand with progressive social liberalism, Louise. Attitudes like that you denounce other older people for yet you continue to espouse them yourself. Why?
I want a Tory government, I sincerely do. Otherwise I wouldn't care about the direction of the party and I certainly wouldn't post ad nauseam on Conservative Home. But I can't bring myself to support someone who has ignored countless opportunities to lay Labour to waste where Howard - had he not stood down in 2005 before the rest of the year - July 7 and the defeat over control orders and Blair's shakiness in office proved him to lack the sort of foresight the Tories still desperately need - would have seized the opportunity and initiative not only on spin but on crunchy alternatives. I cannot help thinking that he jumped before he was pushed and wanted to carry on, both in 2005 and when he stood down in 2006 (there has been a lot of talk on ConHome of getting the next election over with so that the "bedblockers" with all the experience have been shoved out and Vulpes Vulpes' friends predominate; I also have corresponded with Mr Howard on several occasions and his letters are extremely illuminating on this particular point); and I cannot help thinking that the Heir To Blair has ignored some of his Labour mentor's most lasting strategies in favour of tactics which worked for Blair because of underlying substance rather than despite the lack of it.
You've got until I come back from holiday, David, to impress me. I'll be keeping one eye on Britain in the mean time, but I mean to enjoy myself and change the record on this for a bit. Good luck - you'll need it.
