Although he falls into the Disraeli Trap rather than acknowledging a common ancestor, and although he has not always been well-served by The Guardian's subs, Phillip Blond writes:
I liked David Cameron; when he became
Conservative party leader in 2005 he recognised that something was badly wrong
with the right, and a new radical conservatism was desperately needed. I
proposed a red Toryism – a commitment to the progressive merits of tradition
and social conservatism and the need to build ethos-driven institutions, and a
new Tory economics that distributed property, market access and educational
excellence to all. In
2009 I argued for a new one-nation approach to Britain's problems, and
Cameron appeared to agree. The principles of re-localising the economy,
re-capitalising the poor and re-moralising the market were echoed in Cameron's
speeches and policy ideas.
I did and still do believe in all this. I
advocated a bottom-up civic renewal of our society; plus I wanted to recover
social conservatism not as a reactionary war on single mothers or gay people,
but as a conserving force to restore the family and loving human relationships
as the primary agent of renewal, and the first front in the war on poverty,
human neglect and social dysfunction. Crucially I argued conservative economics
were not delivering on conservative principles and that current versions of
free-market economics were re-inscribing class and caste.
Cameron to his great credit spoke to all of this
and offered as its realisation "the big society" – a whole package of
measures to add to community empowerment, civic life and community businesses.
It was unfortunately designed to work alongside rather than convert a
dysfunctional economic model. But despite appalling communication and a belief
it was just about volunteering, it gave a sense of social rejuvenation and
structural shift. Big society was Cameron's unfulfilled promise to do and be
something different.
But what a disappointment and what a tragedy this
promised renewal of one-nation conservatism has become. Make no mistake: a
radical Toryism has been abandoned, the once-in-a-generation chance to redefine
conservatism on something other than a reductive market liberalism has been
lost. In 2009 I argued that the party had renewed its social vision but not its
economic philosophy, and if it simply repeated 1980s economics, then that would
destroy everything else on offer.
And so it has proved. In an act of almost
inexplicable carelessness Cameron has abandoned his social project for a
re-toxifying 1980s approach to the deficit. He has surrendered No 10 to
Treasury determination and become a creature of other people's means rather
than his own envisager of ends – the starkest example of which is that in the emergency
budget of 2010 he allowed the largest cuts to fall on local authorities
even before his own Localism
Act had come into force, allowing communities to take over public services
or employees to mutualise and modernise – undermining the big society agenda
from the very outset.
The government is now focused on a purely
negative agenda of deficit reduction, and unable to offer a positive vision of
the future. Almost overnight the idea of a governing principle and a vision of
a better Britain was overthrown by economic austerity and a smug and
indifferent Treasury. Yes, the deficit bequeathed by Labour is a real economic
emergency, and yes it cannot be ignored, and yes a simplistic continuance of
the Keynesian status quo would simply restore a defunct and broken economic
model. But the means employed to address it are defunct and outdated. Supply
side reform is not a sufficient condition for growth: an economic approach that
worked, for some, 40 years ago now appears not to work for any. Deficit
reduction is not even working on its own terms – the government will be
borrowing more at the end of its term than at the beginning, and what cuts have
been made have predominately fallen on capital expenditure, which since it
depresses long-term growth pushes short-term borrowing to yet new heights. The
Treasury, unable to grasp that supply-side laissez-faire is not a sufficient
condition of growth, is now scrabbling all too late to set up initiatives it
once derided.
The PM has given up something for nothing, ceding
all his strategic and visionary thinking to George Osborne's tactical and
failing approach to the deficit. A new conservatism has been strangled at
birth; a failure to rethink the party's economic offer means that old economics
have killed new politics.
Why has this been allowed to happen? Cynics will
say that Cameron never believed in his vision in the first place and it was all
a cover for rightwing extremism. I don't accept this; I suspect the failure is
philosophical and structural. Cameron has, or had, some of the best intuitions
in British politics but lacks the ability to synthesise these into concepts and
clear principles. A pragmatism that refuses to choose or decide on any
governing principles may well have worked in earlier more prosperous times but
in this economic crisis it's a disaster. The refusal to decide what type of
conservatism he represents has led to him backing all the dogs in the fight and
abandoning his own vision to the victor. This, coupled with a refusal to lead from
the centre, has resulted in a decentralisation of power and a dissipation of
purpose. Departments have permission to run with whatever variant of
conservatism any minister finds persuasive. Hence the calamities of NHS reform,
Europe and the work programme.
Rather like some ghastly ghost story, the various
shades of the conservative past have returned and overwhelmed the good that
Cameron originally represented. His brand is now polling almost at the same
level as that of the Conservative party itself. His failure to maintain a
coherent new vision has led to spasmodic appeals to vague progressive notions
that have further alienated his own base and suggested that the PM is not a
master of his own beliefs. None of this is helped by an almost permanent lack
of central direction; even cabinet ministers do not know who is in control of
the government's message or approach.
Cameron himself is no longer aided by people with
a strategic vision for the country – Steve Hilton has left, exhausted by
internal competition over direction, and the PM is surrounded by pragmatists
who constantly behave as if short-term electoral advantage is long-term
strategic thinking.
Cameron's thinking is now out of step with public
demands and economic reality. People desperately want a new economic and social
settlement. But nothing is on offer from the right, so the left has moved into
the vacuum. More worryingly for Cameron, Ed Miliband's speech this week wasn't
even blue Labour – he was red Tory when he both vindicated Cameron's
original vision and sidelined it by appropriating Disraeli.
One nation is the new common ground of British
politics. If the prime minister does not respond he faces the real possibility
of an inglorious one-term premiership. Cameron had the original vision; he must
recover it. He should turn to building new moral institutions, re-endow his
localism with financial infrastructure and recognise the family and human
association as the greatest ally in the war on poverty, disadvantage and human
suffering. Cameron is at his best with his back to the wall – let us hope he
now recognises that this is where he is.
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