They'll Govern As New Labour

Peter Hitchens writes:

It really does seem possible that conservative-minded British people might, on May 6, reject the insult to the intelligence, also a gesture of contempt for the forces of conservatism in this country as a whole, which is the Cameron project. If they do, and the Tory party then deservedly collapses and splits, a new era of hope will open in which it may be possible to create a properly conservative, pro-British political movement, neither bigoted nor politically correct, which can throw New Labour, and everything it stands for, into the sea in three or four years' time.

Then, and only then, when we have a government which understands and attempts to reverse the left-wing revolution of the past 50 years, will we be able to begin to put right the ills which beset the country, from national independence, to drunken disorder and fear on the streets, to unwanted mass immigration, the betrayal of the children of the poor by atrocious schools, the radical assault on family and private life and the monstrous misuse of taxation to finance indolence, both high and low.
It is extraordinarily gratifying for me that this is the case. For some years, many people have sneered at my calls for such a result, not arguing with me using facts and logic (because they cannot) but pointing to the alleged certainty of a Cameron victory. Now that certainty has dissipated, perhaps some of them will address the arguments I put forward, and some of them may even admit that I have a point.

One of these obdurate resisters is a person calling himself 'Mev', who has so set his face against listening to me that in many months of contributing to this weblog, he has failed to understand two of my most simple points. The first is that the Tories are so hated that they can never win again whatever they do, so saying 'they tried being darker blue and it didn't work',is no answer to my case at all, and just shows he has never properly read what I say. The second he expressed thus: 'I find it curious that Peter Hitchens believes the country won't be ruined by one more term of (disastrous) Labour, but it won't stand one term of Conservatives. At least after one term of Tories we'll be able to see what they've done and whether we do need a new party.' Well, like the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I'll limp up to explain it again.

Since a Tory government will be in all major respects identical to a Labour one, 'Mev' is obliged to accept that such a government will be neither more nor less 'disastrous' than another five years with Mr Brown. I personally don't see why the next five years are so crucial. All our left-wing parties are now constrained by national bankruptcy, and have few major plans to muck up the country any more than it has been mucked up in the past half-century. Surely the point is this: New Labour have done immense damage - constitutionally, legally, educationally, in terms of national independence, criminal justice, human freedom, the imposition of political correctness in all areas of life, to the country in the last 13 years. And in all cases, the Tory Party accepts this damage as a fait accompli. Where it controls local authorities, it implements the PC programme of the Blairites with zeal and vigour, showing that it is in fact merely an unpolitical machine for gaining office, not a movement with principles. It has no plans to reverse any of it if it gains national office.

On the contrary, it knows that the media elite's acceptance of its right to be considered as an alternative government is bought at the cost of any remaining conservative principles. Like the outwardly 'democratic' parties of German-occupied Denmark between 1940 and 1942, when they were permitted to continue to exist and function as if Denmark were still independent, the Tories know perfectly well what powers they must not offend, and what they cannot do or say. This process is utterly misunderstood by 'Mev' , who says: 'Cameron et al have realised that they have to move their 'public position' into the centre to gain enough votes to get elected.' Wrong. Mr Cameron has not moved his 'public position'. He has definitively changed his party's actual policies, as the price of a chance at office.

This is not (yet) a banana republic in which you can be elected on one programme and govern on an entirely different one. Even if it were ( a point often ignored) the destruction of the built-in Tory majority in the Lords means that the Upper House can, under the Westminster Convention, legitimately throw out any legislation which is not in the Tory manifesto, if the Tories come to office. And you may be sure it would do so. This belief that the Tories, if they came to office, would magically regrow their lost guts, is both absurd and impracticable.

Equally fantastical is this point: 'There are a lot of conservative minded people in the Conservative Party and I think they will follow "conservative principles" when in office - not necessarily by slashing taxes and public spending in an obvious way, but by devolving powers down to local level and allowing more freedom of choice into our communist education (definitely) and health (possibly) and in that way people will vote with their feet into reducing socialism. Once they've got the kind of schools they want do you think they'll vote to go back to the old communist system?' What is this stuff? The key to the 'communisation' of our education system is the absolute insistence on the comprehensive principle, and the legal banning of schools based upon academic selection - the only mechanism by which this could be undone.
This banning - that is to say the prevention of excellence in the state school sector by force of law - is most recently enshrined in the 2006 Education Act, which Mr Cameron and his MPs voted for in opposition, and which they remain wholly committed to despite the Brady rebellion.

Let me stress here that this Act actually prevents, by law, the establishment of new schools which select by ability. Mr Cameron reaffirmed his scorn for the selective principle as recently as the weekend. The supposed 'safety' of the existing rump of grammar schools, itself rather dubious, is of little interest to the millions of parents who live nowhere near them. Michael Gove's alleged 'free schools' will not be selective, so the best we can hope for here is an expensive and time-consuming duplication of existing comprehensives, which maintain (slightly) better standards only because they exist in middle-class catchment areas. Does Mr Gove really believe that such schools will arise and grow in the poor estates where they are so badly needed? Ha ha, if so. Another gimmick, tossed to the credulous by cynics.

As for 'devolving powers to a local level', this is so much blether, a slogan casually adopted to give substance to a vacuous manifesto, neither meant nor even properly understood by those who mouth it. Mr Cameron's attitude to devolving what power he now has, has been clearly demonstrated by his ruthless centralisation of his own party, especially the selection of candidates, as exemplified in the recent 'Turnip Taleban' affair. But it is in fact much worse. What use is nominal independence, when the law allows no freedom of action?

In fact, every local authority, every school, every profession, every doctor's surgery and hospital, every courtroom and police station, every voluntary association in this country now lives under the huge weight of regulation and centralisation imposed on us mainly by the EU and is entangled in the pervasive code of 'equality and diversity', enforced by the 'Equality and Human Rights' mechanism which has only just begun to flex its considerable muscle, which is everywhere strangling freedom of speech, action and thought - and driving thoughtful people out of the professions, and out of public life.

The Tory Party does not even understand that this is going on, or how it operates - let alone have a programme for undoing it.

And:

I don't, as I say elsewhere, think a Tory government would be significantly different from a Brown government. So if you can't stand him, you won't be able to stand them either. What I do say is that the Tory party cannot sustain a fourth successive election defeat, so their defeat this time would give us a unique opportunity, unrepeatable for at least 20 years, to get rid of them.

We already know they're useless because they've explained this repeatedly in detail. There's no point in fantasising that they'll all pile into a phone box after being elected, and rip off their New Labour suits to reveal superhero costumes, before becoming real conservatives. Believe these guys. They mean what they say, and what they say is that they'll govern as New Labour.

Putting them into office will simply allow us to repent having done so at leisure, and postpone the moment when they collapse and can be replaced, probably until after most people who post here are dead.