Well I suppose I should say at least something about Cameron's speech. Clearly given my presence on a training course I didn't actually watch it. I have though read it and it was much as I expected it would be when I read some of the trailers this morning. Assuming the delivery was typically Cameronesque - and I have no reason to think it wasn't - then it was undoubtedly a good speech.
It will of course be the history books that decide if this conference had a "Clause IV moment", rather than myself or others before me. But I think what we also saw at the 2006 Conference was our awakening from a Labour-orchestrated veil and ultimately the resurrection of Opposition.
It's fair to say that over the past ten years Labour have successfully defined us as the "previous Government" - both in the minds of the electorate and ourselves. At this Conference that veil was lifted so rather than us being the previous Government reminiscing, we're now an Opposition preparing for the opportunity of Government.
In my view you cannot take the path to Government by simply remembering how you were. And you cannot stop remembering how you were without acknowledging the world around you has changed. That, for me at least, is the defining characteristic of the Conference.
Yes, there's been political strategy playing out as well. Today there was the triangulation of Labour on health and international development. And I’ve already written about the perceived split over tax. But behind the headlines was a fundamental shift from policy for the sake of policy - which is what Government does. To the discussion of ideas on the route to policy - which is what Opposition must do before it can seriously hope to be Government.
Hopefully I'll make it next year.
12 comments:
given that I'm an avowed Cameron hater,I liked the speech.
we'll know when his clause 4 moment comes when I leave the party with steam coming from my ears.wasn't particularly happy about the gay marriage stuff but I can live with it.he'll have to try harder than that
DT
Tell me, was there anything in this speech which would have sounded exceptional or unusual coming from Blair?
Also, you imply - or I infer - that "times have changed and we - ie the Conservatives - must change with them". I was privileged to live through most of post-war Butskellism: this had the ratchet effect of moving the country to the dysfunctionality crystallised in the "winter of discontent" and "crisis what crisis?" government. All you appear to be saying - and supporting in Cameron - is the reborn Butskellism of the 21st century. Cameron's ideas are an acceptance of where the country has arrived at today. Apparently, you believe this is something to be praised and extended into the future. Those of us not in thrall to soundbite government by PR spivs (of the government and the "opposition") beg to differ.
Most insightful piece I have read on David Cameron's speech.
The odd thing for me was the way that most of the press and other political bloggers seemed to hate it, but it really did go down well with voter's and most conservatives!
Did it sound like Blair? No, but it did sound like a speech from a leader of a major political party appealing to the majority of voter's who reside in the centre ground.
Some journalists in their rush to claim it was a poor speech forgot that they are there to interprete the reaction of the public to a political speech rather than report their own views on what makes a great speech.
A lot of people in the media seem to think that the conservatives have to win their approval to then go on and win the votes of the public. I think David Cameron's team are not going to rely on old fashioned media outlets for any future success. Interesting times ahead.
Umbungo - Yes there were things in the speech that Blair would not say, on the Human Rights bill, on tax, on the environment.
I don't imply, or infer that times have changed and that the COnservative must change to with them at all. Times have changed I'm afraid, we must work with the world as we find it. That doesn't mean Butskellism, that means good old fashioned principled conservatism. That means rejecting the ideologues grand theories of society and instead applying tradtional conservative scepticism to the world in which we find ourselves.
Cameron's ideas are not acceptance of where the country has arrived at today, they are an acknowledgement that the country is where it is and you cannot produce policy to change that world without applying accurate risk assessment and analysis of the consequence of your actions.
Cameron still has values, the difference is that instead of being like the radical neo-liberals of the Thatcherite days, or the social democrats today, he doesn't beleive in reductionist simplistic views of society.
It is very easy to dismiss it all as spin, but that actually misses the point of the conservatism that Cameron is practising. He's doing exactly what Disaraeli did when society moved out of line with the party in the past. You reposition yourself in the society in which you find yourself.
Banging on as if it were still the 1980s fails to acknowledge the reality of history.
You may not like what Cameron is about, I get the impression that you're probably not really a conservative though. And by that I mean someone who follows a philosophy of conservatism.
dizzy
As I recall the Conservatives of the 50s and 60s also believed - as a principle of their conservatism - that "times have changed I'm afraid, we must work with the world as we find it." This is, I would maintain, classic Butskellism.
However, don't let's get bogged down in definitions: the reality is that Cameron - and you - are prepared to accept the new Blairite dispensation and work within it. Yes that's a form of "conservatism" and one that might preserve the Conservative Party in name. However, it simply creates another social democratic party to go with the other two. As for saying that Cameron "doesn't believe in reductionist simplistic views of society", I and (despite your support for him) you don't know what Cameron believes in. He certainly believes in achieving power and will say anything to achieve that goal. Nevertheless, all you are actually saying is that Cameron's beliefs are either non-existent or opaque: it's Cameron as the empty PR vessel he is into which you can tip your all your illusions about winning the next election on a "feel good" agenda of sensitivity, high taxes and stability: no-one gets hurt, everybody keeps their jobs, all children get A* in their exams, the NHS miraculously works, the police deal with crime, the boys come home . . . My point about Cameron's speech and Blair is that Blair could have made the same speech and no-one would have turned a hair.
To compare Cameron with Disraeli is an insult to a towering figure of English and Conservative Party history (and I don't mean Cameron). Disraeli's achievements were many but Disraeli was a master of political tactics and opportunism. However, unlike your claims for Cameron, Disraeli didn't accept society as it was - he effectively changed it: for instance his 1867 ROTP Act was a tactic to dish the Liberals (which succeeded) and as a by-product it expanded the electorate enormously which benefitted the Conservative party and, as it happened and in time, the more radical wing of the Liberals.
Also I deny that I'm "banging on as if it's still the 80s" - manifestly it isn't. But where do you think this country would have been without the genuine reforms of the 80s? It was Mrs Thatcher's refusal to accept in 1976 that the Attlee/Wilson dispensation was the gold standard of politics which attracted me into the Conservative Party. It was also that view which was accepted by the electorate in 1979. As an aside, Heath had attempted a similar revolution in 1970 but he was more interested in the EEC than his Selsdon agenda and, anyway, the electorate was still not really prepared to accept that Butskellism had had its day.
The electorate is teetering on the edge of belief that Blairism and NuLabour have failed. Instead of capitalising on that, Cameron - and you - have bought into the Blairite agenda: maybe the polls should tell you something. Yes I know it's the Indy saying yesterday that "the Conservative Party's lead over Labour in the opinion polls is shrinking, according to The Independent's latest "poll of polls"." but maybe they are just telling you something you don't want to hear. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1813590.ece
It's easier to have a go at the "old fashioned" core vote than admit that maybe, just maybe you've chosen a wrong'un.
I'm afraid you are getting confused between acceptance of the world one finds oneself in in terms of what you are able to do to shape in line with the way you desire, and acceptance of the world in terms of not changing things.
The former is what I am talking about, the latter is not. Given that everything else you say is completely moot, especially the points about Disraeli as my references were precisely to the manner in which Disraeli worked within differently framed historical starting points at different times.
I have not bought into the Blairite Agenda at all. What I do realise is though, once we tale over power the consequences of Blairism will be the world in which we have to work and as such policy needs to follow conservative rather than radical methods to resolve that, because, guess what, I;m a conservative and I don't think it's wise to go rushing in like bull in a china shop. I take the same approach to policy as I do to the Emterprise systems I look after.
Measured change only, not radical change. Change which has known results, not change which will have theorietical results, maybe, possibly, in a few years time, all things being equal.
It is not Butskellism, it's post-Blairism. There is a difference. Incidentally, no one saying that the 80s were not significant, but perceiving the first, or what will be second decade of the 21st century through that paradigm is not particularly wise. The world has changed, not just politically, but culturally and technologically as well.
I do appreciate the debate though even if you are ultimately wrong.
dizzy
We must agree to disagree but one example of change: in 1979 part of my work in a City bank involved exchange control. In October that year Geoffrey Howe abolished exchange control - completely - against the advice of most economists and, I should add, most of his party: the call was, to quote you, for "measured change only, not radical change". The exchange control section at the Bank of England was closed and 180 civil servants were fired. Howe was nervous about the immediate consequences: he needn't have been: there was no run on sterling - in fact there were no adverse consequences.
My point: your (and Cameron's) policy is not "measured change", it's effectively "no change" and, however you care to put it, a continuation of Blair's world. Of course the world has changed since the 80s but, sadly, not necessarily for the better. You accept that decline: I do not. You believe that real change cannot be on the agenda. I say, if it's not on the agenda then our future is bleak. I expect the Cameron project to fail and will be working diligently for that end.
================
Of course the world has changed since the 80s but, sadly, not necessarily for the better. You accept that decline: I do not.
================
I didn't say I accepted anything.
================
You believe that real change cannot be on the agenda.
================
No I don't, where did I say that? With the greatest of respect if you're going to engage in discussion with me then don't be so presumptuous as to represent your thoughts of what I said as what I said.
================
I say, if it's not on the agenda then our future is bleak.
================
Change is on the agenda though, what you mean is that the change is not change you agree with. Don't try and portray it as something it is not though. Change is fine, when one knows what it's consequence is. I however do not want to go down the Blairite route of change which has unintended consequences.
================
I expect the Cameron project to fail and will be working diligently for that end.
================
If you expect it to fail then why do you feel the need to work dilligent to bring it about? Sounds to me like you're not particularly confident of your own convictions.
Dizzy
"If you expect it to fail then why do you feel the need to work dilligent to bring it about? Sounds to me like you're not particularly confident of your own convictions."
A cheap point but I'll answer it: the sooner the Cameron project fails the better - why wait to let it fail of its own accord? I'm more than happy to help it on its way.
"I however do not want to go down the Blairite route of change which has unintended consequences."
So you do want change. Unfortunately the message Cameron gives is that there is no real change on offer which is materially different from the present Blairite dispensation. That is the absence of change of which I accuse Cameron: it is certainly not that he isn't changing the Conservatives. For instance, he - and by inference you (but I stand to be corrected on that) - accept the NHS more or less "as is", accept the effective end of grammar schools to be replaced with some kind of "internal" selection process within the comprehensive system, accept the human rights agenda (apart from a spurious "repatriation" and relabelling) and swallow the green agenda whole.
If this is part of the "change" you support, you're right I don't like it.
Where has Cameron said he's going to leave the NHS "as is"? All he's said is that he realises it's value from personal experience and as such he will not jeapodise its existence and principle. That doesn't mean it will be left "as is" at all. However, making the necessary changes, again, is something that must be measured.
The NHS is not some theoretical structure that can be tinkered about with with high minded theoretical aims like the way the Left has done and, I imagine, you would wish to do. The NHS is an operational organisation which means you take change very seriously and you do it in such a way as your changes can be accruately measured for their impact, then you move on to the next step.
On the matter of schooling, I'm not sure what awareness you have of setting but its been going on in the secondary state sector since the 1980s, I should know, I went through it before going on to grammar school. I'm not sure I buy the media-fed line about the "effective end of grammar schools" either.
Have a look at the national league tables. Lots of grammar schools on there. Kent and Bucks still have the 11 and 12+ respectively and they are by no means alone.
As to the Human Rights agenda, I imagine wanting to abolish the act is a sure sign of an acceptance of it.
So, I;m curious to know, what is it you're doing to bring about the downfall of Cameron? Besides posting on the Internet about it of course.
Schools - "setting" as an effective substitute for grammar school education is laughable.
Human Rights - Cameron's intention (not a promise - he's not very good at keeping those) is to repeal the HRA and replace it with a "British" one
NHS - so we are stuck with it "as is" until your slow and steady reorganisation of a failed model that has not been replicated anywhere else (despite the NHS being, apparently, the envy of the world) succeeds at last: by when? 3006.
Getting rid of Cameron: I doubt if I'll need to use your weapons of choice - sneering, making cheap points and (as I see from your other posts) accusing all who disagree with you of being ideologues - which are the unmistakeable symptoms of a weak argument.
1: I did not say "setting" was an effective substitute for grammar school education. I said setting has been around for years. You seem to insist on saying I am saying things I am not.
2: Actually, it's not just to replace the HRA with a British one and thereby accept the human rights gaenda, because the replacement would not be about human rights, it would be about state rights within what is effectively a social contract. If you consider 16th Century clasical liberalism as part of the "Human Rights agenda" then there is little I can do about such misconception but merely highlight them.
3: OK. I'll bite with the argument. Claiming that because I want a measured approach I am accepting the NHS "as is" leads me to only be able to say that you are guilty of the same thing. The only problem is that you're under the delusion that it's actually possibly to make radical instant change to a massive operational organisation.
4: I'm not accusing all those who disagree with me ideologues. Many of the people who disagree with me are not ideologues at all, they're just wrong. It's not me making a cheap point, it's me making a statement of what I consider to be the evidential reality of what many of them are saying. After all, it does "Opinionated Arrogance" up there by the logo. Not all ideologues are wrong though, but most of those who are wrong are ideologues.
5: As to "weak argument" I, as the apparent pot, refer you,. the kettle, to point 3. Try harder.
6: Don't flame me, it's not worth it.
Post a Comment