I thoroughly enjoyed the 1979, 1983 and 1987 general elections. I was a right-winger supporting a right-wing Conservative leader propounding right-wing policies. “Bliss was it… etc.” I derived some enjoyment from John Major’s unexpected 1992 victory. For a Right-wing conservative, the campaign itself had been hell, but to wake up and realize one was still living in a Tory Britain was – well, a relief, rather than bliss, to be honest. But that was more to do with the realization that the country wouldn’t have to face the ignominy of having a dim-witted Coco the Clown-lookalike in charge. One’s pleasure was entirely negative.
Major seemed a decent enough chap, but clearly out of his depth and hardly a red-in-tooth-and-claw right-winger in the Thatcher/Tebbit mould: too damned keen on Europe, for a start.
By the time of the 1997 election, there was nothing – absolutely nothing – for a right-winger to enjoy. The Tories were doing some good things, but I remember the exhausted, 1000-yard stares of the party’s leaders as they turned up to be interviewed at the BBC’s Millbank studios as the campaign neared its end. After seventeen years, it was definitely time to regroup.
2001 was painful, given that William Hague – a true right-winger and a brilliant debater – was bound to lose, and lose badly. Bad timing and baldness were his only real faults.
By 2005, we’d lived through the embarrassment of IDS and the stabilizing if uninspiring and obviously temporary leadership of Michael Howard – and another defeat was on the cards. Three right-wing leaders in a row, and Blair – that consummate politician – had seen them all off. I barely paid any attention to the campaign itself.
There was a brief flare of hope when it seemed as though David Davis was going to take over as Tory leader, but most Conservative politicians seemed to loathe him, and, luckily for them, he didn’t half fluff his big party conference speech
That signaled the death of the right as a serious political force, and the inevitable victory of the Tory modernizers – in other words, the privileged smoothies who believed in nothing very much apart from their inherited right to rule the country. They’d show us dinosaurs, with our anti-Europe, anti-immigrant, monetarist, pro-defence, pro-law and order, anti-Global Warming, pro-family tendencies how it should be done.
The gospel of Francis Maude held sway. (Flashy cover, which opens to reveal a single page with the words “Win at any cost” written on it).
So, for the first time since Sir Alec Douglas Home, the Conservatives had themselves a genuinely posh leader – so posh, in fact, he had to proletize his name to “Dave”. Out went old-style convictions, beliefs and policies – in came postures and positioning, reading the mood of the public, targeting marginal seats and detoxifying the brand. The party joined Labour and the LibDems on the consensual Butskellite middle ground, where problems are simply talked away in the language of compassion, where everything is paid for by “efficiency savings”, and all that matters is “change”.
The theory was that the prospect of voting Conservative would become more palatable to the undecideds (i.e. people without political convictions, or much interest) if there were fewer dinosaurish Sir Bufton Tuftons and oikish business types banging on about tired old Tory issues. In other words, the wisdom went, do what Blair had done – chuck practically everything your party had previously believed overboard, and watch the voters flock back.
In effect, this entailed emptying the very concept of Conservatism of all meaning.
Then, a huge stroke of luck: Tony Blair is ousted by Gordon Brown, a man with all the charm of Ted Heath, the dynamism of Jim Callaghan and the financial acumen of Robert Mugabe. As if on cue, the country’s economy implodes.
More luck: the other main opposition party first appoints a man so old he looks as if he has been exhumed, and follows him up with an untested 18-year old who looks like he should be revising for his A levels.
Then Parliament becomes enmired in the biggest scandal it has faced in modern times. “Change!” you thunder. “What we need is a new broom!”
As if that wasn’t enough, David Cameron’s attractive wife announces she’s pregnant. Bingo!
Things could hardly have gone better for the Tory Party’s modernizing tendency. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, you could inadvertently provide a huge public platform for a younger, better looking posh boy with an equally fruity wife, whose policies are even more vacuous and silly and feel-good than your own, and who, despite his lack of experience, and a fraction of your expensive back-office expertise, is better on TV than your guy.
Cameron might very well still win this election and – who knows? – be able to form a government with a working majority. Like everyone else, I simply have no idea what’s going to happen.
The one thing this aging right-winger is utterly certain of is that never again will he see a Prime Minister in power who will share his opinions on just about any major political issue: from now on, British politics will be about which fresh-faced, left-of-centre TV performer happens to catch the public’s eye in the weeks leading up to an election. I finally admitted this to myself during the second TV debate when Clegg accused Cameron of aligning himself with “climate change deniers” in Europe. Half of the people in this country doubt the reality of climate change. None of the major parties represents our views on this subject - as on so many crucial topics.
Representative democracy? You’re ‘avin a laugh, incha?
The true winner on 6th May will be the Media – and European-style consensus politics.
Now there’s a marriage made in hell.
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