Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Guardian brings us news of the latest edition of Progress magazine, in which Skills Minister David Lammy makes Labour's latest attempt to develop a line of attack against David Cameron:
The truth is that the Tories' change in language has touched a nerve, reflecting a big gap in our own political narrative. Yet beneath Cameron's rhetoric lies the basic philosophy that failed Britain in the past. The Tories demand responsibility without offering support; they appeal for fraternity without any real belief in equality; they have finally noticed 'society,' but remain implacably hostile to the state.
Over at Comment is Free, David Marquand suggests that the Tory leader won't be so easily pinned down:
Labour's paladins are barking up precisely the wrong tree in charging him with crypto-Thatcherism. The crystalline, divisive purity of Thatcher's Tory nationalist vision is alien to him. Where she sought to haul the country out of the path it had followed for almost 60 years, Cameron is running with the grain of the troubled times we live in. His anti-statist rhetoric and talk of a "broken society" may shock the left commentariat, but they resonate powerfully in a nation that has grown tired of endless chivvying by Whitehall, and where the shards of vanished civilities lie all around us.
Marquand suggests that Cameron can best be understood in terms of the 'Whig imperialist' tradition that stretches back to Edmund Burke. Yet that in itself is perhaps a testimony to the nebulous nature of Cameron's political personality. As Marquand points out, Whig imperialism has been by by far the dominant political tradition of the British state. Has there been any major British politician who could not claim to represent that inheritance in some form?
Comments
Cameron may be nebulous or not, but I suspect Marquand's point that he has been developing in his new book, is that Cameron is not a Thatcherite and not a market fundamentalist. And that this is more than just a positioning exercise. Thus a Labour attack on him as taking us back to those days misses the point of his attraction. This links back to the argument Gerry Hassan set out in his reflections on the Thatcher legacy and its continuity by New Labour. Cameron's policies are emerging as being less Thatcherite than Labour's. This is possible in part because there is a long-standing Conservative tradition that was appalled by Thatcher's polarisation of British society, for good reason from its point of view.
Awakening from the leading vision of a rejuvenated Gore in concert with Obama’s call to reduce and redirect the state that all might strive to realise a far greater potential in the compounded sum of unifying common purpose, i tuned in, turned intuitively to David M’s article, thought to ring OK to cover it but checked here first and hey presto ....then crash!
Just back up, Anthony has beaten me to seeing off the ill disposed. As Obama said of his detractors, so David L tries to tar but cannot make it stick to a faster moving target headed further back to the future than leaden Labour in their mire. David M suggests their energies would be better directed at watering the fallow fields of deeper roots in Burkean sensitivity to the likes of Baldwin, Butler, Milton, Mill and Mann etc.
Whilst others find the lingering on of that common ground that travelled with the patient people (not a slice but another side of Salmond ... and the pragmatic building blocks of Morgan?), and at welcomed risk of being caught behind again, i suggest a review of David M’s forthcoming book next please. In moving on via Mills, perhaps Reeves at Demos could be persuaded?
There is an interesting discussion of Marquand's piece on Dave's Part.
Personally, I think that Marquand over-estimates the extent to which the swing to the Tories is a result of the popularity of Cameroonism rather than simply antipathy towards New Labour. Our perverse electoral system means voters only see one possible way to vote the party in power out and that's to vote for the second party. And whether it's the Tories or New Labour it makes no difference: both are committed to neo-liberalism and a centralised authoritarian state.
As Jeremey Gilbert says, in these circumstances it's easy for a candidate who expresses a vague sense of malaise and disconnect to pick up votes.
There are parallels in the US where trust in institutions is also at a historic low and where people feel attracted to vague rhetoric of Hope and Change.
Whether the roots causes of the problem will be addressed is another question.
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