The following article originally appeared in the e-book Is the future Conservative? edited by Jon Cruddas MP and Jonathan Rutherford, produced jointly by Compass, Soundings and Renewal.
Phillip Blond (Lancaster, University of Cumbria): The Conservatives are now in a position to define a post-neoliberal direction for Britain.
There is nothing left in the left. The liberal left is now dominant; and by any objective ascertainable measure this ascendancy has been a miserable and manifest failure. Inequality is approaching levels last seen in the Edwardian age, social mobility is at pre-war levels, and ordinary workers are getting a lower percentage share of GDP than they did under Macmillan. Everywhere the economy tends to the monopoly benefit of the very few at the expense and dispossession of an increasing many. Furthermore, Labour has pursued ineffective authoritarianism at every opportunity, including its attempts to end habeas corpus and recapitulate the power of the executive over judicial and civic authority - not least, perhaps, because of its clandestine cooperation with foreign powers in acts of torture and extraordinary rendition.
