Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): Today's outburst by Michael Ancram suggests the Conservatives still have a greater appetite for infighting than power - the reverse of their traditional approach. If so, could David Cameron be in danger of becoming the Conservative answer to Neil Kinnock - trying but failing to overhaul his party - rather than the Tony Blair he aspires to be.
Michael Ancram's policy document 'Still a Conservative' has been helpfully posted by the Telegraph. The "Still" feels like a threat. He attacks those who are "trashing" the Conservative past and rightly, I think, says the party is still lacking an "overall sense of vision and direction". Then he goes on to claim such a "clear projection of what it stands for" can be found by rejecting the centre ground and adopting the familiar Conservative right programme - small state, family values, fighting poverty through 'self-help', checking "uncontrolled immigration", preferential treatment for heterosexual married couples. He stops short of openly advocating withdrawal from the EU, but then demands that the EU take a form which it cannot - code for a big set-piece battle.
Some people like this kind of thing - perhaps it will draw back support from UKIP. Generally speaking, though, he is advocating the strategy that lost the last three elections. Conservative supporters seem to be split over it - another problem for them. Take a look at the comments Ancram is getting on the Telegraph message boards. Responses vary from: "I happen to agree with everything that Michael Ancram has said" to "I had thought the Earl of Ancram was a decent man. But he should be ashamed. If his analysis were correct, it would still be disloyal and unhelpful at this time. As it is, it is disloyal, unhelpful and wrong".
The Earl does however make one worthwhile suggestion (in a thirty page document), with potential electoral appeal, that "Decisions should be taken at the most local practical level". But if this proposal were properly implemented it would indeed mean a "trashing" of the Thatcherite legacy Ancram supposedly holds dear, one which was in turn embraced by Blair and Brown - that of stripping local governments of genuine power and reducing them to the level of agents of central policy.
