The six months since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party have seen the familiar contours of the British political landscape reshaped. Despite the volatility in the polls it is clear that Labour no longer commands all before it, and the Tories once again have a shot at government.
This development rests largely on the fact that, in David Cameron, the Conservatives have selected a leader who does not instantly repel large swathes of the electorate. But is should also be placed in context. Few opposition leaders have been blessed by the succession of poor headlines which have dogged Labour in recent months.
Indeed, given this background – and the wave of largely positive and unquestioning coverage given to Cameron by much of the media – it is surprising that the Conservatives have not managed to build a larger and more consistent lead over Labour. As a demonstration of the continuing mistrust of the Tories, and the good sense of much of the British electorate, this is reassuring.
There are other reasons too why caution should be exercised in assessing the scale of the Tory revival thus far. The Guardian’s ICM poll, which showed the Conservatives more trusted than Labour to handle the issues of health and education, is perhaps best seen as a specific reaction to the controversy over the education bill and the headlines about NHS deficits. The Conservatives, after all, have no health or education policy in place for voters to form a judgement on.
And it is worth remembering that where the Conservatives have laid out more detail about their proposals – on the economy, for instance – the public has been less responsive. Reflecting too the chancellor of the exchequer’s continuing sound management, Labour continues to lead on the question of who is best placed to run the economy.
It is also clear that, when you scratch the surface of many supposedly modernising Tory statements, a strong residue of the old Thatcherite agenda remains, whether it be in George Osborne’s thinly disguised desire to ‘move towards lower taxes’ or the social justice policy group’s talk of the need to tackle ‘family breakdown’ and ‘welfare dependency’. The recent report from the Cameron-friendly thinktank Policy Exchange, Compassionate Conservatism: What It Is, Why We Need It, confirms this picture, with its overriding sense of scepticism that government can achieve anything useful. It also makes a nonsense of the idea that Cameron has somehow ‘leapfrogged New Labour into the acres of space on the left,’ as Compass’ chair Neal Lawson recently claimed.
That said, Labour should beware of simply attempting to portray Cameron as the heir to Thatcher, for this will be neither sufficient, nor, potentially, particularly effective. Whatever the truth about Cameron’s real beliefs, large numbers of voters may well not be inclined to buy the line that the Tory leader is no different from William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard (and Labour could end up looking ridiculous attempting to convince them otherwise). This will especially be the case if, as he has done thus far, Cameron continues to adopt a policy-lite strategy which is long on aspiration but short on detail. As we have argued before, the precedent of George Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign offers a stark warning to Labour that a rebranding exercise, devoid of any real substance, can still be electorally successful.
But it is here, however, that Labour’s opportunity lies. Because Cameron has not undertaken the kind of radical rethinking of his politics which Labour engaged in during the 1990s, he remains open to the charge that, however much he claims to will the ends, he is clueless about the means. Forced into a debate on policy, the hollowness and muddle of the Tory leader’s agenda – whether it is on work-life balance, ending child poverty or promising a ‘British bill of rights’ – may be easily exposed.
Most critically, however, Cameron’s apparent aversion to doing the hard graft on policy means he may end up lacking a clear, coherent and politically compelling analysis of how Britain meets the great challenges of the future – most especially, that of globalisation. Post-war electoral history suggests that it is parties which can make sense of the future – Labour in 1945, 1964 and 1997, and the Conservatives in 1979 – who the voters reward. David Cameron may yet pay a heavy price for his intellectual laziness.