In the past, the Tory party benefited from what has been termed ‘the endless intangibility’ of conservatism: in the mantle of Harold Macmillan and Rab Butler, it was readily adaptable to the shifting contours of cultural and social change, guided by a disposition rather than an ideology. David Cameron’s project is to recover this ruthless Tory appetite for capturing and holding power. What the Notting Hill set has not yet understood, however, is that they cannot return to where the ‘one-nation’ tradition left off – restoring overnight the Tories’ relentless capacity for re-invention.
In the last decade, the Conservatives have boxed themselves into a corner. Bitter divisions have emerged within their ranks over some of the most insistent themes in British politics: the role government must play if Britain is to enjoy prosperity and security; the UK’s place in the world, especially its relationship with the European Union. These fault-lines mean that the Tories cannot revert to simply going with the intellectual flow again.
Since winning the leadership exactly a year ago, Cameron’s ambition has been to connect the Tories with some of the fundamental under-currents reshaping contemporary life. One is globalisation as a cultural, not just an economic force. The other is the diversification of lifestyles and habits that has accompanied the economic changes of the last 30 years. Both seem to erode existing conventions and hierarchies, appearing to fundamentally threaten the innate virtues of traditional conservatism.
On the one hand, Cameron seems to understand why any return to the ‘back to basics’ agenda of the John Major years would fail. On the other, the Conservatives are struggling to articulate a coherent ideological narrative about what they stand for. They should remember that elections are not just a battle over positioning, nor are they simply about day-to-day media combat. Instead, they involve a fundamental argument about the condition of the country, a choice between competing visions of the future in which the test remains one of competence and credibility on the big strategic challenges facing Britain. In modern politics, ideas matter more than ever.
Cameron is trapped because the new Tory leader himself embodies the old divisions and prejudices: this prevents him from developing either a strategic conception of the national interest, or a coherent approach to governance. Take Europe. Cameron remains deeply hostile to co-operation with other Europeans. He is profoundly opposed to a stronger Europe that delivers greater benefits to its citizens. And he wants to break away from fellow centre-right parties in the European parliament. Indeed, the new Tory leader recently argued that he would like to return to the pre-1997 position where Britain opted out of the social chapter, preferring the ‘low tax, low regulation’ route to competitive success.
But how is this nascent Euro-scepticism compatible with the reality that dealing with major global challenges such as climate change must draw on the collective resources of Europe, and stronger EU leadership in the wider world? The same applies to another core issue of our time – energy security – which no nation will be able to provide on its own.
Again in shaping the role of government, Cameron starts from the premise that the state is failing, that Conservatives should encourage a new ethic of ‘social’ responsibility. In fairness, the argument is more subtle than knee-jerk neo-liberalism. It goes something like this: we need a more ‘connected’ society where people are linked together through horizontal bonds that encourage a greater sense of identity and belonging. Intermediate associations in the manner of Edmund Burke’s ‘little platoons’ will provide those shared experiences. The state ‘crowds out’ the very initiatives and institutions that gives cohesion to a fragmented society. The Tory claim is that people only get control over their lives when the state gets out of the way.
The weakness of this argument, however, is that state institutions such as the NHS and even neighbourhood-level services like nurseries, schools, and youth clubs, are important in forging a greater sense of identity and belonging. The NHS is not just an efficient insurance mechanism against the risks of ill health; it is the means by which we affirm our responsibility for one another, so that all can access treatment on the basis of need. The Conservative leader wants to develop civil society in order to ‘empower people, families, communities, businesses’.
Labour shares that aim, but recognises it cannot be achieved without active government. Cameron’s pledge to divide the proceeds of growth between tax cuts and additional public spending will not reassure voters fearful of the Tories commitment to public services. Sustained improvement in education and health requires spending to rise consistently ahead of the trend rate of growth in the economy. The Conservative commitment to cut taxes has become an idelogical obsession.
Labour’s response should be to redefine the state’s purpose, while exposing that beneath the rhetoric Cameron appears to reject the role of government altogether. Take health policy. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, recently announced that there should be ‘no artificial limits’ on private sector provision of NHS services. But there must be some limits, or the outcome will be a market free-for-all that leaves health policy in chaos.
Or take schools policy. Cameron recently argued that ‘culture change’ was worth any number of government initiatives, adding: ‘Who has done more to improve school food – Jamie Oliver or the Department of Education?’ The problem is that without the state, there would be no one to fund school meals in the first place.
Meanwhile, the challenge for Labour’s next generation is to forge an ‘enabling state’. If central government can truly kick the habit of endless, top-down initiatives, then the right will lose much of its attack on the left, exposing the real dividing line that the right’s ‘sink or swim’ philosophy is out of step with what people desire.
The next election should be a battle about who is best placed to give citizens more control over their lives. But cutting back the role of government is not the answer in an era of insecurity and globalisation. In a world fast-paced and even scary, people want to feel they are anchored, that they have real control over their housing, their local services, their work-life balance, their democracy, and their elected politicians.
In reality, the Conservative party remains torn between two rival traditions; their troubles are more profound than squabbles over Europe. The origins of the fractured state of conservatism lie in the increasing distance between traditional conservatism and the ideological right. The present-day Conservative still wants to conserve – to protect the traditional symbols of state legitimacy, religion and the identity of the nation.
Yet these are being eroded, smashed open by the very market forces that neo-liberalism fosters. ‘One-nation’ conservatism depends on forms of tradition, deference, and habit that free-market conservatism has helped to thoroughly undermine. There is little sign, as yet, that Cameron offers the Conservatives a way out of the ideological impasse that he has inherited.