The Tories: From Winston Churchill to David Cameron

The assumption of the founders of the Labour party 114 years ago was that the existence of a party of labour, representing a social and economic class which constituted the majority of the population, would naturally assume electoral dominance. Instead, Labour’s appearances in office have been sporadic, brief and separated by lengthy periods in opposition.

Based on the cold, hard fact that the people Labour purports to support mostly have shown only fleeting moments of support for the party, we must strive to understand how and why the Tories have been so successful. We need to know why more trade unionists voted for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in 1979 than James Callaghan’s Labour party. We need to understand why John Major won a record 14 million votes in 1992. What we do not need to do is dismiss the Tories as ‘vermin’ and wave placards at them as they troop back into Downing Street.

Timothy Heppell’s new book helps illuminate the grand strategy and low cunning which constitutes Conservatism. It is academically rigorous, which means it spends a lot of time citing other academics’ writings, and reviewing their theories rather than generating a
pacey narrative.

Lest you think this is merely anti-academicism, I am a great fan of Tim Bale’s works on the Conservatives which combine intellectual rigour with a well-turned phrase and pages you want to turn. He, for example, coined the phrase which best describes why the Liberals came away from the coalition talks with little more than magic beans: it is ‘what happens when vegetarians negotiate with carnivores’.

Heppell manages to condense the entire postwar political story into under 200 pages. He divides Conservative history into the One Nation tradition of 1945-64, the adjustment to modernisation of 1964-75, the free economy and the strong state (a phrase borrowed from Andrew Gamble) of 1975-1992, the continued adherence to Thatcherism of 1992-2005, and crisis to coalition from 2005 to the present day.

It is a neat divide, but what is most compelling from reading Heppell’s book is not the distinct book-ended chunks of history but the true blue thread that runs throughout. Thatcher did not invent Thatcherism. David Cameron did not abandon it. The unifying theme of laissez-faire, individualism and anti-statism is there from 1946 when the Conservatives voted against the NHS to last month when they voted for
their budget.

I turned first to the chapter on Cameron. Once Michael Ashcroft’s viciously honest analysis, Smell the Coffee, appeared in the wake of the 2005 general election the Cameroons mounted a spectacular, shameless process of detoxification. Yes, I know Cameron did not win the election, but he has still been prime minister for four years, so he probably does not mind. This is the most important period for Labour to study: how a new leader reaches out to hitherto-hostile voters, and builds enough of a coalition to walk into No 10. Heppell’s book shows that the Conservatives have been better than us historically at garnering support and winning elections. We still have not worked out why.

———————————