THE CONSERVATIVE DILEMMA Jon Trickett THE CONSERVATIVE DILEMMA Jon Trickett JUNE 2012 About the author Jon Trickett served as Leader of Leeds City Council for 10 years, before becoming MP for Hemsworth, Yorkshire, in a by-election in 1996. Jon attended Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister without Portfolio and served as PPS to Prime Minister Gordon Brown prior to being appointed Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office by Ed Miliband in October 2011. Published by Compass Southbank House, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ t: +44 (0) 207 463 0632 e: [email protected] www.compassonline.org.uk Designed by Soapbox, www.soapbox.co.uk Contents The Conservative Dilemma 2 Introduction 2 1. The Conservatives battle for an identity 3 2. 1992–2005 elections – change in British social, political and economic attitudes 4 3. 2010 General Election 6 4. True Blue Tories 7 5. The 2010 Cohort 7 6. Conservative Considerers 9 7. The Double Threat 9 8. Spring 2012: The NHS + the Budget 10 9. UKIP 11 10. Resolving the Dilemma? 11 11. Are there lessons for Labour? 12 Endnotes 13 The Conservative Dilemma | 1 The Conservative Introduction Dilemma In the 20th Century it was often said that the Conservative Party was arguably the most “I am their leader. I must follow them.” successful political party in any Western Andrew Bonar Law Democracy; between the first post war election and 1997 the Conservatives were in power for 52 “We are not retreating. We are just advancing in years. The party continually reinvented itself and another direction.” was repeatedly elected into power. In 2010 they General McArthur surprised many by appearing to adopt a cloak of liberal social attitudes and inclusiveness which The Tories are in trouble. The day to day problems led to the Coalition government. they face are self-evident. But in May this year we passed the 20th anniversary of the last time the Conservatives But here we speak of a much deeper problem. obtained a majority in the House of Commons. They have not won an election for more than Despite their record of success in the last 20 years. In addition, as Tim Montgomerie, century, it is possible to postulate that they are the editor of the Conservative Home web site facing an existential crisis which began to emerge has pointed out, no PM in almost 40 years has most clearly following the 1992 election. The managed to increase his/her vote share between membership of the Conservative Party reflects elections. They need to find a new identity in a most closely a social group and a set of values modern Britain which they barely understand. which are in rapid decline in Britain. They have Their core demographic is shrinking and under lost half their membership since 2005. It is for threat from UK Independence Party (UKIP), this reason that the accusation that they are ‘out of whilst the values of newer groups of voters stand touch’ has had such resonance in recent months. in clear contrast to their core vote. Finally, they This crisis and the consequential battle for a are relying almost entirely upon their lead upon new identity were never properly resolved in the an aging cohort of voters whilst younger and even years of opposition after 1997. Indeed, the hunger middle aged voters show no serious inclination to for power and re-election prevented a proper vote for them. debate taking place. The Conservative Party faces a deeply The debate about what a modern Conservative problematic future in its search for a parliamentary Party would look like has now begun in earnest. majority. This is not simply the view of a Labour It is highly unusual, for a political party to politician. This is also the opinion of Lord Ashcroft, attempt to discover its identity when in office one of the Conservative Party’s main strategists, and it is possible to see that the high command who believes that his party will “struggle to piece of the Government is becoming preoccupied by together two fifths of the electorate”. We will in internal party management issues rather than part rely on Lord Ashcroft’s polling to explain government, precisely because their party fudged the Tory dilemma and draw on wider sources the issues whilst in opposition. in order to avoid the accusation that the data However, this paper will argue that the struggle is lacking in objectivity. Other sources will be within the high command of the Conservative used to demonstrate that Ashcroft’s research Party reflects a wider problem than simply is accurate, though his conclusions mark the internal political management. In order to win triumph of hope over reason. an outright majority in normal times the Tories now need to reach well beyond their historic base of traditional Conservative voters, which will be termed for the purposes of this pamphlet the “True Blue Tories’. In the 2010 election, they managed to secure the support of a second group of voters. These were people who had rarely voted Conservative 2 | www.compassonline.org.uk before and make up what will be called the ‘2010 But here is a riposte from a senior Tory activist Cohort’ in this pamphlet. The problem for the writing in the Telegraph ‘The party need to have Party is that the 2010 Cohort are substantially courage to stand up for its traditional values. at variance with the characteristics, values, and We should be unashamed about promoting our attitudes of the True Blue Tories. The tensions in ideals and principles. Most voters want controlled holding together this highly conflicted electoral immigration. Most oppose European integration. base are the explanation for the conflict which we And most share our support for freedom under can now see within the Governing party. the law and free markets.’1 In any event, even the coalescence of the And finally there is the Mayor of London. True Blue Tories and 2010 Cohort failed to Boris Johnson used an interview in The Sunday deliver a majority. In order to win outright, Telegraph to make a direct appeal to his party’s the Party needs the support of a further group. core values, presenting himself as a “tax-cutting These are what Lord Ashcroft called the Tory Conservative” in an attempt to place himself as a “Considerers”; people who thought about voting potential leader of the Party’s right wing. Conservative in 2010 but in the end couldn’t Now, we can choose to interpret these bring themselves to do it. This group didn’t in the contending ideas and factions as a curiosity; a end convert into Tory voters because they feared part of the detritus of every day politics and a that the Conservatives would not protect the reflection of the seething personal ambitions NHS and were largely for the rich and privileged which poison so much of Westminster life. rather than for ‘people like us’. To do so would be a mistake and would trivi- Both the 2010 Cohort as well as the Considerers alise the issues at stake. have now deserted the Conservative Party for For the Conservative Party faces an existential reasons which shall be explored in this pamphlet. threat. And all of these surface tensions reflect the underlying decay of the Conservative’s tradi- tional social base. 1. The Conservatives The more perceptive amongst them under- stand the need to change. Lord Ashcroft battle for an identity put it succinctly when he said “The need for new supporters is a mathematical fact.”2 Beneath the suave exteriors, the blue silk ties and But they are in reality thrashing around for Savile Row suits, sophisticated dinner parties, the a new meaning in a period of rapidly shifting faux bonhomie and the coded sentences, tribal demographics which they can barely understand hatreds threaten to consume sections of the lead- let alone control. ership of the Conservative Party. All of this will make fascinating social and Flashes of the venom which now has entered political history, but for Labour it is far more into leading Conservative circles occasionally important than that. In order that Labour can spill over into the public domain. One of the win again we need to understand the processes Conservative’s leading modernisers Francis with which the Conservatives are attempting to Maude allowed his frustration to show for an struggle and to adapt our strategies accordingly. instant when he said “The Conservative Party Throughout this paper I will argue that the will always suffer if it is seen as it is trying to turn Conservative Party’s electoral base is deeply frag- back the clock to an imagined golden era”. Who mented and undergoing fundamental change. else could he have been turning his fire on but This explains the increasingly frenetic character Thatcherites like Liam Fox or Norman Tebbit? of their internal party debates and equally the Or what about Nick Boles MP who said ‘Only attempts to gerrymander the constitutional struc- by showing we really are on the side of ordinary tures of the British political system for their people will we turn the Conservative Party back own advantage. into a truly national party’? We can deduce from It is not the purpose of this paper to suggest this that he clearly sees his party as a regional that there is an iron law of politics that they party which is seen as representing only the elite. cannot win again. However, it is clear that the 2 | www.compassonline.org.uk The Conservative Dilemma | 3 long decades of the hegemony of a certain form We will look at three distinct groups of issues of Toryism have now come to an end.