Aim for toe, pull trigger
They’re a strange bunch, the Tories. After the twin troughs of IDS and Michael Howard, they were finally achieving some sustained polling credibility. Cameron’s ‘nice, green tory’ image was beginning to make them look like they were modernising. The general public were beginning to buy into this, which was reflected in a modest growth in opinion (and real) poll results. Of course, those of us who are active in politics know that the average tory party member is likely to be far more right-wing than that nice Dave Cameron.
Cue Cameron’s Clause Four moment. This is the moment when you bring out a dusty old policy that has been a millstone around your party’s neck for years, and dump it in the most public way possible. This then lets the general public see how much you’ve moved on. Or haven’t.
Cameron’s current Clause Four is Grammar Schools. Now I’m not going to rant again about the rights and wrongs of selection. Not today anyway. Let’s just stick to the facts of the matter. The Conservative Party hasn’t be pro-grammar school in it’s actions since the 1960s. The Heath government closed grammar schools. The Thatcher government didn’t open any. It’s just a die-hard policy statement that let’s traditionalists and right-wingers feel at home in the party. Ditching the policy, as I commented previously, won’t achieve anything. It’s purely a symbolic gesture that says ‘we’ve changed’.
Except your average Tory activist can’t see it. Neither can their councillors or many of their MPs. So, while Dave and Dave seek to pull off a great publicity stunt - the Tory party once again pulls the trigger whilst aiming squarely at the big toe. Resignations, open revolt and briefings to Tory papers expose the truth. Lesley Clarke, leader of Wycombe District Council (who by the way have nothing to do with education policy) says that her glorious leader is ‘delusional’.
Only a few days ago, Cameron claimed that he ‘led his party’ - but how clearly we see that he has no control over them at all. If Cameron loses the next election, it will be because of his inability to sell modernisation to his own party, not to the country at large.
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June 4th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Equally significant is his failure to stand up to his party on any issue of significance. As I’ve mentioned previously, you only have to look at the way the Tory Parliamentary Party snubbed their leader on both Lords reform and Sexual Orientation Regulations in the Commons to realise that he only ‘leads’ them on the few occasions that they happen to feel like being lead.
And it can only get harder from now on.