David Cameron spent much time and effort yesterday being nice about Tony Blair. He also, largely by innuendo, was dismissive of Gordon Brown. We are only eight months into the current Parliament, but the personal and political battlelines of the next general election are already being drawn. David Blunkett assures us that Mr Blair and Mr Brown (currently) feel able to discuss the Labour leadership baton in a relatively civilised manner, an achievement that he regards as worthy of congratulation — “so, good on them”. Mr Cameron asserts his claim to the Thatcher-Blair mantle, which he argues Mr Brown is politically disqualified from wearing. The contest of 2009-10 is up and running.
Mr Cameron’s speech to the Demos think-tank was an attempt to fit his blizzard of policy pronouncements since becoming Tory leader into a “narrative” (a concept, incidentally, beloved of new Labour) of the past quarter-century. In essence it looks a beguiling pitch: Mr Blair was able to win the 1997 election by accepting the economic revolution of the 1980s while promising to lift up the excluded minority; his efforts have faltered, though, because of the Government’ s belief in top-down, bureaucratic solutions, the approach to which Mr Brown is wedded; only Mr Cameron can deliver meaningful and sustainable social justice reforms by rooting them in neighbourhoods rather than in Whitehall.
The speech is significant. For the past decade the Tories have been trying to define themselves against Mr Blair, largely unsuccessfully. By refusing to admit much of the evidence before their eyes — that the Prime Minister was sincere in accepting the open markets he inherited — they have chased up blind alleys of opportunism. As Mr Cameron conceded yesterday, his party made “terrible strategic and tactical mistakes”, sometimes claiming that Labour remained unchanged, at other times protesting that the Prime Minister was stealing Tory clothes. The Tories’ resulting pitch to the right had disastrous electoral results. Mr Cameron is now, more fruitfully, focusing on excessive regulation and a government short-termism that has failed to rectify long-term problems.
But there are pitfalls. Mr Cameron may be exploiting divisions on the Labour backbenches and enjoying playing off Mr Blair against Mr Brown. But what may look like smart politics in early 2006 could prove problematic by 2009. By then, after more than a decade of Mr Blair, it is reasonable to assume that many voters may feel it is time for a change. Mr Cameron, by overplaying the notion that he will be providing more of the same, only better, could forfeit the benefits usually enjoyed by an outsider running against a tired administration. Indeed, it may be the stern Mr Brown who can appear to offer a welcome change of tone from the form of celebrity leader practised by two former public schoolboy showmen.
There are short-term effects of Mr Cameron’s embrace of Mr Blair’s legacy. Whatever he is able to argue about the detail, it will be harder for him to oppose the education Bill while also insisting that he has taken the Tories in a new direction. The new narrative is pleasant to the ear, but Mr Cameron is yet to make a coherent social case for market economics. That challenge also awaits Mr Brown — he who states the case clearest will be Prime Minister after the election.