DOES ANYBODY STILL believe that David Cameron is made of straw? Conventional wisdom, like the fable of the three little pigs, has it that the Conservative Party leader is a fragile thing; made of soundbites and other ephemera and blowing in the wind, vulnerable to the merest puff from a passing wolf. Gordon Brown, by contrast, is made of brick: solid policy, well-founded principle, knows where he’s going — perhaps even a bit too unbending for his own good. (Sir Menzies Camp bell is, of course, made of wood, as his public performances attest.)
This common asssumption is based upon two equally flawed premises: first, that Mr Brown has a heavyweight secret agenda ready to be unveiled on the day he strides into No 10, and secondly, that Mr Cameron has forsworn “nasty” Toryism, abandoned everything it held dear and charged his policy commissions to come up with a new compassionate Conservatism for the 21st century.
Excuse me while I huff and puff. No more has Mr Cameron abandoned self-interested Toryism than the wolf really wanted the little piggy to go with him to the fair. Yesterday’s speech by the Conservative leader confirmed Mr Cameron as a hardline rightwinger who plans to skew the tax system in favour of the wealthier at the expense of those who most need help. His plan to allow tax relief on childcare for working parents — basically a tax cut for all working parents — will assist the better-off while doing nothing to help low-income families. His antagonism towards both tax credits and the New Deal threatens the systems that have helped the least well-off. And giving transferable tax allowances to married couples is a direct assault on the lone-parent families raising a quarter of Britain’s children today. There’s more to life than money? Only if you have enough of it, Mr Cameron.
Nor, Mr Cameron, is giving a hand to the wealthy while shafting the poorest the best way to help children. And I say that as someone who would benefit enormously from the proposed tax relief. The cynical embrace of single parents yesterday was the embrace of the boa constrictor. “The weapons have been put beyond use” in the war against lone parents, Mr Cameron cooed, while remarking that “we do want to help girls to avoid teenage pregnancy”. Ooh. Ouch. Just 3 per cent of lone parents are teenagers; the median age is 35. Any stereotyping going on here? As for claiming to welcome the single mum to the Tory family while proposing those tax breaks and the couples tax allowance — really, David, that is shameful.
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Look at the other policies espoused by the new Tories: allowing milkfloats to use bus lanes (a typical piece of John Majoresque hedgerows initiativery); more prison places; joining a far right-wing grouping in Europe; same tax and spend policy as at the last election. Plus, now, tax breaks for the wealthy. New Conservatism? I don’t think so. The only part of selfish Conservatism that Mr Cameron has unequivocally ditched is its half-baked opposition to a centrally tax-funded NHS, a policy that was unclear, politically suicidal and at odds with the Tory leader’s own experience of the excellent NHS care received by his severely disabled son. Would that Mr Cameron would take a lingering look at some of the other forms of disadvantage in society and adjust his prejudices accordingly.
Plenty of people will agree with Mr Cameron’s policies. They are called Tories. Agree with him or not, let’s stop pretending that the Tory leader doesn’t stand for anything other than touchy-feely “General Well Being” windmills and bicycles-type stuff.
On with a huff and a puff to Mr Brick. Gordon Brown is playing his cards very close to his chest. Watch the Labour Leftish at a conference over the weekend, trying to redefine what Labour is, post-Blair. They cannot do it, because nobody is certain what the Chancellor is for.
The Compass conference on Saturday — “The Shape of Things to Come” — boasted panel after panel of speakers that I would pay quite a lot of money not to listen to: think-tank bores, union chiefs, ex-ministers, Jonathon Porritt. Jonathon Porritt?! “The future’s almost here,” said Compass. The past certainly was.
So what did they talk about? “Renewal”. “The Party”. A nod to renewable energy (Jonathon Porritt!). Comprehensive education. Pensions reform (I thought we’d done that). “A left political strategy for the future”. Keep renewing yourselves like this, guys, and you’ll have plenty of time to be doing it in the next couple of decades.
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Lacking a firm steer from Mr Brown as to what the shape is of things to come, there were an awful lot of questions: can Labour share power? How do we succesfully sustain a left political party? If not this, then what? Is this the beginning of feminism’s third wave? Please can we go home now
And there were very few answers. It should have been called “The Shape of Things to Come?” Here was Ed Balls, MP, the closest you will get to a speech by Gordon Brown himself, on new challenges and the need to debate new ideas. The new challenges? Energy security and climate change, and globalisation. “We must show we are the only party that has the answers to these new challenges.” The answers? Errrr . . . collective responsibility and mutual obligations and social justice and internationalism. The ideas? We need to “build again a progressive campaign for change in our country”. And take more children out of poverty.
I have tried for some time to pin down Mr Brown’s secret, renewing agenda. It’s about a difference of approach . . . It’s about taking decisions — on pensions, for instance, or energy — not setting up commissions to take them for you. It’s about tone, about the questions asked: what shape society do we want and how do we get there? It’s about greater optimism, a bit less competition in the public sector, constitutional reform. It’ s about helping the poor, while admitting that tax credits have become too complex.
Talk about ephemeral. There’s more straw than brick. And that’s the real secret of Gordon Brown’s secret agenda. It doesn’t exist.