Competence is nice, too

It was once enough for the Conservative party to be seen as ‘cruel but competent’

It was once enough for the Conservative party to be seen, in Maurice Saatchi’s phrase, as ‘cruel but competent’. Lord Saatchi was among the first to warn, however, that this formula has had its day. Black Wednesday robbed the Tories of their reputation for competence, while Gordon Brown’s decision to make the Bank of England independent showed that Labour had every intention of stealing that mantle.

At the same time, voters expect more now from their politicians. It was George W. Bush’s great insight — long-forgotten as his administration flounders — that the public needed reassurance that a vote for a right-of-centre party was ‘good for them, good for their neighbour’: that self-interest and the common good marched together. Iain Duncan Smith grasped this, and so — with rather more success — does David Cameron.