Muesli Conservatism or Red-Meat Tories?

Tim Montgomerie says it’s “time to stop apologising for being Conservative” and calls for an end to this Red Tory nonsense and, instead, a return to “red-meat Toryism”. As a committed Conservative it’s not too surprising that Montgomerie thinks this is the way to stabilise a wobbly Tory campaign. The base always thinks the problem is that the party has strayed too far from orthodoxy. (This is true of almost all political parties). It’s a perfectly respectable point of view that is also, I suggest, perfectly mistaken.

Apart from anything else such a strategy – banging on about europe*, crime and immigration – would delight Labour. Nothing they’d like better than to be able to point out that, despite the eco-makeover, the Tories really haven’t changed and are just as nasty as you remember them being. Worse, a tilt to the right now, even rhetorically, undermines the entire point and presentation of Project Dave.