Not being Ed Miliband’ may not be enough to win Cameron the general election
There is something odd going on in British politics. The traditional link between the economy and the political fortunes of the governing party is in abeyance. David Cameron and the Conservatives are much less despised than they expected they would be; a year ago, not even the most optimistic Tory would have thought they’d be level pegging with Labour in the polls. But the economy, by contrast, is in far worse shape than anyone in government predicted.
Despite the gloomy outlook, the Cameroons will arrive at their conference in Manchester in good heart. They believe that they still have the party firmly behind them. But the real source of their confidence is the belief that Cameron will always beat Ed Miliband.
One focus group of swing voters conducted a fortnight ago was so damning about the Labour leader that it even cheered up Andrew Cooper, Cameron’s pollster and chief strategist, who regards it as his job to warn colleagues that the Tory brand is still contaminated.
One member of the Cameron circle who has an insatiable desire to kick Miliband whenever he is down is George Osborne. The Chancellor remains the Tories’ chief election strategist and is determined to secure the clean victory that he failed to achieve last time. He is convinced that destroying Miliband is crucial to delivering that elusive majority.
But a strategy based on character assassination suggests a certain desperation. Last year the party’s plan was simple. They were going to run the British version of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign: it’s morning in Great Britain again, why would we ever want to return to where we were five years ago?
They hoped that a combination of renewed prosperity, discounted bank shares and tax cuts would have convinced the public that life really is better under the Conservatives. Alarmingly, this now looks uncertain. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, talks openly of how, for the first time since the war, the quality of life in Britain is not rising. Even Tory ministers talk privately of how people are going to have to accept a 4 to 5 per cent fall in their standard of living between now and the next election.
The Tories have now adjusted their thinking about the next campaign. They know that they will have a complicated message to sell. One Osborne ally says that Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 campaign, in the face of a recession and rising unemployment, is now more of a model than Reagan’s 1984 one.
The emerging strategy is to emphasise the Cameron-Miliband contrast, hence the conference slogan ‘Leadership for a better future’. Those familiar with the latest draft of the Prime Minister’s speech say that ‘there’s a huge amount about leadership in there’.
This sets the tone for the presidential-style campaign the Tories would like to fight at the next election. They’ll try to portray Cameron as a tried and tested national leader while depicting Ed Miliband, in the words of one influential Tory, as ‘the next Michael Foot’. Another part of the Tory plan is to do more to promote economic growth, and be seen to be doing more on growth. The Tories were relieved that Ed Balls’s conference speech didn’t shift Labour’s position on the deficit. But they remain aware of the dangers of appearing passive in the face of the coming crisis.
‘It is now Plan A for action,’ says one senior figure. Every week between now and November a new pro-growth policy will be rolled out. Some may be small beer, but the idea is to show that the government is straining every sinew to get the economy moving again.
The fight over planning reform will be followed by one over employment law. The report that No. 10 asked the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft to write on the subject has now arrived and Downing Street is attracted to several of its ideas.
But the Cameroons remain keen to show that, even amid the global gloom, there is more to their world than economics. The conference will reassert their ‘modern, compassionate Conservative’ credentials. Tory strategists are worried that the Liberal Democrats are in danger of taking the credit for all the government’s ‘progressive’ initiatives. In response, the Conservatives will emphasise both the coalition’s public service reform agenda and its social liberalism.
As always with the Cameroons, a fair amount of gimmickry will be involved. At a meeting of Tory special advisers to run through the party’s plans for conference, there was much talk of making this the ‘slickest conference ever’.
One adviser says with a certain weariness that his group spent far longer discussing presentation than they did policy. He confesses to having tuned out by the time the conversation turned to a conference iPhone app for blind people.
There are, though, areas where the Tories are happy to let the Liberal Democrats caricature them. They were relaxed about their partners’ insistence in Birmingham that they wouldn’t let the Tories do anything about the Human Rights Act or the European Union. These assertions provide Cameron with ready-made dividing lines for the next election. He will tell the country that he needs a majority, not another coalition, if he is to do anything about these issues. One Downing Street source remarks that the Liberal Democrats are helping make sure that ‘on the big issues for the nation, everyone knows we’re on the popular side of the argument’.
Will all this be enough to win a majority, though? More than a year into government, the Conservatives still lack a clear identity. To Steve Hilton’s mounting frustration, Cameron seems reluctant to conform with the image of a radical Conservative insurgent taking on the government machine on behalf of the people. The Prime Minister hasn’t decided whether his model is Harold Macmillan or Margaret Thatcher.
This lack of definition should worry more people in No. 10 than it does. Those Tories who think that ‘not being Ed Miliband’ will be enough to bring about the party’s first election victory in five attempts should remember that ‘not being Gordon Brown’ wasn’t enough last time.
SPECTATOR.CO.UK/COFFEEHOUSE For the Tory conference as it happens.
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