In an unexpected plot twist, David Cameron and Gordon Brown are fighting over a woman: not, we hasten to add, as suitors, but as public moralists. The Prime Minister has long been a fan of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the American intellectual best known for her studies of the Victorian era. Now, Mr Cameron has paid homage to the great conservative sage too.
At the heart of the Tory leader’s fine speech in Glasgow on Monday was the declaration that ‘there is a danger of becoming quite literally a de-moralised society, where nobody will tell the truth any more about what is good and bad, right and wrong’. This — as Mr Brown will have grasped instantly — was a clear reference to Himmelfarb’s 1995 book of essays, The De-moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values.
Tony Blair’s claim to the Labour leadership in 1994 was largely founded on his success as shadow home secretary and his insistence — particularly after the horror of James Bulger’s murder — that the maintenance of the social fabric depended upon a clear notion of right and wrong, and that fashionable relativism was the route to perdition. From a senior Labour politician, these assertions were refreshing and electorally appealing.
For a Conservative leader, these are more perilous straits. The ghost of ‘Back to Basics’ still looms over the party. When John Major said in 1993 that ‘society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less’, he was taking issue with the pervasive idea that all bad behaviour is the product of adverse social conditions. But his (perfectly legitimate) remarks were widely mocked as the words of a weakened Tory PM posturing as a tough guy.
Mr Cameron was well aware of the risk he was taking in marching on to this terrain.
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