So now conservatives, and particularly Conservatives, must all change ‘the way we look, the way we feel, the way we think and the way we behave’. It is a tribute to David Cameron’s persuasive charm that he makes people want to do these things. He has a knack of appealing to one’s better nature rather than rebuking one for one’s worse. When I took over as chairman of the centre-Right think-tank Policy Exchange after the general election, I encountered a group of mostly young people excited by policies for just such change, but exasperated at the lack of vehicles for them. New Labour had ceased to think, Charles Kennedy’s Liberal Democrats didn’t much go in for that sort of thing, and the Tories were effectively leaderless. We were talking (and are talking still) about ways of making Britain more competitive, local, free and green. We wanted (and want) more thought about matters Tories haven’t thought enough about, like the life of cities, the mental networks which foster terrorism, the way planning controls make house-building worse. It is heartening to find that Mr Cameron wants policy ideas to arise from big themes like these rather than sticking to departmental subjects, and to hear him say so in his very first speech as leader. Many of the themes he announced are close to ours. To put it in language bankers like, the market is beginning to move. Give us your ideas, your involvement, your money (none of the last goes to me: I am unpaid) — info@policyexchange.org.uk.
Until Tuesday it was David versus David. Now it is David versus Goliath. The question, though, is who is Goliath? Is it Tony or Gordon? Bearing in mind this column’s lonely theory that Gordon Brown is not the inevitable successor to Tony Blair, might it not be dangerous for David Cameron to focus too much on Mr Brown? I don’t think so.
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