Which way is right: the centre holds

Few put a political argument better than Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, and his latest column in the Times is no exception. Policies portrayed as priorities of the Tory right, he said, are also shared by the majority of the public. Some 70 per cent of Britons want a referendum on Europe and 80 per cent support a tougher approach to crime. He reprised Sir Keith Joseph’s argument about the ‘common ground’ which politicians ought to share with the public. You really can be Eurosceptic and cherish the NHS. It’s possible to favour less immigration and a more generous state pension.

Montgomerie’s thesis is that a wise Conservative party would pick-and-mix its policy proposals, and that just because some of these would be described as right-wing or even extreme does not mean they would represent minority points of view. I realise he eschews the language of ‘right-/left-’ wing but the key positions he recommends are described as right-wing. It’s his implicit complaint that ‘centre’ implies (without quite asserting) the place on the political spectrum where the bulk of voters are located. But are they? Tim suggests that on many issues (he mentions crime and punishment, and what he calls a ‘patriotic’ resistance to the demands of the European Union) the ‘centre’ of the spectrum is rather empty, and the ‘common ground’ is elsewhere.

Tim’s case, though freshly stated, is really the time-honoured argument of the Tory right. He varies it elegantly by suggesting that some left-wing policies, too, could be thrown into the mix, but is less specific about these than about policies generally called right-wing. The ‘left-wing’ positions he does allude to are higher state pensions and ‘cherishing’ the NHS. The problem with these is that they tend to increase the size and cost of the state, and individuals’ reliance upon it.