Conservatism

I open a dusty binder and look at my yellowing Spectator articles from Poland, Germany and Russia in the dramatic 1980s. And here’s one from Brussels in 1986, suggesting that Britain was edging towards finding its role in the European Community. Ho ho. Back then, Charles Moore was the editor and I was the foreign editor of this magazine. He shared my passion for the liberation of eastern Europe, while becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the western European Community, but he let me make the case for it. Now, 30 years on, Charles and I stand on different sides of a historic national argument. This makes for a curious role reversal.

Blue collars are all the rage in the Tory party these days, which makes Stephen Crabb a very fashionable cabinet minister. He was brought up in a Welsh council house by his mother, a single parent. His political views were shaped by seeing the way in which Thatcher’s reforms transformed his neighbourhood. He still believes Conservative values give the best hope for working-class and Welsh voters. As George Osborne leads an ever-deeper raid on Labour territory, we can expect to see and hear a lot more from people like Stephen Crabb. For the last year this confident 42-year-old has been Secretary of State for his native Wales, and his approach

As David Cameron lined up beside Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband at the Cenotaph on the day after the general election, he said that he had thought he would be the one writing a resignation statement that day. He may also have imagined how history would have judged him: as a so-so Tory leader who didn’t quite manage to win an election against the reviled Gordon Brown and was booted out after one term. A leader who was good at balancing a coalition but who didn’t stand for (or achieve) very much himself. It would have been a miserable legacy. Luckily he now has the chance to reshape it. The

It can happen that something ought to feel wrong yet somehow doesn’t; and you wonder whether this means that in some deep way it could be right. Take for example a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday last week. The subject was the rise of the ‘Teflon’ United Kingdom Independence Party. I ought to have found the programme’s handling of this to be inappropriate; yet it felt both appropriate and natural. In this column I shall discuss why. Radio presenters do not give explanatory headlines to political interviews. At about 8.20 a.m. Evan Davis simply said ‘Let’s talk about Ukip’ and off they went, ‘they’ being himself

David Cameron led the Conservatives out of the political wilderness by pursuing the modernisation of the Tory brand, which had become associated with reactionary social attitudes and a dog eat dog economy. In today’s tricky economic climate, the Tories need to focus on challenging perceptions that they are the ‘party of the rich’, offering policies that ease the cost of living and improve public services for those on low- to middle-incomes. But this urgent task does not quell the need to continue the unfinished social modernisation of the Conservative Party, most often associated with Cameron’s early premiership: namely, modernising the party’s stance on gay rights, climate change, wellbeing, poverty and international

The coalition has had a bad day today. It has been knocked all over the park following the IFS report that labeled the Budget regressive. Now, I’m sure the coalition will say that if it had to pick a day to take a hammering, one towards the end of August would be what they would have chosen. But I think there are five lessons that the coalition needs to learn from today if it is to navigate successfully through the political shoals of the next few months. 1). It needs a stronger narrative about what it is doing. Mark Hoban was woeful on the Today programme this morning. He had

Phillip Blond has been attracting a lot of publicity in the past few weeks and it was standing room only at the launch of his new think tank Res Publica. (I should say that I am on its advisory board). David Cameron gave the opening remarks, stressing the influence Blond’s thinking has had on how the Tories think about poverty and public services, but he was also keen to point out that he doesn’t agree with everything that Blond says. Ever since the trouble caused by last summer’s Policy Exchange report advocating abandoning various northern cities, the Cameroons have been wary of getting too close to any think tank for

My recent post about the BNP has offended liberals as well as the hard right. Liberal Conspiracy’s Sunny Hundal writes: ‘David is highly confused. This is because he says: “The Spectator has maintained that the party’s domestic policies are inspired by racial supremacist ideology and that its economic policies are like Dagenham – that is, three stops beyond Barking.” Yes, I’ll agree with that. The party’s domestic policies are indeed inspired by a racial supremacist ideology. Which is why people should avoid following those policies right? Except, he does on to say centrist parties “must engage with (and I mean engage with, not shout down)” BNP policies. What a muddle.