Forward with the Tories?

A cordial Trans-Atlantic welcome from Manhattan. I’m a Brit currently exiled in New York City and I blog at Third Avenue. I haven’t been here all that long, so am still non-plussed by such news as that the Mets have beaten the Knicks by 29 innings and a touch-down. My interests remain deeply rooted in UK politics, an area in which until recently I was reasonably gainfully employed.

As a starter, I will consider from my left-of-centre perspective the future prospects of the Tory party. The party’s in deep trouble, able to win some seats because of local swings, but unable to increase its share of the national vote.

So here’s my memo to Conservative Central Office. I’m no Tory, and would be unlikely to vote for them even if they took my advice. Much of the following, however, is actually sincerely meant:

Forward with the Tories?

You’re in trouble. You have failed to engage the British public, you have failed to make them believe that you are a credible government.

You need to be able to create a new picture of Britain, a Britain that people will want to live in and that they will vote for. For the time being I want you to concentrate on three areas where some effort on your part could reap rewards. These are: patriotism, Europe and the role of the state. I’ll take them each in turn.

Patriotism

Like most woolly Guardian-reading lefties, I’m made distinctly nervous by the merest mention patriotism. So all the more reason for you to make it your trump card. And my advice to you is to position yourself on traditional Tory ground: proud to be British, British is best, the British people are the luckiest in the world.

Unfortunately, a big problem for you is that the British right has lost the knack of being patriotic. Open the pages of the Telegraph or the Spectator, surf through the right-wing blogs, and you will see article after article denigrating Britain. Writers take great delight in listing reasons not to be proud of their country. The Daily Mail now actively hates Britain. In the writings of, say, Melanie Phillips or Peter Hitchens you will find patriotism morphed into what one might call patriophobia: Britain is degenerate; Britain is a cess-pit; Britain is a slave of Brussels; Britain is a crime-ridden hellhole where, if anyone does survive their inevitable mugging, they will then certainly die of MRSA in the sewer-like hospital to which they will be condemned. If any individual has the temerity to believe that their life is actually quite nice, this is only because they have been brainwashed into believing such nonsense by the socialist junta in power and its lickspittle lackeys at the BBC. They need to be re-educated until they see the light: Britain is a truly dreadful place, and the life of its inhabitants one of unspeakable degradation.

There may be a place for such views, but you must resolutely turn your back on them. They please some of the paltry 33% of the population who remain devoted to you, but they are a serious turn-off to the rest of your fellow Britons.

Saying that you like Britain in the 1950s is not patriotism. The past, after all, is a foreign country. You must like Britain now, warts and all (even if you would quite like to get rid of the warts). Your picture of the country should be relentlessly positive. You must be Britain’s proudest advocates.

Try this patriotism test. Imagine two sets of contradictory crime figures are published on the same day: one states crime is falling, the other that it is rising. Which do you instinctively believe? Is your gut reaction to be pleased that figures show that your fellow countrymen are decent people and becoming more law-abiding, or do you in your heart of hearts sense some joy at the figures that show your country in the worse light? Do you feel any desire at all to rubbish the former set of figures and play up the latter? If you do, beware. You may be suffering from latent patriophobia. Of course, this does not mean that you should ignore unpleasant statistics or minimise their import. What it does mean is that you should cultivate the instinct in yourselves and others of feeling good about your country. That way your country just might vote for you.

Or what about immigration? Isn’t the fact that so many people want to settle in the UK something to be intensely proud of? In the global market place of countries, Britain is one of the most attractive. You may not want to allow everyone to stay, but the fact that so many want to come surely says something very positive about Britain. Yet somehow you have made it a badge of shame. Another reason to do Britain down.

I am not advocating some Panglossian view of Britain, where everything is rosy. Patriotism does not mean being blind to faults. But it does mean that your language about the country should always, always be positive. You must believe that Britain is the best place in the world to live. Labour is holding it back – you can make it even better.

Europe

Okay, I admit Europe is a can of worms and there is no simple solution for you. But again, you need to accentuate the positive and be proud of your country. Withdrawal, despite the siren voices that are not hard to find, is not on the cards. It would tear your party apart, cause many of your supporters to desert you and certainly make you unelectable. It is not a feasible option.

So, you’re in Europe to stay. You must make the best of it. You must stop portraying Britain as a victim of Europe. Being a victim is not a pleasant feeling – it may make people feel special the short term, but inevitably ends up being disempowering and negative. Rather, you must portray Britain for what it is – one of the giants of the European Union.

You must accept that Britain will not always get its own way– this is inevitable. But if you can’t cope with the very principle of pooling/surrendering sovereignty, then you really must get out of NATO and the WTO as well.

Your line should always be that Britain is a strong country within Europe, it has the best diplomats, the best negotiators. While it can’t always get its way, it is one of the most important members of the EU and can move it forward positively.

Once you accept that Britain is and remains an EU member, which you have, you must then go on to portray membership positively. Your current victim-based portrayal of membership gets you absolutely nowhere.

The role of the state

Getting the state out of people’s lives. This is an attractive Tory position that could win you votes. But are you ready for its consequences? On current performance, you’re not.

Getting the state out of people’s lives means admitting that politicians do not have solutions. That ministers should not intervene. And that you, in opposition, should not call on them to do so.

Are you sure you realise what this entails? Imagine the scenario. A social work department of a local council, after a series of management failures, lets a child-abuse network run rampant despite numerous clear warning signs. Are you ready to call on the government to do nothing? To say that it is none of Whitehall’s business? That it is purely a matter for local people? You must have the courage of your convictions on this one – if you make short-term political capital out of it by criticising the government, you are implicitly saying that the government has the solution. If the government has the solution, then it follows that the state has a moral duty to intervene more and more. Is this what you want?

You face a similar dilemma on choice. If you say that parents get to choose which school their child goes to, you must realise that this is completely incompatible with your desire to boost grammar schools. Parents by definition cannot choose to send their child to a grammar school. It is the school, not the parents, that do the selecting. Are you ready for the wrath of parents who find that the chimera of choice is just that? Are your MPs ready to reply to irate letters from disappointed families by saying ‘nothing to do with me, guv, I don’t think politicians should get involved’?

This circle of reduced state involvement will be one of the hardest things for you to square. It goes against all the ingrained instincts of British politics: when things go wrong, it is the government’s fault, and therefore the solution is in the government’s hands. You have played this game as much as Labour. Can you break your addiction?

And finally…

You’re up against it. The fact that a lefty like me feels moved to give you advice shows the dire straits you are in. But, if you can regain a positive language, if you can help make Britain feel good about itself – and promise that you will try and make it feel even better – you might, just might, be back on the long, long march to power.