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Political Hay

The New York Times has endorsed British Conservative Party leader David Cameron as "nimble, persuasive, telegenic and popular."

This recent indictment must send shivers down the spines of those looking for some renewal of Britain after the cultural disintegration, decay of national identity and looming economic crisis that are the legacy of the New Labour years. Cameron seems to be dismantling all that is left of the British Conservative Party's traditions, values and achievements and deliberately turning it into a clone of New Labour -- indeed, trying to outflank Labour from the left.

It is not socialism but Thatcherism that is Cameron's bete noire. High-taxing socialism at home and possibly a dash of anti-Americanism abroad seem the Tory leader's goals.

Cameron has repeatedly denounced Thatcher's legacy and policies and in South Africa recently he apologized for her having called the African National Congress "terrorists."

Actually, they were terrorists. Soviet trained, they planted bombs in public places and burned people -- nearly all black -- to death by setting fire to petrol-filled tires round their necks, sometimes filming the process. Cameron, holding a position previously occupied by William Pitt, the Duke of Wellington, and Winston Churchill as well as Margaret Thatcher might be expected to know a little history.

Cameron suggested Thatcher had supported apartheid when in fact she had strongly opposed it. What are we to make of a Conservative leader who slanders the record of his own party's greatest Prime Minister in the last 50 years?

SYMBOLLICALLY, CAMERON HAS DROPPED the Tories' previous logo of a burning torch and replaced it with a child's scribble of a green tree, though one critic pointed out it could equally well be a distant view of an old Etonian in a cloud of marijuana smoke. The Conservative Party seems to have no policies except to distance itself from any possible accusations of being conservative.

A policy review group set up by Cameron effectively apologized for the party's alleged traditional hostility to the public sector (in fact spending on the public sector has grown under every British government in modern times. It has simply tended to grow slower under the Tories), and called for an end to "public bad, private good" thinking.

"The political culture has often required the Conservatives to belittle the efforts of people whose objectives we share," the Public Service Improvement Policy Group said.

Increasing the public sector as the country got richer was allegedly "part of being human," and "it is in this context that we believe that all Conservatives should embrace an unambiguous commitment to the growth of public services, as part of general well-being."

Oliver Letwin, the party's policy director, endorsed the conclusion of more public spending as a "decisive turning point" both for the country and the Party. There is an alarming probability that he is right. Letwin as Shadow Chancellor in April 2004 told the party conference that a Tory government would reduce the civil service by 100,000. He also promised then that regulations would be made more difficult to introduce and easier to abolish.

The report also claimed that what the public sector could learn from the private sector had been "vastly overstated." This doesn't really mean anything except a declaration of commitment to socialist principles and probably the further entrenchment of public-sector employee privileges. It is thought likely its recommendations will be adopted by the Conservative shadow cabinet.

The party should also, the report claimed, embrace a new approach involving greater "respect" for front-line professionals, and "commitment to equitable access to services such as health and education"

topics:
Taxes, Foreign Policy, Education, Africa, Socialism, Conservatism, Immigration