David Cameron’s summer retreat and the long drift right

The Anthony Painter Labour movement column

When Steve Hilton – of Vote Blue, Go Green inspiration and who himself voted Green in 2001 – was calling the shots, David Cameron was an intriguing political figure. He would talk about social breakdown, and while ‘hug a hoodie’ wasn’t exactly media savvy, you could see that Cameron was reaching for a different type of dialogue. It felt like an intellectually and politically challenging Conservative party was emerging.

Cameronism as a political force lasted until Summer 2007, when the leader of the opposition was set on a familiar Conservative-leader-in-opposition course: reach for the centre, miss, drift out right.

It was actually a triple whammy that spelt the end of Cameronism: Gordon Brown, Northern Rock and Andy Coulson. David Cameron was an admirer of Tony Blair. He took the new Labour model and applied it to de-toxify the Conservative brand. What he was never able to do was take it one step further and change the party for good.

Tony Blair constantly challenged the Labour party. For that reason, there will always be an uneasy relationship between the party and the former PM. In his first 18 months of leadership, David Cameron seemed to want to do the same – on the environment, on social policy, and on public investment – but he never found a game-changing, Clause IV moment. The parliamentary party he is likely to be leading after the next election is, as Tim Montgomerie put it in the FT earlier this week, “cast in the iron image of Lady Thatcher.”

And don’t forget how close he came to losing the leadership of his party when it looked like he was heading for a defeat in an Autumn 2007 general election. That experience will live long in the memory when it comes to taking on his neo-Thatcherite party. The sword will stay in the scabbard.

While he wanted to be Tony Blair Mark II – and the fact that he would never have to face him in a general election made the imitation strategy easier – attraction turned to repulsion once Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. A centripetal dynamic became centrifugal and the long drift right began.

In addition, in July 2007 Andy Coulson came in as Director of Communications. Comparisons between Coulson and Tony Blair’s Alastair Campbell abound. But those comparisons miss the point. Alastair Campbell was a tactician working to a strategy – one to which he contributed. Andy Coulson’s appointment marked the elevation of tactical nous over strategic thinking in the Cameron inner circle. David Cameron still raises the notion of ‘progressive conservatism’ when it suits him or he wants to get a double page spread in the Guardian but he is no longer defined by it. He is leaving it to wither.

His speech on January 22nd of this year put very little flesh on the “progressive ends through conservative means” notion. Like a man pursuing prosperous ends through indolent means, it will inevitably fail as a strategy – if it is indeed a strategy and not simply a soundbite. But the key point here is ‘progressive conservatism’ is a distant echo of what may have developed into an intriguing political idea.

After huskies in Norway, hugging hoodies, and public angst over the future of grammar schools, there was little doubt that Cameron’s media strategy needed to be tightened. But he threw the baby out with the bath water. And the decision to bring in a media attack dog who will seemingly stop at nothing could backfire as Andy Coulson’s time as an Editor at the News of the World comes into sharper focus – despite a near media blackout of the allegations. Steve Hilton returns to these shores for good this month but it may already be too late for his strategic approach.

In September 2007, a third hammer blow hit Cameronism. The collapse of Northern Rock put the economy on top of the political pile, where it remains. David Cameron’s Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has let him down continuously. Faced with a maelstrom the like of which has not been seen since 1930s, the Conservatives were woefully under-prepared and remained behind the curve at every point. They had little choice but to fall back on Thatcherite economic orthodoxy. Had they been in office, the consequences would have been catastrophic.

The economy has shrunk by almost 5% in the last year. Unemployment has risen by 281,000 in the last quarter. Industrial output tumbles. There is talk about economic recovery as if it is inevitable and yet Japan, the most recent example of a major economy facing a sustained battering, shows that it is anything but. The political debate is about public spending cuts as if we are out of the mire. We’re not. The real debate is not about how deep the cuts should be. It is when.

And yet, David Cameron ignores the economic situation and whistles a familiar tune about public debt. Of course, public spending will have to be cut at some point and debt reduced. Do it too early and any fragile recovery will be shattered, as pointed out by former Bank of England MPC member, David Blanchflower, this morning.

It would be very surprising if economic recovery were so robust that it will not be a profound issue in the next election. David Cameron, as things stand, goes into that general election without a convincing case of how, if elected, he would sustain recovery. He has increasingly resorting to, admittedly smart, tactical manoeuvring over strategic vision. He has failed to reform his party. The summer of ’67 was the summer of love. For David Cameron, the summer of ’07 was the summer of retreat.