On behalf of the Conservative party

By Dan McCurry

Are there any Tories left who do “speak on behalf of the Conservative Party”? David Cameron is starting to sound comical. First it’s Dan Hannan, dismissed as an eccentric who doesn’t speak for the Conservative Party, and then it’s his EU mates, then we had Alan Duncan not speaking for the party when he described £65,000 a year as rations. Amazingly, we’ve now got Sir Patrick Cormack, a candidate for speaker no less, insisting that £130,000 is the correct remuneration for sitting about getting pissed in the commons bars waiting for the bell to ring so they can go staggering through the lobby gate; his mates pulling him in the right direction as he drunkenly joins the Labour line; all in order to complete the functions of a job that he describes as being comparable in responsibility to that of an “industrial leader”(!). Next thing you know we’ll have Douglas Hogg popping up and agreeing, only to be described as “not speaking for the party”. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Ultimately, who wants to follow a man who isn’t directing the Conservative Party on the basis of his conviction, but on the basis of the only thing he knows; the media and communication? I mean, this is a bloke who was in Downing Street when Sterling fell out of the ERM and then decided he should get some work experience before entering parliament, but didn’t join the police, study economics, or work for the foreign office to gain an understanding of any of those complex subjects, he did what he believed to be the overwhelmingly important skill that would be needed by a future leader; he became a PR man. If he truly believed what he claimed to stand for, if he had conviction, he’d have his party with him, but he doesn’t have conviction, he’s guided by what he perceives is needed by the media, and his party knows it, and now they’re getting resentful at having to pretend to be something they’re not. The truth is that the Tories are not the nasty party; they’re just the party of the individual, but nice-guy-Dave is nasty, because he tries to make everyone pretend to be something they’re not. That is nasty.

The problem is not that Cameron fails to understand the Tories; I think he understands them perfectly well; he understands that they want to win. His problem is that he doesn’t understand the electorate. If a bloke stands in the polling booth and holds his pen over the Labour box and thinks, “I’m really worried about poverty and inequality. Maybe I should vote Labour?” Then he hovers the pen over the Conservative box and thinks, “Yeah, but I really want to have that nig new car.” He then ticks the Conservative Party box. Do you think I resent this man for voting Conservative? I don’t resent him; I respect him. Contrary to the beliefs of most party activists, it’s not the politicians who decide where the balance should exist between the role of the state and the role of the individual, it’s blokes like him; people who understand the issues but also understand their own needs, and they make that decision in their millions at the general election. That’s the role that the electorate play; they are ultimately the employers and we are the employees.

Cameron on the other hand, he thinks that because Blair was a successful politician, the Tories have to dismiss what they stand for and copy Labour; dismissing the Tory belief in the superiority of the individual to advocate the protection of the state. These days he’s trying to portray himself as intellectual, promoting authors on the subject of chaos theory, but this just proves he’s not an intellectual. If he was an intellectual, he’d advocate the purpose of Conservatism instead of aping the field of Socialism. If he was an intellectual he’d know that the needs of the British people swing like a pendulum between the two. This rightful and fruitful balance between individualism and the state is being damaged by Cameron, and although the Conservative Party may well get themselves a single term in office, they’ll be damaged long-term for eroding their reputation, their heritage and the very philosophy that underpins the institution that is the British Conservative Party.

There are few issues in politics that I and Dan Hannan would agree on, but the usurping of Labour ground on the false belief that this will benefit either party is something on which I believe he would agree strongly with me. It’s time for Cameron to stop telling us that members of the Conservative Party don’t speak on behalf of the Conservative Party; it’s time that David Cameron recognised that he doesn’t speak for the Conservative Party. It’s time he stopped aping my Labour Party and started speaking on behalf of the Tories and what they stand for.