Charles Moore
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It is interesting that the cause of change is promoted by the most genetically tribal Tories. The chairman, Francis Maude, is of the purest Tory blood. He has that detached, dry manner that is attractive in real human beings and doesn’t work on television. Sometimes nowadays, because he is a moderniser, he goes around without a tie on, but this only makes him look like some seedy fellow who hasn’t had the chance to go home and change, whereas in the traditional Conservative tribal costume of dark suit and sober tie he looks intelligent and distinguished. His speech on Tuesday was a much more successful version of Theresa May’s ‘nasty party’ effort. He is right that the Conservative ‘brand’ has only to be stamped on something for that thing to lose value. As he hinted, this has more to do with the behaviour of MPs than of the rank and file. What remains unclear is what to do about it.
Mr Maude wants Tories to show that they ‘know and understand and can reflect today’s Britain’, and Mr Cameron says they must ‘love this country as it is’. The poor old party sets itself to this task with the determination of a pensioners’ aerobics class — plenty of pain and a little, hard-won gain. The trouble is that knowing, understanding and reflecting today’s Britain can be a rather melancholy activity, particularly as one observes life in the streets of Blackpool, where the welfare ‘safety net’ looks more like the bonds that tie people down.
One person who certainly does not know, understand or reflect today’s Britain is Kenneth Clarke. This is both to his credit and his disadvantage. He is a completely 20th-century figure, right down to the BAT deputy chairmanship which the BBC would mercilessly attack as ‘Tory sleaze’ if he were not the left-wing candidate. His very entry into the contest has made it old-fashioned because it has revived traditional Conservative Left–Right splits when they would have done better to have the debate about reform that the others want and Ken does not remotely understand. He has a wonky memory too. He says that the party ‘tore itself apart’ over the European constitution. Not so; almost all of them were against it except for him. He confidently predicts that the great European issues will not recur in the next ten years. If you think back ten years, you will remember that the euro had not yet been introduced and the constitutional process had not even begun. So it will not be all quiet on that front for so much as a month, let alone a decade. And if it showed signs of being so, Mr Blair would be quite sure, if Mr Clarke were leader, to bring it forward in a form designed to split the Tories. The tobacco link, by the way, annoys more Tories than I thought it would; but what is really upsetting them is another less publicised directorship that the great man has picked up — of the politically carcinogenic Independent.
A friend of mine, let us call him Ben, who has been in the House of Commons for two parliaments and established himself there prominently, was talking to a colleague in the corridors recently when Ken Clarke approached. After a word with the older man, Ken hailed Ben warmly: ‘How are you, Jack?’ he cried. A third of the parliamentary Conservative party has got in since 2001. It doesn’t help to canvass them if you haven’t the faintest idea who they are.
The candidate who most embodies change — as opposed to arguing for it — is David Davis. Even in these classless days, it would be something for the Conservative party to be led by a man with his ‘backstory’ (as everyone now calls it). It is amusing that many of the supporters of change have a certain distaste for Davis for what come close to snobbish reasons. He sometimes says ‘lady’ rather than ‘woman’, which they take to be sexist but which is really an example of working-class good manners. His female supporters have also upset some here by wearing T-shirts which say ‘It’s DD for me’ in the relevant area. Is he too much of an alpha male, they ask? Alpha anything would surely be a good idea at this point in the party’s fortunes. I am impressed by Davis’s interest in ideas, his rather questing curiosity. More worrying is his encyclopaedic knowledge of the voting numbers and the intricacies of individual backbench grievances. Candidates should leave these things to their campaign managers. In part of the reversal of everything that has taken place in Tory politics, is the David from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ now too much the insider, while the David with the silver spoon in his mouth is more the outsider?
If anyone quotes Harold Macmillan’s ‘Events, dear boy, events’ to me ever again, I shall hit him. It would make a good name, though, for a rather camp firm of party organisers.
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