Anthony Painter

The Labour party clearly hasn’t distinguished itself this week. Actually, contrary to the prevailing feeling in the party at large I don’t feel any anger towards Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt for thinking what they think or for saying so publicly. They are entitled to do both and a Guardian leader this morning is a pretty fair assessment- I don’t agree with all of it but I do agree with much of it. However, the time to do that was last June. Not now.

We can’t as a party get ourselves in a position where people are not allowed to express perfectly legitimate opinions without being vilified- that’s a recipe for ossification. However, the months leading up to a general election require certain disagreements to be down-graded because there are bigger arguments to be had- and they are all with the Conservatives. That’s the mistake the Hoon and Hewitt made and if they were promised political cover by certain Cabinet ministers who failed to follow through on that then that reflects very badly on those individuals in every conceivable respect.

Actually, the Labour party, in ideological and policy terms, is more united now than at anytime since the (mid) 1940s. The opposite is the case with the Conservative party. In leadership and political terms they seem very united. There is a galvanising effect that years in the wilderness has on a party. In absence of strife….

However, in ideological and policy terms they are exceedingly disunited. Ultimately, this will boil over and render David Cameron’s leadership impotent (and his clear vacillations- on Married Couples Allowance, the role of government, Education Maintenance Allowances- reflect these divisions.) But not now, which makes it even more important that the Labour party retain its discipline in the current months.

There are six Conservative divides that warrant further discussion (there are more…):

1. Values

There is a fundamental divide with Conservativism between what I’ll call progressivism and neo-Thatcherism. It’s not a neat distinction, e.g. George Osborne is a Neo-Thatcherite with reformist instincts and steals progressive language from time to time-  but, just occasionally, the fog clears and the dividing lines can be seen.

Most recently, this came to the surface in the furious press briefing that went on in reaction to the role and values of David Cameron’s one-man think tank and chief strategist, Steve Hilton. It is clear that Hilton is the only guy who gets Cameronism as David Cameron would like it to be (but can’t achieve it politically because of….Tory divisions.) It’s easy to dismiss Hilton’s strategic emails as a lot of The Thick of It’s Stewart Pearson-esque trendy progressive guff but actually they are more substantial than that and point to a lot of important new thinking. That some Tory front-benchers resent new thinking is indicative of the profound challenge that David Cameron has with respect to his own party in philosophical terms.

The easy thing to do is mock and quote more ridiculous sounding passages but there’s a lot of good material in these emails that is of interest to any political thinkers and actors who are in search of ideas and examples of innovative practice. Much of David Cameron’s own party just simply doesn’t get this.

2. Europe

Yes, that old turkey. The Tories may have been determinedly packing their benches with euro-sceptics for a decade and a half but these divisions still run deep. The only difference now is that the lunatics (or bastards to quote a former Prime Minister) run the asylum. David Cameron has tried to deal with this problem by expelling pro-Europeans such as Edward McMillan-Scott who refused to go along with the Conservatives’ gang of extremists and head-bangers in the European Conservative and Reform Group. McMillan-Scott’s response was clear:

“As prime minister, David Cameron will see the necessity of having friends and allies across the EU. France’s Europe minister Pierre Lellouche is right to say that by leaving the centre-right EPP group, the Tories have “marginalised themselves”. Germany’s Christian Democrat CDU party has also downgraded relations with the Conservatives.

The ECR group has diminished his otherwise able and hard-working MEPs’ ability to deliver Cameron’s agenda on EU reform, climate change and open markets: its 60-odd members would have given real added value to the 265 in the EPP and helped shape their policies.”

As Prime Minister this would all come back to haunt Cameron. The pragmatic reality of having to deal constructively and not petulantly with the EU will bring all these divisions to the surface. Euro-scepticism may now be the mainstream Conservative view but it also intransigent.

3. NHS

The neo-Thatcherite v progressive Tory divide cuts a slice through the Conservative party commitment to the NHS. Today, LabourList has a piece by Tom Harris MP about a meeting that has taken place between David Cameron and Nurses for Reform who basically want to end the NHS and import the American system of private insurance with the state providing only a Medicare/ Medicaid style safety net. It’s an arguable case but good luck with the arguments in favour.

Just to be clear, I don’t doubt that David Cameron is personally committed to the NHS. I just doubt that he has to strength to resist- in certain not unlikely circumstances- demands from the right of his party that the service is chipped away at the edges or more deeply. The Conservative health policy earlier this week was basically a BMA agenda co-opted into a policy. That’s fine but let’s not pretend that this is about patient control and choice. It’s not- GP’s will hold budgets not patients: in a truly patient-centred NHS this would not be the case. Again, the case can be argued either way but let’s be clear what the Conservative position is. My point here is that David Cameron constantly allows himself to be held hostage to particular interests and agendas.

So what chance is there that he will be able to resist the forward charge of Hannanism? Just in case you’ve forgotten what Daniel Hannan would like to see happen to the NHS, here is a video I posted a few weeks ago to remind you. Sounds very much like the Nurses for Reform agenda does it not? Will Cameron- who has shown weakness time and time again- be able to resist?

4. Human rights

There is a deep fault-line emerging within the Conservative party between the type of populist cant you get from Chris Grayling and the more thoughtful approach of Dominic Grieve who is skewered on the Conservatives’ ridiculous pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights in replacement (see Ed Williams’ incisive analysis of why this is futile, dangerous and will harm the vulnerable.)

As Mary Riddell recently wrote:

“Mr Straw is also weighing in with an attack on the Tories’ plans on human rights. A report released yesterday examines rifts over David Cameron’s pledge to rip up the Human Rights Act. Replacing the HRA with a Bill of Rights parallel to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is becoming a serious faultline for the party.

With Ken Clarke describing the plan as “xenophobic and legal nonsense” and Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, clamouring for “fewer rights, more wrongs”, Dominic Grieve is in a bind. Mr Grieve, the shadow justice secretary, is a thoughtful defender of human rights who must balance Britain’s obligations to the ECHR with the demands of swivel-eyed elements within his party.

His response has been to urge Mr Cameron to stay signed up to the convention while producing a British Bill of Rights to be introduced at the end of a Tory first term. In other words, as No 10 sources allege, another Cameron pledge is heading for the long grass.”

5. Climate change

This is the issue that divides Conservatives the most. The fissue goes from the very top of the party- the party grandees, the Shadow Cabinet (though they are notably quiet on it!), the parliamentary party- to the Tory blogsphere and the grass-roots. I would recommend Sunder Katwala’s excellent analysis (as if, when it came to Sunder, the adjective was necessary!) of this at Next Left. He quotes Tim Montgomerie, Editor of ConservativeHome website, on this (from an Andrew Grice analytical piece):

“Climate change really is an issue that can split conservative parties around the world,” said Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website. He is a sceptic – like all the others voted among the “top 10 Tory bloggers”. He believes the vibrant Tory blogsphere on the issue reflects the doubts among a majority of Tory MPs, parliamentary candidates and grassroots members. “The core of the party is very sceptical.”

Not only will David Cameron have to contend with Euro-scepticism in his party to push forward a strong environmental agenda but he will have to contend with a new wave of expressive anthropogenic climate change scepticism. And remember, this issue was central to the re-branding/ de-toxification of the Conservative party and is a pet cause of Steve Hilton who is rumoured to have voted for the Greens in 2001. If in office, to fail on this will begin to unravel this process.

This issue also strikes at the very heart of the final Tory division: the role of the state.

6. Role of the state

David Cameron and his team were shaken by the reaction to his conference speech from the liberal and progressive media that they had done so much to court over the previous three and half years. It is easy to understand why the reaction was as it was when you read the following passage:

“It is more government that got us into this mess.

Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they’d abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, spent too much and doubled the national debt.

Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.

Why are our politics broken? Because government got too big, promised too much and pretended it had all the answers.”

A clearer expression of neo-Thatcherism would be difficult to find (I’ve analysed this in more detail here.) They panicked and in reaction went to the opposite extreme. In a spectacular reversal in his Hugo Young Memorial lecture, Cameron described the role of the state as:

“Galvanising, catalysing, prompting, encouraging and agitating for community engagement and social renewal. It must help families, individuals, charities and communities come together to solve problems.

We must use the state to remake society.”

It could be because of the absence of a settled view about this fundamental philosophical divide in politics that David Cameron has been unable to articulate a different economic vision in the face of financial meltdown- either in reaction or in mapping out a different strategic direction for the British economy in a way that Lord Mandelson, with a settled and intelligent view of these issues, was able to do yesterday.

Use the state to remake society? Wow. Some on the liberal left- myself included- have a degree of nervousness about that as a notion. On one reading, that is a highly dangerous attitude to adopt. But the point about the conference speech and the Hugo Young Memorial lecture is not about which was right and which is wrong. It is that it is very difficult to believe both things simultaneously.

And actually this Tory division is most concerning. It is a division that exists within the Leader of Opposition himself. I actually believe he is a closet Hilton-ite progressive conservatism struggling to find his authentic voice. This is because he is too weak to resist other forces in his party: free-marketeers, euro-sceptics, anti-NHSers, neo-Thatcherites, bang ‘em all uppers, libertarians, and will ultimately capitulate to climate change sceptics too. The Conservative is ridden with ideological and policy divisions and it’s hardly as if these issues are irrelevant to the future of the nation. Far from it.

The sad thing is that their Leader is too. The country will be looking on at Labour with disapproval. They may well- as the election phony war ends- look at Conservative divisions with even greater concern.

Post script: Iain Dale smells conspiracy and a coordinated ‘attack.’ Hate to disappoint but this was a completely lone strike. I’ve responded in his comments.