And so this morning you get Jackie Ashley in a foreboding warning to the Coalition that the worst is yet to come once the public realises that no-one will escape the swinging scythe of cuts and tax increases. She advises the Coalition to reconsider:

“The government would be better off asking hard questions about its strategy. Is this much pain this soon quite so clever? What if we are tipped into a double-dip recession? Even if it is able to blame Labour for the first “V”, the coalition will be blamed for the second. Is there a Plan B, any exit strategy or reverse gear if things radically worsen? Those are the questions ministers need to answer. We need less lip-smacking about cuts and more sober caution.”

She encourages Labour in its opposition, though warns of the need for constructive sobriety:

“This winter, we will have a new Labour leader, and a change in the national mood. I hope we get a truly serious critique of the government’s planned cuts – without spite or childish name-calling, but one that asks whether it is not going too fast, too far, and explains the alternatives.”

Glover on the other hand takes a more ‘no turning back’ approach. For him, the Coalition strategy is absolutely right- share the pain as pain there must be. And he warns the left against knee-jerk oppositionalism:

“The left is beginning to smell like sour yoghurt, a long moan against the world as it is and how the last government left it. The problem is not that Labour is heading towards interesting ideological isolation. The varied shades from pale pink to light magenta in which its serious candidates are painting themselves are not socialism. The problem is that the party is being bundled up in all sorts of shallow resentments and is assuming that the public will share this negativity.”

He also makes the extremely astute observation:

“UK politics is often characterised as a contest for the centre ground, but that misdescribes the nature of the quest. Centrism implies banality, but I don’t think voters want their governments to be mundane. There is a willingness to endorse radical action if it is explained and if it looks practicable.”

Labour would do well to heed this insight in its forthcoming renewal.

So who is right: Jackie Ashley or Julian Glover? In a sense they both are. Ashley is right that Labour must provide sound, grounded opposition to the Coalition and its economic and fiscal approach. Simply saying that it will go as far as the last Government just sounds irrelevant- no matter how loudly it is shouted. There is a left alternative if, in the words of Glover, it is explained and practicable. But simply sticking to its guns on the deficit means that Labour will not be listened to when it’s doing the explaining! This is not the same thing as Labour not opposing what is wrong, damaging and avoidable. It it does not then who will?

Glover’s analysis ultimately provides Labour with the stronger strategic insights. While the temptation is to simply pour scorn and hot oil on the Coalition and all its works, it will keep Labour locked in the past in the minds of voters. There are some tactical attractions to this. But it is ultimately a strategic dead end. There is a simply truism of British politics: parties win elections when they are seen as the future rather than the past. And Labour currently sounds very much like the past.

Labour, therefore, needs to follow Jackie Ashley on the need for constructive and well thought out opposition yet realise that the Glover strategy is the one that is of the most long-term use. When Labour is once again seen as the future, then it will be a viable alternative for Government once again. It has not even begun that journey as yet.

What has happened in election 2010 (so far!!!!)?

There are two predominant views on politics nicely outlined in two pieces this week. One is expressed powerfully and unapologetically by Gary Younge in The Guardian. He is working class. He hates Tories because they hate the working classes. Cameron looked on in the 1980s as the poor were oppressed- economically, legally, politically and sometimes even violently- and thought the Tories were for him which says a lot. Younge may loathe many (most) of the things that Labour has done but he hates the Tories more. They must be stopped at all costs. This is political tribalism.

The second view of politics is that you have your life and your lifestyle and you pick form numerous fluid options to match your priorities and needs at any given time. It was expressed by Mark Penn in The Times on Monday. Mark Penn has fantasised about politics becoming like retail for a considerable time- voters have a series of shifting micro-preferences and politics is about identifying these needs and innovating policy solutions tailored to you. The M&S £10 meal is designed to respond to a particular lifestyle. And the same is true of, for example, more maternity and paternity rights in the political world. It’s not about what is right necessarily. It’s about responding to footloose consumer demand more effectively than your competitors. This is politics as retail.

It is worth analysing the Liberal Democrat surge in this election to see how these two world views combine in building a party’s final support. On Saturday, I outlined how the liberal and labour strands of the left were separating to make a viable left of centre alternative to the Conservatives more difficult to achieve. That is a long term trend that has been brought into sharp focus by the surge of support for Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. For their additional support-and the fact that there may be some signs that it is subsiding in the closing stages of this election tends to support this- has actually come from groups that you wouldn’t necessarily assume to be ‘liberal’ (C2/ DEs.) In this sense, Mark Penn is right. There is a retail political element to their support which combined with the long-term increase in their base has meant that they have been able to reach almost and beyond 30% support during the course of this election campaign. Interestingly, these voters are not particularly attracted by David Cameron and the Conservatives which explains their difficulties (they may end up with barely more support as a percentage from Michael Howard in 2005- that would be a desperate outcome.)

The fact that Liberal Demcrats have attracted consumerist voters to their (increasingly) tribal base and still only manage to get in the mid to high twenties, say, is a tragedy for the left in a first past the post system. Labour is likely to end up in the high 20s/ low thirties and this is despite the fact that it has lost a huge amount of footloose support since the last election. Its base is bigger. So now we have a Liberal Democratic party/ liberal tradition that is too weak and a Labour party/ labour tradition that is strong but failing to move much beyond its core. So under first past the post, we may be facing a situation where the Liberal Democrats are too weak and Labour is not strong enough.

That’s where we are. But, as a voter, I am neither a footloose and fancy free Pennite or an angry tribalist in the style of Younge (though I do have more sympathy with Younge than Penn!) And you may not be either…..

So why am I voting Labour?

Who you vote for is a mixture of conflicting emotions and rationalities: tradition, family, your personal circumstances, ideas and values, tribal attachment, fear of the alternative, affinity, instinct, and trust. These things cut across class, gender, faith, race and ethnicity, and sexuality. Trying to predict someone’s political allegiance in this modern world is a mug’s game.

My personal history of family, place, values, ideas and belief place me firmly in the labour tradition.

Freedom is nothing without power and capability. There is no freedom without an equality that means something more than the opportunity to fail. Only through collective action- the state or more preferably through community- can each achieve in accordance their endeavour and abilities. We should never give up on anyone; there is always hope through persistence. What someone receives they should put back in equal or greater measure. Each individual is precious and their rights should be respected as such. A human society that is equal, free, cooperative, empowered, and optimistic is also creative, fair, secure, and effervescent.

For me, these things place me in the labour tradition. There are clearly liberal elements within these and even some conservative elements. But as a whole, they more resemble a labour outlook- one that has historic roots in the labour and cooperative movement and Britain’s working class communities but now is cross-class and the dominant ideological alternative to conservatism in modern Britain. It is an instinct and outlook also and is shared by somewhere in the region of 30% of British people.

I don’t hate Tories a la Younge. I just don’t trust the way they think. Their primal instincts are different to mine. And that will ultimately mean that they will do less for people who need help and support than a Labour government of any description would ever do. And their inheritance tax policy sums them up- to prioritise only the wealthy while we face a national mission to get through rough economic waters reveals their instincts in garish technicolour.

I agree with much of the Liberal Democrat agenda- political reform, civil liberties (by not respecting rights, the cost actually falls on the most deprived and alienated rather than the criminals and suspected terrorists they are supposed to target), compassionate amnesty, green investment. My own personal philosophy and outlook owes much to the liberal tradition- where would we be without Smith, Mill, Russell, Hobhouse, Green, Keynes, or Beveridge? We are different traditions largely within the left. But it comes down to tradition, instinct, emotion, and trust. The ideal future is a plural left- as distinct from a ‘new left consensus’- and Labour and the Liberal Democrats will have much in common but distinct we remain.

And the Labour party in Government has been far from perfect. Failing to hold a leadership election in 2007 will be seen as a long-term error- not because Gordon Brown wouldn’t have won but because it would made him better. It has been too unquestioning of the motivations of others in the fields of foreign policy (the invasion of Iraq will forever be a scar) and civil liberties, and failing to properly reform politics will come to be seen as an error of historic proportions. We can always argue that it should have done more on poverty, equality, on improving education and health. As people who insist on justice and change it is in our nature to always demand more and this impatience is a virtue that can become a self-destructive vice if we are not careful.

Saying that more- even much more- should have been done is not the same thing as saying Labour has done nothing. It has achieved an incredible amount.

Would the Conservative party have introduced a minimum wage, transformed the standard of healthcare, massively improved educational achievement- for the poorest more than anyone else, legislated for civil partnerships and expanded equality across the board, given workers more rights to be treated decently, devolved power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, created Sure Start, invested in families through tax credits and the child trust fund- thereby fighting inequalities in income and wealth, moved 100,000s of pensioners out of poverty, and massively expanded  higher education? And yes, you can point to flies in the ointment in all of this. But really, do you believe any of this would have happened under a Conservative government? Really? Have you looked at what happened from 1979-97?

And Labour has a vision for the future- political reform, investment in a more sustainable and productive economy, protection of health, schools, and policing and the expansion of user involvement in these public services. It’s not flashy but it’s sound.

Criticise away, but do so alongside an analysis of what the Conservatives would do. Neil Kinnock’s ‘Under the Conservatives, I warn you not to get old’ speech applies just as much now as in 1983.*

And in Methodist Central Hall on Sunday- the birthplace of the UN General Assembly- amongst people steeped in the labour tradition- Citizens UK- as Gordon Brown found his authentic voice, I remembered precisely why I was voting Labour. It is because there is a deep and abiding labour instinct in Britain- one that should have a voice and proper political representation. It is an instinct that created the party that became the greatest engine for social justice in our history. Its work is far from finished. Despite all of its many shortcomings, it is a force for good. I’m voting Labour because I am labour.

* It is worth reading Jonathan Freedland on this today.

These is an element of caricature to this of course. But the point is an important one. It shows why- in my view- the Guardian has got it horrendously wrong with its headline celebrating a ‘liberal moment’ this morning. This isn’t a ‘liberal moment.’ It is a moment when a latent liberalism- suppressed by  the political system- has again found its expression in the context of a struggling Labour party. It happened in 1983. It is happening again but for very different contingent reasons. Labour is not paying the price for extremism; it is paying the price for failing to keep pace- in style and substance- with a changed society.

But there is an important reason for not seeing this as a ‘liberal moment.’ There is underlying political rupture on the left of British politics- papered over in good years but exposed in the bad. The complacent and wishful response is to see Labour and the Liberal Democrats as different choices on a progressive menu but ultimately the same cuisine; Liberal Democrats are doing so well because Labour is the incumbent and rather tired but normal business will be resumed soon. I really wish that was the case, I just don’t see it that way.

Actually, the left in this country is divided between labourism and liberalism (or ‘progressivism’ if you must.) And they are different world views generalised (unsatisfactorily admittedly) by the Mrs Duffy v The Guardian shorthand. What binds them is the conviction that freedom is about empowerment not laisser faire, without equality people cannot be free, and some form of state or collective intervention is needed for people to be equal and free. Labourism and liberalism do not neatly divide between the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties. Labour is a broader church of world views and philosophies than the Liberal Democrats. That has been the source of its strength and why it has governed for 30 of the last 65 years. This election has cleaved liberals away from the Labour party (in the way that many of a labourist disposition walked away from the party in its early years in office.)

Let me illustrate what this means in practice in terms of the ability of a party (mainly) of the left- Labour or Liberal Democrat- to construct a winning majority. New Labour’s great success was finding a strategy to unite the liberal and labour elements of the British left. This is not to suggest that a New Labour strategy would be successful today- I don’t believe it would be but in terms of coalition building it illustrates how the left gets to sustain a governing coalition for 13 years.

Now taking a recent opinion poll that is fairly close to the poll of polls, let’s see who is supporting Labour and Liberal Democrats respectively in this election. The recent Times/ Populus poll had top lines of Conservative 36%, Liberal Democrat 28% and Labour 27%. Let’s look at the socio-economic/ age profile of Labour v Liberal Democrat supporters in that poll:

Liberal Democrat supporters are, in general, younger and more middle/ professional class than Labour supporters. Labour has 6% higher support amongst DE voters than it does amongst AB voters. Liberal Democrats have 7% more support amongst AB voters than DE voters. Labour has almost the same level of support amongst those aged 65+ as it does amongst those aged 18-24. The Liberal Democrats have 11% more support amongst 18-24 year olds compared with those 65+. They score especially highly amongst 25-44 year olds.

And this is the key point, what this election has done in a way that hasn’t previously happened- even in the aftermath of the Iraq War- is that the Guardianrati is becoming separated from the Duffyprols. Labourism is becoming severed from liberalism. The strange thing about the curious case of Mrs Duffy is that the Prime Minister expressed a liberal elitist view when he referred to her as a ‘bigot.’ And yet he is not a liberal elitist which leads me to think that he did genuinely mishear or misunderstand her. What was absolutely clear was her shock when she was told that she had been described as a bigot because she was expressing what seems to her a perfectly reasonable set of arguments. Did you think so? Well, if you think that Mrs Duffy is a bigot then that may say as much about your cultural and ideological perspective as it does about hers (for the record, I do not believe what she said was ‘bigoted’ in and of itself.)

One of the issues touched on in The Guardian today was the equalities agenda. Putting aside its virtue or otherwise, it is a wedge issue between the Guardianrati and the Duffyprols. Looking through British Social Attitudes data, there is a question: ‘do you think there is generally more racial prejudice in Britain now than there was five years ago, less, or the same amount?’ 33% answered more in 2000. In 2001, this became 50%. In 2007, the figure had become 57%. According to a recent YouGov poll 40% of voters consider that white people suffer unfair discrimination in Britain compared with 19% who say the same of non-white people. Surprised by this? I was but it displays what is actually happening in terms of real attitudes rather than a projectin of our own attitudes onto others.

I’m sorry if there are tough messages here. Immigration and welfare dependency are other such issues. My point is not to argue which perspective is right or wrong (you will see my views on an amnesty for illegal immigrants in yesterday’s blog post for instance.) My point is that the left in British politics is socially, culturally and now politically polarised. The risk- a very major risk- is that Labour fails to reclaim liberals and Liberal Democrats fail to attract labourites. In the absence of a more pluralistic political system, this would be a disaster.

So my issue with the Guardian’s leader- well argued in its analysis of the three parties in the main- is very basic. In describing this election as a ‘liberal moment’ it completely misses the fundamentally nature of what is happening. If anything, and if it goes well, this will be a pluralistic moment. And that is why, as a pluralist (a labourite pluralist) I do not wish to see tactical voting anymore (it will break down anyway- the Liberal vote is predominantly anti-Tory and anti-Labour.) Let’s vote for what we believe in. Let’s show this system up to be the dog that it is. Let’s create a forcible moral argument for change.

But let’s not pretend that we are in a ‘liberal moment’ or that there is a magical progressive consensus just waiting to be wished into existence. And Nick Clegg’s assertion this morning that the Liberal Democrats have taken Labour’s place in politics was on a par with David Miliband’s assertion that support for the Liberal Democrats was all about anti-politics in the race for stupidest thing said in the election. The Guardian has been impressed with Liberal Democrats and is dismayed with Labour so it endorses Nick Clegg. Fine. I understand that. But it’s not a ‘liberal moment’. It could be a pluralist moment. Or it could be the onset of a new era of a fatally divided left.

What The Guardian did have absolutely right is the centrality of political reform in deciding which way things will go. A fairer Britain, a just Britain, depends on a more democratic and pluralistic politics- especially given the increasingly fragmented nature of the left. It’s not that our politics is ‘old fashioned.’ It’s that it no longer suits the type of society Britain has become. If both Mrs Duffy and liberal progressives are to both have their voice then reform is a bottom line. It’s not an end in itself. It’s the means to a better, fairer Britain.

This election is shattering assumptions. Whatever happens from here on in, stacked on top of what happened in response to the expenses crisis, we now know that the British political system is broken. Strangely, despite David Cameron’s protestations to the contrary, British society seems to be in ruder health. Brilliant society, broken politics.

In the old politics, you would decide which of the two main parties was the least worst option then vote tactically in your constituency against the candidate who was the worst option. Only about 60% of the electorate actually voted for a party. No wonder well over a third haven’t been voting. It’s such a negative thing to do.

Quite how that Guardian meeting on Thursday managed to come to the conclusion that what we are seeing is purely an anti-Tory moment- as it appears to have done- is beyond me. Liberal Democrats are picking up support because many voters are not only fed up of Labour and the Conservatives but because they are fed up with this negative, stunted, anti-democratic political system as well. And so the Guardian responds by recommending that voters act in the same old tactical way- and it really thinks this will secure change?

What the paper is doing and what we are all doing is working with a tired set of assumptions that are now stretching to breaking point and beyond. This is no longer a game of Parliamentary arithmetic- and the old politics will prove resilient if it’s played in that way. The popular anger at the expenses scandal wasn’t about parliamentary arithmetic either. There was a solid majority against reform in Parliament. But the people spoke with such a loud cry that things absolutely had to change.

And so it could be with this election. For what we have now is the possibility that this election becomes a national referendum for change. If people vote with their hearts and not in accordance with some calculation then things will have to change. I will be voting Labour because I am Labour. But I also believe passionately in a new politics (as will be obvious!) For me, alongside the economic recovery, it is the most important issue we face as a democracy- how we actually go about building a politics that can better reflect and engage with a changing country. But the Guardian like so many others are locked in the cage of old assumptions (and it really isn’t helpful from the perspective of Labour or political reform to dismiss what is happening and the Liberal Democrats as ‘anti-politics’ as David Miliband did this morning even if the Liberal Democrats have yet to crystallise exactly what their notion of change means.)

One of these assumptions, is that the Liberal Democrats are basically a more liberal version of Labour waiting to come home. So as a voter on the centre-left you can flip you vote between the two as regularly as some MPs flipped their homes. The one small problem is that the Liberal Democrats don’t see it that way at all.

They see themselves not as partners in waiting for Labour but as contenders as the dominant force on the centre-left in British politics. Labour is seen as failed force and, much like the political system itself, a political relic. The failures as they see it- in some cases unfairly- on poverty, political reform, reform of the state, civil liberties, and foreign policy have mounted. Credulity has evaporated. They have felt patronised and ignored- and they have been.

Just out of curiosity, I engaged with a few Liberal Democrats on Twitter this morning to market test my hunch that Liberal Democrats see themselves as an alternative to Labour not an ally, a contender not a collaborator. My hunch was about right it seems.

Lee Chalmers tells me: “I’ve recently become a Lib Dem because they occur for me as the only progressive party in the UK. New leadership needs space.” Sara Bedford wrote: “I don’t think the Conservatives see their role as enabling anyone except the articulate and the able.’ She then went on to say: “I feel a sizable number of Labour want to do things ‘for the poor’, rather than enable them not to BE poor.”

And Nick Clegg himself sees the Liberal Democrats as an alternative- not a junior partner to Labour in a newly re-aligned centre-left. In this sense the Liberal Democrats are the DUP to the Labour’s UUP. The strategy is replacement. There is a bit of personal spice to this as Matthew Parris illustrates. But it is far, far deeper than that.

Clegg’s is different reading of political history- one where collectivism has run its course and liberalism is the next leg of progressive change in Britain. Liberal democracy is waiting in the twenty-first century wings to take over from Labour’s clunky twentieth century collectivist machine. How do we know this? Well, he wrote it in a pamphlet for Demos last year. And Sunder Katwala dissected- and critiqued- what it could all mean. Katwala asked portentiously:

“Do the Lib Dems today increasingly represent rising social movements and constituencies that Labour can not reach?”

And that is the issue with the tactical voting ruse. Labour isn’t reaching these voters as of yet. So to ask them to directly or even obliquely vote Labour entirely misses the point. Katwala’s conclusion gets it spot on in terms of where we are politically in relation to Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats:

“Clegg is right that the parties share, and contest, progressive space.

He is no doubt right as a matter of political reality that the politics of progressive cooperation are too difficult now.”

Libearlism like socialism and social democracy is an enlightenment philosophy (and expect to hear the names TH Green and LT Hobhouse- the new liberals- over the next few weeks and RH Tawney will crop up as well.) As such it embodies a notion of ‘progress.’ But Nick Clegg’s notion of ‘progress’ is a very different one to Gordon Brown’s. It is easy to caricature these things but I suspect, in some respects, Nick Clegg has more in common with some of the more progressive elements of David Cameron’s conservatism- on state and public service reform for example. He doesn’t think that David Cameron shares his values on fairness and equality- in that he has more in common with Gordon Brown or that David Cameron really means it. But in philosophical and political terms, if Labour and the media views the Liberal Democrats as just Labour lite then they are making an enormous mistake- one that will be responded to with (rightful) disdain from the Liberal Democrats themselves.

And here it is encapsulated in a quote from Nick Clegg himself:

“Progressive politics is at a critical juncture. A generation of progressive voters has been betrayed by Labour’s disregard for civil liberties, failures on inequality and addiction to central government. They will find little refuge in a Conservative party whose claim to the progressive mantle rings hollow.”

So the worst thing is to just see what has happened over the last couple of weeks as about charisma, style, the secret desire to have Labour in power but boredom with an incumbent, the re-birth of liberal and progressive Britain. This is about a diverse society slowly finding its voice. The reconciliation of that with a new, pluralistic politics may be more fraught and difficult than we can imagine. But let’s not try to be clever and in so doing continue to play the old political games.

I’ll vote Labour because I believe in the labour tradition. You vote who you want to vote for. And we must hope that the voice is clear, the case for change clear- and if the sort of seat predictions we have been seen based on the polls are anything to go by then it will  be- and make the case. Let’s turn this into a national referendum on change and then demand that our politicians respond- just as we did when too many of them had be caught fiddling their expenses.  And let’s challenge those lazy assumptions on which the current politics rests one by one.

Never say die. While it is clear that a game-changing moment is not going to fall from the sky, there is still time to shift the narrative of this election but it’s going to require a radically different approach.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought Gordon Brown’s performance last night was a radical improvement on last week. He was more lively and combative. He seemed to want it more. There were more poorly delivered pre-packed one-liners and the overall message was too negative. But it was better.

Unfortunately, it was still nowhere near what is needed at this stage. In some senses, it was the performance that would have been ideal for the first debate. Now, there needs to be something more positive, more forward-looking, more connected, more visionary.

How about a campaign around a theme of something like, let’s see, how about a positive message about ‘brilliant Britain’? Why has no-one thought of doing something like that? Labour could articulate the vision of the country it wants to see. It could talk about the political and economic change that it is committed to secure. It could campaign with zest and energy and make it look like it really wanted it. That may begin to generate a bit of momentum. This is election is about change. Labour now has to move on to a future narrative and quick smart. Its chances of even finishing second could rely on how effectively it does that. Yes, Labour could well be in such scary territory.

And there’s a reason for all this. Britain wants change because Britain has changed. A few weeks ago I published a co-written pamphlet that discussed the changes in modern Britain. Our argument was that we need a new and pluralistic way of doing politics in a society that has the potential to shift very rapidly. We didn’t foresee the Liberal Democrat surge- but who on earth did other than apparently wildly optimistic Liberal Democrats? However, it really doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Direct politics- and that is what the leaders’ debate is- can capture the public mood in unpredictable ways. That is what has happened.

This is a theme that was picked up eloquently by Newsnight’s Paul Mason yesterday. He probably takes the argument slightly too far but in essence he is right about the cultural conflict between Blackberry world and Iphone world. There is a large number of people- maybe even a fifth or so- who live lives that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. The whole way they work, interact, and inter-relate are different. Social bonds are different and more contingent for this cadre. They have found a political voice in Nick Clegg.

The problem though is who represents the voiceless third? That has increasingly been Labour’s difficulty as much of what might be viewed as its traditional base support has basically walked away from politics and is pretty disgruntled.

What this means in practice is that we are seeing the rise of the iphone generation in this election. But theirs is not a majority view- it’s a significant minority view and there are other significant minority views that are very different. And this is why we need a new politics. Britain is increasing socially and politically fragmented in my view. Majoritarian, two-party politics breaks down in that environment. Only pluralism makes a cohesive politics in a fragmented society possible.

But the problem is that Labour has to win in this system. And the real worry now is that Labour and the Liberal Democrats (plus Nats etc) combined in terms of seats won’t have a majority for fundamental political reform- and don’t forget there are some naysayers in Labour’s ranks too. The road to change won’t be easy. It may have to be become a popular movement for change. Get ready to march down Whitehall. Seriously.

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.