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iGreens come out for Davis
Who knows how many iGreen readers will be voting in the Tory leadership election over the next six weeks. We have a few MPs among our regular readership and I guess a much larger number of Party members, so perhaps it is time to say whom we support, and why. Remember what iGreens want - not
just a
modern Conservative government but one that is clearly distinguishable from New
Labour. We want a continuation of
Thatcherite economics and a following-through on painful market-led
public-service reform. We
don’t want coded racism or homophobia, or a return to locking-up prisoners
and throwing away the key. These
things are wrong in themselves, and anyway don’t win elections.
As fast as they shore-up the base, they alienate the middle ground. The field is now down to two,
David Cameron, and David Davis. Which
is most likely to get the Party into power and deliver these sorts of
forward-thinking policies? Cameron is young, untested, and
posh (he went to Eton). He is
favoured by the so-called Notting Hill Tories for his liberal views
on social policy. Nothing has been
spelt out in detail, but it is assumed that he would move the party towards
decriminalising cannabis, reducing the latent homophobia that Tories sometimes
reveal, and moving prison reform in a liberal direction, towards shorter
sentences and more drug rehabilitation. In economic policy and reform of
the public services he has made no specific statements beyond the excellent
point that he supports phonetics in the teaching of reading.
However his website contains the banner headline “Proper public service
reform means improving services for everyone, not providing an escape route for
the privileged few.” Perhaps
this means full-scale reform with money following patients and failing
hospitals allowed to close, but I wonder - UNISON, the public service workers trade union,
could also march under that slogan. There
must be a real fear that when it comes to the hard choices, fighting the vested
interested of doctors, nurses and teachers and giving real power to patients and
parents, he will falter. He has very little experience.
He has been an MP for four years and shadow education secretary for six
months. In contrast, Tony Blair,
the youngest Prime minister for nearly 200 years, had been an MP for 11 years
and in the shadow cabinet for six, when he became party leader.
He had been shadow Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, and for
Employment, and for two years Shadow Home Secretary. Cameron made a great speech at
the party conference two weeks ago, which some impressionable people likened to John Kennedy.
Well maybe. Kennedy was also
a young leader of his party, but like Blair he had vastly more experience than
Cameron has now. When Kennedy ran
for president in 1960 he had served three terms (the six years 1948 -1952) in
the US House of Representatives, and had been a US senator for six years (1952
– 1960). Davis is of working class
origins, and comes from the right wing of the party.
Until his weak speech at the party conference he had the confidence of
most of his parliamentary colleagues, and had spent years thinking hard about
public service reform. He
understands that reform will not be easy and that if patients and parents are to
have real choice the government will eventually have to take on the doctors’
and teachers’ unions. Failing
schools and hospitals will have to be allowed to close.
The battle will be hard, at least as hard as the battle for economic
reform in the 1980’s. Davis is
much more likely to succeed in that hard fight than Cameron. On social policy of course Davis
will have to lighten-up once selected if he is to broaden his appeal to women
and the middle-class professionals who defected to Blair in 1997.
But he knows this. The real issue for those who want a modern social policy is
which of them is most likely to stay liberal when the polls turn bad.
Again iGreens favour Davis. He
will have less need to reverse because the right will trust him. Some call this the Nixon-in-China
argument - only politicians confident in their base can make bold reforms. That is why
Blair’s attempts at public service reform have been so half-hearted
– he could never sell them to his left wing. Cameron will have the same
problem as Tory leader. He will
constantly have to strengthen his position with the right.
There must be a real danger that when the going gets tough he will
revert, like Hague and Howard did before him to the eternal verities of more
police and controlled immigration. And the going will get tough for
Cameron. “Have you ever taken
class A drugs?” is only the start.
Remember what the press did to William Hague, a politician of real
calibre. Imagine how they will go
after the posh young Tory from Eton. Cameron may be popular
in the country today, but I predict that if Davis follows though on public
service reform and takes the necessary liberal steps on social
policy, he will be much the easiest sell on the doorsteps in four years time. iGreens support Tory modernisers,
but we trust Davis more than Cameron to do the modernising. Jim Thornton Nottingham 23 October 2005 |
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