25.07.2007

Conservative Lite

Only 18 months in the job and Cameron's position as Conservative Party leader is being questioned. Jim Moody comments

Southall and Sedgefield have not proved to be the happy hunting grounds for David Cameron's new touchy-feely Conservative Party that he and those closest to him seem to have supposed. In both by-elections the Tories came third, trailing the Liberal Democrats and disappointing the party faithful. Even the novel wheeze of putting "Cameron's Conservatives" on the ballot paper in Southall proved disastrous.

Now the knives are out for Cameron, though he has parried some thrusts by sacking his appointed by-election campaign director Grant Schapps MP. Ignominy of ignominies, this topped the exposure of Schapps's pathetic attempt at black propaganda when he was caught pretending to be a Lib Dem member posting comments on YouTube a few days before the by-elections.

Only 18 months in the job and Cameron's position as Conservative Party leader is being questioned. Boasting a membership of 290,000, the Conservative Party may be Britain's largest political party (Labour membership is some 200,000 and the Lib Dems claim around 70,000), but it is failing to make a commensurate impact on British politics. What was the 'natural party of government' for much of the 20th century seems unable at the moment to mount an effective by-election campaign. With Brown's popularity now touching 40%, the Conservatives seem to be failing dismally.

One of the first rats to leave the sinking Tory ship was the deputy chair of the Ealing Southall Conservative Association, Brij Mohan Gupta, who resigned after the selection of Tony Lit as Conservative candidate in the Southall by-election. Claiming Lit was foisted on the local party by Tory spin doctors, Gupta then went off to campaign for the Lib Dem candidate instead. This was an unwelcome development for the Tories, who had been cock-a-hoop at the defection of five Southall Labour councillors to them 10 days before the by-election.

As everyone knows, Tony Lit, managing director of Sunrise Radio, gave £4,800 to Labour at a fundraising dinner with Tony Blair only a few days before joining the Conservative Party; he had been a party member only two weeks when he became the parliamentary candidate. If the Labour donation were not damning enough in Tory eyes, Lit then posed for a picture with Blair. Strange, indeed, that Cameron and his advisers still went ahead and made him Tory candidate. They must have been desperate.

In committee room 14 at the House of Commons on July 25 a lot of heat was generated. That was when Tory MPs heard David Cameron's end of term address before the parliamentary recess. Cameron had a hard time convincing not a few of his rebranding genius, given the poor by-election results. In fact, for quite a number at the meeting he is seen as an electoral liability, despite only having been in the job 19 months. Without question, his 'modernising' project is now under attack.

As one longstanding MP reportedly remarked, "We've gone green, we've done 'heir to Blair' and social responsibility and none of that is working. Where do we go next?" Even the rightwing Daily Mail got its jackboot in on July 24, featuring a photo of Cameron on the front page and asking where he was while his constituents in Witney were suffering the floodwaters (He was in Rwanda, seeking to show off his third world 'action' credentials).

More 'red meat' (ie, traditional Tory policies) is now being demanded by core supporters and a growing band of MPs. Immediately following the by-elections at least two and probably six MPs sent letters demanding a vote of no confidence in Cameron to Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. It is Spicer who oversees the leadership process. The vagaries of the system for recalling the Conservative leader do not benefit the incumbent. Sadly for Cameron, the pile of such 'he must go' letters is allowed to grow without time limit: once the minimum of 29 MPs (15% of Westminster Tories) writing to Spicer in this vein has been reached, a leadership poll will be triggered under the parliamentary party's rules. As one veteran Tory MP pointed out on condition of anonymity, "Under the system at the moment, he is surprisingly vulnerable. The letters sit there, they are secret and they slowly mount up. It is a free hit if you are a malcontent."

All a far cry from the 1960s, when the leader of the Conservative Party 'emerged' like a butterfly from its chrysalis after secret caucusing by its grandees' in quite Machiavellian manner.

This new-fangled democracy lark is clearly a pain in the butt when brought into the Tory Party itself. Many Tories, however, place the blame squarely on Cameron for the recent public relations disasters: they occurred on his watch and, more importantly, have come from members of the team that he appointed.

This feeds into the current feeling among many Tories that old nostrums are the best nostrums, and nostalgia for the good old days of Conservative hegemony over public life. An anonymous senior Tory backbencher summed it up thus: "There's a feeling that Cameronism is exhausted. MPs want to know what's at the heart of all this rebranding. The fear is there is nothing at the heart of it."

Britain's Tory Party cannot find its place in the political sun just yet, but it would be idiotic to imagine that it is in terminal decline. Find its niche it will, and if that means dumping 'Call me Dave' then so be it. Not that he is in immediate danger - those around him know that Gordon Brown is still enjoying his honeymoon period. Cameron's, however, is now over.