May can finally ditch the nasty party neurosis
Like a plate of half-eaten food, the Conservatives’ 2015 manifesto can finally be thrown away. Theresa May has now become her own woman and goes into an election campaign free to create her own version of conservatism.
It’s a measure of how far the country has come that, just two years ago, conservatism was still seen as something that had to be constantly “modernised”. The quest to reinvent the “nasty party”, as Mrs May had called it, was a defining feature of the Cameron era. And the conventional wisdom was that to win elections, politicians had to signal their sympathy for the downtrodden – minorities, women, the poor. The Tories were always seen as vulnerable to accusations of old-fashioned prejudice, such as the idea that David Cameron had “a woman problem”.
In the end, though, it wasn’t the caring Conservative label that won the Tory majority, but a very old-school narrative: competence and economic security versus incompetence and chaos. To this simple formula, Mrs May can now add a straightforward cultural message: her government will fight for the nation. Her opponents don’t even believe in the nation.
Few points illustrate the new mood better than the misguided notion that politicians need to court “female voters”, as if they are a special breed of person with unique susceptibility to rhetoric about babies and feminism. Hillary Clinton followed this playbook to the letter, highlighting her support for equal pay, maternity leave and, most irrelevantly, her own possession of two X chromosomes.
But Donald Trump’s election exposed the lie of identity politics. Women didn’t reject Mr Trump because of his tawdry comments about them and they weren’t persuaded by Mrs Clinton’s chromosomes. Like men, women cast their ballots based on security, their personal finances and cultural factors.
What remains undecided is what will replace virtue-signalling identity politics. Mrs May’s instinct is to court the neglected middle- and lower-middle-class voters. These are the people just above the bottom decile, who make up about half of the population. Helpfully, many also happen to be concentrated in just the marginal seats outside London that Mrs May needs to win to extend her majority.
They usually own their own houses and have jobs, but rely on stable economic conditions to keep everything afloat. As Brexit showed, however, they are not, at this moment, particularly convinced by purely economic rhetoric. They are interested in Britain’s culture, society and the pace of change.
A 2015 Policy Exchange report on this “overlooked” mass of voters identified principles they particularly value, more than other groups: “family”, “hard work”, “decency”, “self-reliance” and “independence”. They’re hawkish on immigration and crime, want to reduce foreign policy interventionism and aid, rely heavily on public health and education, but firmly believe in cutting the welfare bill.
The “nasty party” label is a neurosis from a bygone age. George Osborne’s departure signals the total retreat of the Cameroons and it is now down to Mrs May to weave a new narrative about what the Tories represent. What her target swing voters want, however, is already clear.
An election means one thing: a media circus on College Green. For the next few weeks, this little rectangle of grass outside Parliament will become home to the highest concentration of hot air outside a Volkswagen factory, as political presenters set up with the appropriate backdrop and interview parades of Z-list ministers and pundits live on air.
I’m hoping, however, that the relentless speculation will be enlivened by something new: amorous brides and grooms having their photos taken in the background. Over the past year, I’ve noticed that the East Asian custom of staging wedding photos in front of great monuments has arrived in London. The couple get all togged up in tuxedo and white gown, often months ahead of the big day, and go out and about with a photographer to create picture-perfect images to show off to their guests. I remember first seeing the sight in French colonialstyle squares in Ho Chi Minh City during my travels as a student. Now they appear on Regent Street in front of the luxury shops, in Trafalgar Square and – yes – on College Green before the backdrop of Parliament.
I’m all for it. The appearance of a happy couple dressed to impress is just the thing to put in perspective the bickering and pettiness we are sure to see on our screens in the coming weeks.
Britain’s bluebell woods are, I read, being invaded by a unwelcome foreign breed: the Spanish bluebell. If this is meant to be a riposte for Gibraltar, then I say bring it on. In the country over Easter, it seemed impossible to move without stepping on a clump of fresh English bluebells. The English variety is a darker hue and their delicate bells all hang off the curved stalk on one side, unlike the paler Spanish bells, which hang all around a straight stalk. Since I was a child, I’ve watched the gorgeous carpet of English bluebells spread from a single copse to fill five in the corner of Berkshire I visit regularly. There, at least, there’s no reason to fear the floral conquistadors.