Beware Tories bearing gifts

By Our Man in Whitehall
“Social Justice!” barked Ian Duncan Smith on the opening day of the Conservative Conference to a clearly baffled group of aged Tories.
“Some people say ‘the Tories don’t do social justice’. But I say ‘when did we ever stop?” The assembled cronies were at a loss to how to respond even if the question was rhetorical. If you consider it as an actual question, the answer would be 1979 or soon after - that was the point Thatcherism overcame traditional the ‘One Nation Toryism’ of Butler/MacLeod/Heath.
IDS implored the sparse crowd the Conservative Party needed to consider ‘the neediest and most deprived first’.
Now wait just one bleeding minute.
The administration the Tories consider their most successful in modern times, under Thatcher 1979-90, instituted a highly regressive tax regime and coupled it with slashed public spending.
To do so at a time of industrial recession, necessarily created huge urban deprivation and effectively an underclass.
To expect the Tories to be the salvation for this urban decay like taking advice on domestic security from a bloke who just kicked your front door in.
IDS's speech was woolly and half-hearted. Many of his audience do charity work and IDS wanted that to stand testament to their commitment to social justice.
But the charities supported by the Tory grass roots are essentially special interest groups that reflect their insular values; the Women’s Institute may do the odd jumble sale but that does not mean they endorse wider values of social equality.
Of the five candidates for Conservative leadership only Liam Fox has attempted to address any of those distasteful social issues. He launched his leadership bid at a domestic violence refuge but spoke a lot about self-reliance, clearly from the “pull- yourself-together” school of social care.

And what of the battle for the leadership?
One can assume Malcolm Rifkind will be the first casualty of the contest as an intellectual approach balanced with humourless pomposity is unlikely to curry favour.
Then will follow some highly fevered tactical voting; David ‘I’m-smiling-a-lot-more-these-days’ Davis is assured of getting sufficient support to be in the two-way run-off to be decided by the membership.
So Davis’s supporters must look to who of Cameron and Fox they should support to stop Ken Clarke.
It would make sense to choose Cameron.
Fox, besides being a self-satisfied neo-con with what can be described as a 1970s sense of humour on race (he once described the Spice Girls as 3 dogs and a blackbird).
But he is also a Scot and as leader it would pit him against that other Scot, Gordon Brown, come the general election in 2009. Turnout could be expected to go below sea level on that dour scenario.
Fox is also the originator of the policy where NHS resources are used to part-fund operations for those wealthy enough to have private health provision. Cameron publicly disowns that policy.
David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron understands the public must feel that the Conservatives have changed before people will no longer feel ashamed about voting for them.
I thought Cameron was more grounded than most because his young son has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. It follows that personal trauma and closehand experience of a loved one's suffering should translate into greater empathy with one’s fellow man.
The only thing is he keeps raising the matter in almost every speech and interview. In the same way Michael Howard said he would not use his mother-in law’s death from MRSA for political ends, when he er….. then did.
Cameron likes to stress a belief in classlessness, unfortunately his philosophy of ‘it  does not matter where you went to school’ is undermined by the fact he is an old Etonian.

Davis does not appear to want to embrace the more inclusive approach to social matters, particularly as he has already rejected the notion of ‘moving to the middle ground’.
Combined with his rather leaden delivery and unimaginative outlook, a Davis leadership win should give Labour supporters plenty encouragement about staying in power beyond the next election.
Liam Fox realises his vulnerability to Cameron and has lashed himself to the ‘renegotiate our terms with EU’ wing of the party as his core support.
One speaker yesterday summarised the modern conservative view as ‘socially liberal but eurosceptic’ which probably means ‘we don’t mind the gays now but we still hate the Germans.’
In many ways the Tories are still defined by what they don’t like and can’t adjust to.
To feel the full displacement and estrangement of the Conservative Party from the modern and urban mix of peoples, look no further than IDS’s patronising reaction to the speech of a young, black conservative bloke.
Not a plummy solicitor from Cheltenham, this guy’s Toryism was based on his rather eccentric evangelical views. IDS clapped and laughed along to the speech just a little bit too much like a Latin prep master in assembly enjoying a calypso song. It was scary.
There may be an element of the party that has a vague wish that we should all try to be nicer to one another (as in an old Jimmy Stewart film) but to call social justice a core Tory value is complete bollocks.
The vast majority of the party remains a repository of prejudice and reactionary beliefs and there they shall stay.