We can never return to the policies of the Thatcher era, says Cameron

David Cameron has stated that the Conservatives can never return to the policies of Thatcher, which he has praised as being a "magnificent achievement", whilst stressing that she was responding to the needs of another time.

He then berated some in his party, one can only think he is aiming at the likes of Lord Tebbit, by deriding their obsession with issues that concern themselves rather than the public at large.

"For too long we were having a different conversation. Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most.

“While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life, we were banging on about Europe. As they worried about standards in thousands of secondary schools, we obsessed about a handful more grammar schools. As rising expectations demanded a better NHS for everyone, we put our faith in opt-out for a few. While people wanted more than anything stability and low mortgage rates, the first thing we talked about was tax cuts.

“For years this country wanted — desperately needed — a sensible centre-right party to sort things out in a sensible way. That’s what we are today. In these past ten months we have moved back to the ground on which this party’s success has always been built: the centre ground of British politics".

The only problem for Cameron with this approach is that the Centre ground has already been staked by New Labour. Why should the public vote for a Conservative Party that are promising what Labour are already delivering?

Indeed, why should the public believe that the Conservatives are now for all the things that they have for decades told us that they opposed? The NHS and comprehensive education to name just two.

Nor is there any proof that the Tory rank and file agree with the direction he is taking the party. A good example of this is the reaction the National Conservative Convention gave to the party chairman and his colleagues when he attempted to defend David Cameron’s A-list.

Apparently the convention descended into jeering and name calling.

One long-serving member of the convention, who has attended the NCC meetings at the annual party conference for a number of years, said that he was astonished by the level of dissent. “I have never seen open revolt like that against the party chairman and senior officials,” he said.

And what is it about this A list that is enraging the Tory rank and file? It is Cameron's desire - and one must concede that it is a welcome one - that the Tory party should include more women and ethnic minorities if it is to be truly representative of Britain as a whole.

Well, this notion is just too much for some Conservatives.

“We want people with the greatest suitability, irrespective of their sex or colour. It is the one thing that really annoys people,” said one of the delegates present. Another said: “People in the street don’t care if it’s a woman or an ethnic minority or whatnot.”

Now whilst claiming that all they want is "the most suitable person for the job" you'll notice that this delegates real point is that no-one on the street cares whether women or ethnic minorities are standing for election. In other words he is actively arguing for their exclusion.

One (delegate) said: “With some of the older members, if the candidate didn’t go to the right school, they don’t want to know."

These are the same conservatives that Cameron now hopes to persuade Britain are the right people to put in charge of the fight for the NHS and comprehensive public schooling.

Blair managed to drag a Labour Party sickened by eighteen years in the political wilderness into the middle ground. I somehow think that Cameron will have a much harder time trying to pull off that same feat with the Tories.

This is after all the same party that had to fire their shadow cabinet spokeswoman for agriculture after she made a racist joke about Chinese cockle-pickers, shortly after twenty Chinese immigrants had drowned in a tragic incident at Morecambe Bay.

In a party where such racists have actually been promoted to shadow cabinet positions, one has to wonder how Mr Cameron will fare dealing with the Tory rank and file over whom he has considerably less power.

If the recent reaction to his A list is anything to go by, he's in for a very long haul.

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Tags: Cameron, Conservatives, Thatcher, era, A list, middle ground,