Premature euphoria

Actually I did consider calling this post premature something else but that sort of thing can attract unfortunate search engine rankings. But either way it is clear that the decision by Boris Johnson to enter the race for the London Mayoralty has sent the Conservative blogosphere into paeans of ecstasy not seen since the days when Margaret Thatcher was in No 10.

As a fellow-journalist, I have to say I had a fair amount of respect for Bozza. But as a politician? Well, suffice to say his is a precocious talent that has remained unfulfilled.

As far back in the mid-90s, when he was still on the Daily Telegraph and toying with a Parliamentary career, he was being talked about as the most promising Tory of his generation. Yet he seemed unable to make a clear choice between politics and journalism and was eventually beaten to the Tory leadership by a younger man.

His frontbench career has progressed in fits and starts. Michael Howard took a gamble on him and brought him into a prominent role, but ended up having to sack him after he was less than forthcoming about his affair with Petronella Wyatt.

For what it's worth, I thought Iain Dale was right that Boris would have benefited from the rigour of a tough internal primary against someone of Steve Norris's calibre. But that now looks unlikely to happen, and who can blame Norris for not wanting to play the fall-guy?

The fact that this chaotic and wholly unproven figure has been alighted upon by the capital's Tories as a potential saviour is surely a measure of their desperation.

19 July update: And this great story from the Mirror's Bob Roberts proves the point. I particularly love this quote from a "Labour source" which Bob couldn't possibly have made up:

"It may be safe to go back into the water. It's certainly not safe to go back to the Tories."

Should the tax system encourage marriage?

Well, it certainly shouldn't discourage it, and if David Cameron thinks that's currently the case, then maybe he has a point. But I honestly don't think the tax system should encourage marriage either.

It's not that I don't believe that marriage provides the most stable environment for children to be brought up in. It quite clearly does. But is providing tax incentives to get married really likely to provide more stable, loving homes - or might it actually achieve just the opposite?

Okay, so I probably move in rather traditional social circles compared to some, but most people I know got married because they believed they had found their soulmate, not because they wanted to find a way of knocking £200 a year off the income tax bill.

If there really is anyone out there who got married for those sorts of reasons - and that I rather doubt - then they are probably three quarters of the way to the divorce court already.

Graham Brady is right

Like most people on the centre-left, I have grown up with the idea that Grammar Schools are elitist and socially divisive. But the ongoing row in the Tory Party over the issue has forced me to take a fresh look at this, and in particular to ask myself what a "progressive" position on academic selection would look like in today's world.

Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that Graham Brady is right when he argues that selection by academic ability is a greater engine of social mobility than selection by house prices.

Near to where I live in Derbyshire, there is a former Grammar School which nevertheless retains many of the facets of one, which is regarded for miles around as the school to get your children into.

As a result, house prices in that village and the surrounding area are a good 20-30pc higher than in those areas which lie slightly outside the catchment area, meaning that only better-off families can in fact afford to send their kids there.

I don't doubt that there are countless other examples of this kind of effect across the country, a consequence of the exponential growth in house prices since comprehensive education was but a twinkle in Tony Crosland's eye.

By ditching his party's previous policy on creating new grammars, Tory leader David Cameron thinks he is being "modern" and "progressive." In fact he is doing what the Tory Party has historically always done - standing up for the interests of the wealthy elite who can afford homes near the top state schools against those who have to make do with what Alastair Campbell called "bog standard" comprehensives.

In my view, if Gordon Brown wants to lead a genuinely progressive government, as well as outflanking Cameron on an issue of real concern to the hard-working classes, he should take a very close look at what Graham Brady and the other Tory rebels are saying.

How about this for an autumn conference speech soundbite, Gordon? "Read my lips - no selection by house prices or interview under a Labour Government."

Punditry

UK Daily Pundit has long been one of my favourite blogs but it has really excelled itself in recent days. Last November, it reported that Shadow Home Secretary David Davis was on the point of resigning. Now he's apparently on the verge of taking over as Tory leader.

I've never quite worked out whether the Pundit is the blogging equivalent of the newspaper racing hack who tips every horse in the Grand National in the run-up to the race so he can say he backed the winner - or whether the entire blog is an elaborate spoof on dead tree political commentary and its tendency to make outlandish predictions about the fates of individual politicians.

Probably a bit of both...!

Can the Tories become the caring party?

Following David Cameron's attempts last week to persuade people that it is the Tories who really care about the poor, I return to the Political Cross Dressing theme in my latest Podcast which is now live. A text version is also available on the companion blog HERE.

"If the Tories take their argument about relative poverty through to its logical conclusion, they will be able to ask some pretty hard questions of Labour come the next election....I have posed the question before in this column whether Mr Cameron’s Tories might end up to the left of Labour, and the week’s events have again highlighted that possibility."

Cameron campaign "the product of a coke crazed ad-exec"

I always had a sneaking admiration for Paul Keating, the former Australian PM given to using somewhat colourful language about his opponents. On one occasion he referred to opposition MPs as "scumbags," on another to the then opposition leader Andrew Peacock as a "gutless spiv." An exhaustive list of Keating's insults can be found HERE.

Of course, such things would never be allowed in our own House of Commons, although the Warley MP John Spellar did once use the word cunts in the Chamber.

But should we be so hung up about so-called "unparliamentary language?" Or should it be fair dinkum for British political parties to go around using words like Inner Tosser?

Norman Tebbit thinks not. He said today: "There is no foul language nor physical or moral degradation which is not now embraced by the current orthodoxy. Unfortunately, the orthodoxy has reached the Conservative Party. It is not a word I would even use about Polly Toynbee."

For my part, I tend towards Guido's verdict on the Tories' new anti-debt campaign - that it was an idea best left in the men's room. "It has all the hallmarks of being the product of a coke-crazed ad exec's inspired idea thought up after lunch in Soho," he says.

A coke-crazed ad-man? In the Tory Party? Whoever can he mean?

Are elections always won from the centre ground?

Lord Saatchi says not, saying that Margaret Thatcher disproved the "dinner party myth." Iain Dale disagrees, arguing that the 1979 manifesto on which Thatcher won was much more centrist than is generally supposed.

So who's right? Well, I'm going to sit on the fence for the time being and say I have some sympathy with both points of view.

In his pamphlet published yesterday, In Praise of Ideology, Lord Saatchi said people were losing faith in politics because there was so little difference between the parties. In the light of the declining turnout at recent elections, it is very hard to argue against this standpoint.

"The pragmatism of the centre ground turns politics into a commodity market - because pragmatism leads to opportunism, which leads to cynicism. People can spot a left/right 'positioning exercise' a mile off. The motive for these moves is too transparent. Voters always suspected that politicians would 'say anything to get elected'. Now they know it's true."

On the other hand, I do agree with Dale when he says that David Cameron needs to continue his move towards the centre ground, because of the particular electoral circustamces in which his party now finds itself.

"You cannot win purely with the support of your own core voters. Instead you have to appeal to a wider body. This is the lesson of the last 10 years in which the Conservatives have languished in opposition. Continually banging on about the same old message in the same old way is not going to appeal to those who find themselves disillusioned with politics and politicians."

Historically speaking, of course, the truth about elections is much more complex. While it is true to say that elections are not won from extreme positions, as Labour found in 1983 and the Tories in 2001, that is not the same as saying that the party with the most "centrist" position invariably wins.

If it was, I suspect the Liberals and their successor parties might have had a bit more success than they have had over the past 100 years!

My own view is that a political leader needs both the Saatchi approach and the Dale approach if you like, a clear ideology tempered by a willingness to compromise when necessary.

The lack of an ideological compass won't necessarily prevent David Cameron from becoming Prime Minister, as Tony Blair discovered. But it will prevent him from becoming a good one.

Forsyth still doing the Lady's bidding

It would be easy to dismiss the report of the Tories' Tax Commission under Lord Michael Forsyth as a political event of no great consequence, given that its proposals have not only been rubbished by Ed Balls on behalf of Labour, but also that the Tories' own Shadow Chancellor Gideon George Osbourne has felt the need to distance himself from them.

That wouldn't, however, be quite right. Although Osbourne has made clear today that the Tories will not be promising an overall reduction in the tax take, and that any cuts in personal taxes will be paid for by increases in environmental taxes, I would nevertheless expect some of the Commission's ideas to make it into the next Tory manifesto. Or even the next Labour one.

Chief among these, surely, is the replacement of Inheritance Tax by a new form of Capital Gains Tax that would exempt the family home, an idea which is looking increasingly like its time has come.

Originally envisaged as a tax that would affect only the very richest, the exponential increase in house prices over the last 20 years has now brought many hundreds of thousands of estates within its ambit, causing much anguish to elderly people whose home is their only asset and who want to be able to pass on something to their children.

If Labour had any sense, they would nick this idea pretty damn quick. Most of the newspapers are already behind it, and my bet is that it's going to be as certain a vote winner among potential Labour-Tory switchers as council house sales were in the late 70s.

Fortunately for the Tories, Brown and Balls appear set on continuing to regard the abolition of IT as a tax cut designed to help the rich, missing the point that, because of the uneven pattern of house prices, it's really a tax that nowadays owes much more to location than social class.

One thing is for certain - that Margaret Thatcher would certainly approve of the work her old protege Forsyth has done in putting tax cuts firmly back on the Tories' longer-term agenda.

An old friend from my Lobby days, who was certainly in a position to know, once told me that Thatcher had actually marked him out as her long-term successor, and that, had she been able to fulfill her ambition to go "on and on and on," would eventually have anointed him ahead of the other Michael, Portillo. I wonder.

Tories go into conference season in by far the best shape

As I said in Friday's post on David Cameron's latest attempt to solve the West Lothian Question, last week's Tory aims and values statement was high on woffle and low on specifics.

Despite that, and the ongoing internal difficulties over candidate selection, however, it is clear that the Conservatives go into next month's party conference season in far better shape than their opponents.

Unlike both Sir Menzies Campbell and Tony Blair, Cameron can go to his conference knowing there is absolutely no threat to his leadership.

More on this theme in weekly podcast which is available HERE.

Blackpool Forever!

A fearful furore appears to have erupted on the Tory blogosphere over a decision by the party's board to return to Blackpool for its 2007 conference.

My days of attending party conferences are thankfully over, but I have to say I have a bit of a soft spot for what the Daily Telegraph's diarist calls the "tatty old Lancashire resort."

On my first visit there, in 1995, I stayed in a pub called The Empress. The room was a bit basic, but it stayed open till about 3am in the morning and served an excellent pint of Thwaites Bitter. Who could want more?

Mind you, not everyone felt the same. I remember one fellow hack,who is now a political editor on a national newspaper, being rather put out to find an incontinence mattress on the bed in his B&B.

I do agree with the general thrust of opinion that the Winter Gardens is an appalling venue, and it absolutely the case that however much money they spend on it, it will continue to smell of stale beer and tobacco, forever conjuring up in my mind the lost political era of "smoke-filled rooms" and "beer and sandwiches at No 10."

But the Imperial Hotel, by contrast, is a fantastic venue - the "No 10 bar" there is easily the best drinking hole in any of the regular conference venues and I have many happy memories of long story-getting evenings spent there.

I have far worse party conference memories of Brighton, which invariably became a complete security nightmare at conference time due to the need to seal-off the main road in front of the conference centre.

For some reason, I also seemed to get worse hangovers in Brighton as well. But that's another story.

Could Hague lead the Tories again?

It usually takes me a few days to plough through the Sunday papers, so it wasn't until I was on the bus this morning that I came across Isobel Oakeshott's
big interview with William Hague in this weekend's Sunday Times.

Hague is quoted as saying he would never, ever wish to lead the Tory Party again, saying that his period in charge gave him the "self knowledge" to realise someone else could do it better.

“I’ve got that all out of my system. Totally,” he says. “I’m glad I was the leader but I’m glad I stopped. I’d had enough. I thought someone else would turn out to be more effective than me and that’s very much the case. I’m a fan of DC and I enjoy working with him, and I’ve only come back to help him win the next election. I don’t ever want to be leader again myself. I could happily write books instead. I enjoy that at least as much as politics.”

“No sane human being who’s done it before would want to do it again. You have to have self-knowledge, in any job. I came to the conclusion that someone else should be doing it.”

There is something that rings true about this. In my dealings with Hague, notably when he was at the Welsh Office and I was on the South Wales Echo, I generally found him to be very straight. And that is not a sexual pun, by the way.

Nevertheless, I think there's a difference between actively seeking high office, and not refusing it when it's handed to you on a plate. Or as the old saying puts it: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

The Tories would never again entrust Hague with the task of returning them to power. But I can foresee a situation where, once in power, they might turn to him, as Foreign Secretary and the nearest thing they have to an elder statesman, to hold things together in some future, currently unforeseen crisis.

Would he say no in those circumstances? I doubt it. He is a politician after all.

The great Tory transport U-turn

This story has not had a tremendous amount of coverage, but I think it's potentially another very significant step on the road back to electability for the Tories.

In my view, rail privatisation was the single most damaging act of the John Major premiership and thus the single biggest reason why they deserved to be kicked out of office in 1997. It was clearly a scorched-earth policy designed to make things as difficult as possible for their successors, and in that, it more than succeeded as John Prescott and Stephen Byers both found to their cost.

A-lister picked to be my next MP

The Derby Evening Telegraph reports that long serving Derby City councillor and Tory A-list candidate Pauline Latham has won the battle to contest the newly-created seat of Mid-Derbyshire for the Conservatives at the next election.

Who cares? Well, I do, because I live there and because, as it's likely to be a rock-solid Tory constituency, Pauline is almost certain to become my MP.

Fortunately, we go back quite a long way. Pauline was on Derbyshire County Council back in the 1980s when I covered it for the Evening Telegraph and we have stayed in touch, occasionally running into eachother and enjoying a drink or two at party conferences.

Word has it that most of the A-List put in for this seat, so I personally think it's great that they've chosen a local candidate. I might even vote for her.

Cameron or Davis?

As a bit of a lefty liberal, I'm not sure I'm qualified to pass a judgement on who ought to be Tory leader, but suffice to say I think either candidate would be an improvement on Major, Hague, IDS and Howard. Anyone who is interested in reading my views in greater detail can find them here.

The amount of media interest in the contest seems to me an indication that politics is getting back to normal after the long intermission of the Blair years, and that the next election will see the kind of close contest between the Conservatives and Labour we routinely saw in the 60s and 70s.