The Conservative Party is still in crisis despite the deep unpopularity of the relatively new Starmer-led Government and of himself and some of his chief ministers.
The Opposition should be riding high and scoring points easily, but such was the deep disenchantment with the last Conservative government that led to loyal party members and activists defecting or absenting themselves, that the Party, under a new leader who has apologised and turned the page, has still not recovered and continues to be criticised as if it were the same one led by Rishi Sunak that had ousted the popularly elected Liz Truss and replaced her with Rishi Sunak without a vote.
Kemi Bladenoch is an impressive right-wing politician with a sharp intellect, coherent vision and all the Brexiteer credentials one might require. However, according to her detractors who should be her natural allies, she isn't radical enough, she hasn't announced enough policies, her tactics at PMQs haven't paid off and hasn't been saying or doing enough even though she has been very visible over the last couple of weeks in stating her position, riding on a farm tractor and so on. However, through no fault of her own, politics is volatile at the moment when simple off-the cuff policies are valued over sound political strategy and sell-thought out solutions; when the loud revolutionary personality is valued over statesmanship.
Politics and political parties are not what they used to be. The Conservative Party in particular is being fought over by its members who have different ideas about what it is and what it should be. A shopping list of policies are just aspirations when we are this far from another election, but elections have a habit of creeping up on one, and the locals are upon us in those authorities where they are going ahead.
Some people may be forgiven for confusion over for what various parties and their representatives stand.
History teaches us that people, parties and even ideologies change. Hilary Clinton was a Republican and became a Democrat whereas Donald Trump was a Democrat who became a Republican. However, to be more accurate, Trump is not a staunch republican so much as a disenchanted democrat intent on being the antidote to the flaws in his former party of choice. Democrats have never quite got over the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican while the racist southern senators who opposed Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement were Democrats.
In the UK last year Rishi Sunak's government were accused of being 'Lib Dems', which was curious considering that party's 2024 manifesto made Keir Starmer's manifesto look Right Wing by comparison, but could there have been something in it? After all, Cameron's Conservative government began in coalition with the Lib Dems, if only temporarily and got on remarkably well.
Could the wets in Margaret Thatcher's government and the Tory governments during the post war consensus have been just a little liberal? After all, the very name, Conservative and Unionist Party harks back to the fusion of the Conservatives with the Liberal Unionists in 1912 following the coalition of 1895-1906 and its split prior to the 1906 Liberal landslide. Indeed, electoral disaster has tended to lead to party reforms of one sort or another in an attempt to regain ground, such as after 1906, 1945, 1974 and 1997 elections by the Conservatives and 1929, 1950/51 and 1979 for Labour.
The Labour Party had its own divisions, which might be traced to traditional English socialism versus Marxism and foreign versions of left-wing politics derived from Sidney and Beatrice Webb's visits to the Soviet Union and the influence of Trotsky, Gramsci and Mao. This was apparent in Harold Wilson's remarks that the origins of the Labour Party 'owed more to Methodism than Marx".
The Conservative's 1945 defeat led to the adoption of the 1947 Industrial Charter at conference, a very unconservative document, which resembled elements of Harold MacMillan's 1935 book, the Middle Way, which had advocated a minimum wage and a mixed economy. This was the beginning of the postwar consensus that was based on Keynesian economics and defined the 1950s and 1960s. This was closer to the accusation of uniparty than any time before or since. The economic policy was satirised as Butskellism after the similar policies Conservative chancellor Rab Butler and his opposite number Hugh Gaitskell ("Mr Butskell").
The Tories may have moved closer to Labour following the prevailing mood of the times, but now in Opposition, Labour repaid the complement. Gaitskell, as leader, moved away from the more annoying elements of left-wing ideology such as unilateral disarmament and clause IV, which tied the Labour Party to wholesale nationalisation of the means of production.
Just as it was believed, a change of direction restored the Conservative Party of government, Gaitskell's stand against the Left in his own party, before his early demise, laid the ground for Harold Wilson's victory over Sir Alec Douglas Home. Ted Heath won back the laurels briefly, but the post war consensus had run out of road and ideas. The only idea seemed to be the Common Market, which didn't save the day.
Meanwhile the Labour Party had drifted to the left by the time it returned and the Conservative Party woke up and found that while it had been asleep the country's finances and working practices had not kept up with the times and its new European partners.
Then came the 'winter of discontent' and Margaret Thatcher who put Conservative economics, such as that of FW Hayek, back into party policy. Her electoral successes and the failure of Michael Foot to triumph from the Left resulted in Tony Blair. The bastard child of Gaitskell and John Smith, who had presumably read the Middle Way and had his own ideas based on communitarianism. His success, however, decimated the Conservative vote, causing a definite shift by the Tories towards a similar slick collectivism. The result was David Cameron who; while running a tight ship, it was no longer a libertarian, free market ship.
In the wake of the 2024 general election, Conservatives knew it was time to dust themselves down, find their true direction as Conservatives and rebuild. The party chose a new leader who announced that there would be a thorough rediscovery of Party principles prior to a list of polices. However, Kemi Bladenoch admitted that the previous government had "talked right, but governed left " and set about to change that.
Earlier rebuilds including that of William Pitt the Younger (Honest Billy), Robert Peel whose Tamworth Manifesto laid the foundations of the modern Conservative Party and Benjamin Disraeli (who was responsible for extending the franchise) followed a long period of exclusion of Tories from public office from the accession of the Hanoverians, due to the ("court") party's apparent high church and Stuart sympathies. Thus, reluctance to identify as Tories, the reborn party grew out of various conservative Whig factions that were openly loyal to the new dynasty and the principle on a constitutional monarchy but retained distinctly Tory elements.
All should have gone according to plan and tradition except this time it was different. There was a new kid on the block. Reform stole the Conservative recovery by pouring scorn on its reforming inheritors as much as its ousted old guard. Thus, the revolution will never be radical enough for Reformistas, who only need to throw stones at the Tories and claim the be the real Conservatives to gain support and a membership spike reminiscent of that of Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was flavour of the month. Thrown stones build no bridges though and natural friends have grown further apart and ruled out an alliance of any kind.
When the Reform momentum peaks (and it will) it is likely to go backwards like the Corbyn one before it (Labour membership rose to half a million during his popularity spike and has lost 200,000 since), but like the SDP who were going to "break the mould of British politics" before joining the Liberals, Reform leaders still dream of government. Perhaps they will be successful, but claiming to be the 'real' conservatives while wanting to destroy the party that bears the name, isn't a good look.
The main advantage of the Conservative Party is that has 'been there and done that' and shed its skin to be reborn many times without sacrificing what makes it what it is. Its reforms may have been too influenced by electoral failure and may have moved too far towards its political foes, but moving too far in the opposite direction has its own dangers. Luckily its rival and caricature has already done that. The Conservative Party has no alternative to restoring its fortunes as the traditional party of its great leaders of history rather than as a parody of itself without substance or well-rounded political philosophy.
There is a clear direction in which the Conservative Party needs to go to win back public trust and be the solution to the threats to Conservative values that were introduced on its watch or not dealt with when the Party was in power. We have heard the Trump blown from across the water. We need to restore our nation's confidence in itself and in the nation state as separate from supranationals such as the WEF, WHO and (yes) the EU, the one we thought we had jettisoned but kept reappearing on the soles of our shoes. We need a post-quangocracy government that throws its rubber stamp away. We need a government that repeals the overlegislation and novelties of the Blair/Brown years.
The Conservative Party in Opposition can and should not just return to its priciples but stand up and shout them out loud as the basis for its defence of the people by this current (temporary) government. First it should be true to its principles within itself, give the members first and last word as to whom they want as their prospective parliamentary candidate in their constituency, who should not only be committed to the local area but to traditional Consevativism with a deep knowledge of the history and political philosophy of the Party.
The Conservative Party is the party of God, King and Country unashamedly. Of the established church, the hereditary principle as preserving all hereditary rights of property by all citizens, of the constitutional Monarchy, the constitution itself, of the land as well as its inhabitants, of party democracy, meritocracy, low taxes, free trade and minimal state interference in the lives of the King's subjects. Its principles have been fashioned by its history, not made up in a back room or preached on social media. It is naturally moving to the right and away from quangocratic and supranational dictatorship towards effective democratic rule in and by parliament by the true representatives of the people and their interests according to duty.
What it lacks isn't a shopping list of policies nor just its its principles. It requires a Big Idea now. Thatcherism was a name given to a big idea and there have been others. An overarching set of practical ideas set out as a coherent vision to which the nation can identify and subscribe. Kemi Bladenoch is still building her vision. It hasn't quite emerged from the mist yet, but when it does, for all our sakes, it must be big and it must be fresh.