It is an attractive illusion that democracy involves comparing the policies of two or more parties and, in rational fashion, choosing the version you prefer. With this illusion goes the idea that an opposition party must spell out its plans if it wants to attract votes, as people now demand of David Cameron and his Conservatives.

It didn't work that way for Tony Blair in 1997, nor was it like that for Margaret Thatcher in 1979. They won power, not by offering better policies, but by offering very few, because they saw the advantage of appearing all things to all men for as long as they could. The similarity between them ended there. Blair, despite those warnings of "New Labour, New Danger", proved to be no more or less than he seemed in opposition: a sort of trimming Christian Democrat. Thatcher in power, after stumbling beginnings, turned into something we had not been warned of.

Which kind of leader is Cameron? Is he what he seems - in other words, another obsessive triangulator of the middle ground? In that case a government he led might not be all that different from what we have come to know in recent years, as Iain Macwhirter suggests on page 10. Or is there something that we aren't seeing? In other words, does he believe in something?

Conservative policies published to date make instructive reading, but not because they answer these questions. Take Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap, the document about schools. No one could complain that it was short, and though its strong suit is high-minded generalities it contains hard promises for voters to consider.

What is most instructive about Raising the Bar, however, is that, from its eagerness to extend the role of Ofsted to its endorsement of examples set in Sweden, it could so easily be a new Labour document.

This is what we can expect across the board. The more Cameron is pressed to show us what he is like, the more he will suggest he is like new Labour. Indeed, just like new Labour, he (or rather his shadow chancellor, George Osborne) has promised to adhere to his predecessor's spending plans for the first year or so in office.

This is no help in telling us what he would actually do as prime minister, though there are clues. That he went to Eton and worked in public relations may not be important, but it is revealing. That so many of the party's top team are wealthy beyond any possible identification with the lives of ordinary families certainly does matter.

And then there is Boris Johnson. Johnson is a potent reminder that the current Conservative leaders were drawn to politics in the age of Thatcher's pomp, those years when the Nasty Party took shape. It was cool not to give a damn; the public services were there to be trashed and the country was a laboratory for hard-right experiment. (Unsurprisingly, an early Johnson policy for London is an electronic version of "stop-and-search", as Brendan O'Neill reports on page 18.)

Cameron claims to have put all that behind him, but years of Telegraph columns prove that Johnson has not, and now, thanks to Cameron, Johnson is the second or third most important Tory in the country. Remember, too, that while the Conservative leader and his friends turn out their new Labour-ish policy documents, much of the party's core support (as expressed, for example, in the columns and letters pages of the Tory papers) suffers agonies of revulsion. These Tories long for another Thatcher and, until Gordon Brown's sudden loss of popularity last year, were ready to dump Cameron. In power, could he restrain them? Would he want to? Or would he give them the tax cuts they crave, wrecking public services in the process?

Cameron in office could be Blair-lite, but that is no safe bet. He used to be concerned about the environment and want us to hug hoodies, but we hear little of that now.

It is fortunate that we probably have two years before a general election. Cameron will no doubt go on trying to avoid definition, as Thatcher and Blair did in their days in opposition, but time is not on his side. It will inevitably reveal more of the true nature of new Toryism.

Not so new, and just as nasty.

Return of the season

The Hay Festival at Hay-on-Wye draws to a close this weekend, after feisty appearances from, inter alia, Gore Vidal, Cherie Blair, the Duchess of Devonshire, Will Self, Naomi Klein, Jimmy Carter, Ffion Hague and Martin Amis. Back in 2001 that silver-tongued devil, Bill Clinton, called it the "Woodstock of the mind"; that still seems too Dionysian to be convincing, but Hay certainly offers the impressive sight of our liberal intelligentsia at play. In this, its successful 21st year, the festival is more firmly entrenched than ever as a landmark of a new social season.

The old London Season, still with us in an attenuated form, was an opportunity for the aristocracy to come up from the country to launch their marriageable daughters in society. From May to August, the search for a suitable husband would take them from the Chelsea Flower Show by way of Royal Ascot and Goodwood to Wimbledon. The gratin would eat, drink, gossip and amuse and admire itself. Nowadays from May to August, our metropolitan elite take the opportunity to go to the country for Hay, Glastonbury or Edinburgh to eat, drink and network and amuse and admire themselves.

And is it less of a marriage market? Far from it. The superior crèches and special children's events of the new Season ensure that little Ivo and Scarlett make the early acquaintance of their suitable peers. All hail the new "privilegentsia", a class as self-perpetuating as the old nobility - even if it likes to pretend that it's not.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website