There was much to admire in the early positioning of David Cameron after he won the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005. He was the first Tory leader who seemed genuinely at ease in a plural, liberal, multiracial Britain. He was not a cultural conservative or a pessimist. Rather, he was socially liberal, anxious about our overheating world and relaxed about issues that had once so agitated the Tories - the party of Section 28 - such as race, immigration and gay rights.
With his house in Notting Hill and his fashionable media friends, Mr Cameron was a genuine product of London globalisation. What's more, he very quickly and successfully decontaminated the Tory "brand". The self-described "nasty party" was changing and, as Labour's free radical Jon Cruddas says in his interview with Jason Cowley on page 14, Cameron spoke the language of compassionate conservatism, which helped to "reintroduce the notion of fraternity for the right . . . By talking about fraternity you rediscover a language which is kinder, gentler and more emotionally robust compared to the shrill, empty words of the focus group."
That was then. Today, Mr Cameron cuts a very different figure: troubled, cynical and under pressure from his own restive backbenchers. They felt let down by their leader at the height of the expenses scandal and now feel largely shut out from his system of centralised command. Mr Cameron is beginning to lose confidence and is in danger of reverting to Tory type.
The Conservatives have floundered throughout the economic crisis, adopting one position and then another, opposing various aspects of the fiscal stimulus programme before eventually settling on a fixed position - that of draconian and emergency cuts to public spending to reduce sovereign debt in the immediate aftermath of a Tory general election victory. However, Mr Cameron has now flip-flopped yet again: speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said that there would be no "swingeing cuts" in the first year of a Conservative government. The trouble is, it is becoming hard to believe anything he says, such is his inconsistency. He gives the impression of being a leader who is desperate for power at all costs - indeed, at any cost.
On page 22, the historian Dominic Sandbrook, who writes our weekly counterfactual column, "What If . . .", has decided not to look back at the past but into the future. It is 2015, and the Cameron government, informed by no clear guiding values or principles, has created a truly broken Britain. He offers a light-hearted and irreverent reading of one possible nightmarish Tory future. But it could all come true if Mr Cameron does not begin to show decisive leadership.
Meanwhile, Labour has had a strong start to the new year, benefiting from the Tories' missteps and U-turns. The polls have narrowed and the Tories are now increasingly haunted by the spectre of a hung parliament.
Apparently emboldened, Gordon Brown issued a belated "rallying call", in an article on 2 February, "for a new progressive politics". He said it was time to "build a progressive consensus in favour of change". These phrases are familiar to us. The Prime Minister and his aides appear to have been inspired by recent NS leaders. In our Christmas issue, we noted that the coming election holds out "the tantalising prospect of a realignment of progressive politics". The following week, we referred to the pressing need "to resolve the historic 'progressive dilemma' in British politics".
Genuine rather than cosmetic electoral reform has always been central to such a project. So we welcome Mr Brown's decision to legislate for a referendum on changes to the voting system, which would then have to take place by the end of October 2011. While some change is better than none, it should be noted that the Alternative Vote, as proposed by the Prime Minister, is not a proportional system (visit newstatesman.com for a detailed explanation of PR).
Then there is the timing of this announcement. The Liberal Democrats, with some justification, have referred to the move as a "deathbed conversion". Mr Brown and his allies have long been opposed to electoral reform. It is dispiriting that Labour, tormented by the prospect of losing power, is only now delivering on a promise, made nearly 13 years ago in its 1997 manifesto, to hold a referendum on voting reform. Here, again, is an example of cynical politics.
Yet the Prime Minister was right to make this important announcement and to invite progressive politicians from all parties to join him in fixing our failing political system. There is no such intent from Mr Cameron's Conservatives: the party once more of the status quo.
