The Tories have been here before. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if they have never been anywhere else. Since a brief interlude after the 1992 election, the Conservative Party has been bereft of morale. It is also worth remembering that the problems started under Margaret Thatcher. ‘Loyalty is the Tories’ secret weapon,’ said David Maxwell Fyfe, more than 60 years ago. In recent decades, it has almost always been a well-kept secret. The Tory leadership sounds like a noble aspiration, one of the greatest offices of all. Yet in the current era, it has often resembled, in the words of Josephus describing Jerusalem, ‘A golden bowl full of scorpions.’
In our day, the difficulties have grown worse. Even before this Thursday’s local elections, the scorpions are mustering. Admittedly, one should spare some sympathy for those Tories on the front line, who can see what is coming. Many Tory councillors, who went into public life out of duty, and have worked conscientiously on behalf of their local area, are now likely to be swept away. They cannot be blamed if they find it hard to summon up loyalty.
But in hard times, teeth must be gritted. Loyalty is more necessary than ever. Tory supporters have to stop belly-aching and address themselves to a question which most of them thought would never arise. Do they want their party to survive? The Tories have been the most successful electoral force in democratic history. Tories have always regarded themselves as the true national party: the only reliable custodians of the national interest. At most times, even most of their opponents have grudgingly conceded the need to take the Tory Party seriously.
Yet if the party goes on sacking its leaders like a third division football club regularly dispensing of its managers after a string of bad results, no one will take the Tories seriously. This is a party which can trace itself to the constitutional conflicts and battlefields of the 17th century – when the Tories were by no means always right. Apparently crushed forever under a Whig oligarchy, the party was resurrected by the Younger Pitt and thrived under Castlereagh, Peel, Salisbury and other paladins. It ultimately provided a political home for Churchill and nurtured our greatest peacetime premier, Margaret Thatcher, at least for a season. I am omitting that noblest of defectors, Gladstone, plus the name which will always be bracketed with his, Disraeli, the Boris Johnson of the day. Would it have been better for Britain and for the Tories if Gladstone had been the leader rather than Disraeli? Undoubtedly.
Anyway, those few uncontroversial comments should make one point: that Toryism has been a noble political vocation which has given great service to the country which it reveres. But in order to continue to do so, it must take itself seriously.
Certainly, some form of Toryism would survive. It might call itself the poujadist/populist/Faragist/cheeky chappie saloon-bar front, but would be unrecognisable as a serious party for serious times. When Disraeli wrecked Peel’s government and condemned his party to decades in the wilderness, it did not ultimately matter. There was no threat to national survival. Russell, Aberdeen, Palmerston – who should have been a Tory – and Gladstone: it was safe to leave men like that in charge.
Now, everything is different. Domestically and internationally, we are in one of the most hazardous eras in peacetime history and there is no sign that the risks will abate. There is an urgent need for a strong government with the right instincts: above all, with a deep-rooted patriotism. Despite the recent problems, I would argue that only the Tory Party can provide this – and that under the current leader, there are intimations of statesmanship.
That said, Kemi Badenoch will have to raise her game. We still do not know nearly enough about who she is and what she stands for.
Yet it should not be difficult to dispel those doubts. Fully as much as any of her Tory predecessors, Kemi Badenoch believes in Britain. She has often made that point, movingly. But there has been a failure of repetition. She needs to hammer home her conviction. She ought to tell us what Britain means to her, its proud history and heritage from the past: its present and future as a land of opportunity. Yes, she could say, some people are held back and the soft bigotry of low expectations is often to blame. But where there are obstacles to opportunity, they must be removed. Even so, those who complain about the lack of opportunity ought to ask themselves one question. Am I trying hard enough? Years ago, she could remind everyone, Norman Tebbit told us that when his father had difficulty in finding work, he got on his bike and went looking for a job. That was the spirit then. That spirit is needed now.
Britain and opportunity lead easily onwards to the next vital word in the Tory lexicon: aspiration. A Tory party which fails to offer aspiration is failing in a basic task. Britain, opportunity, aspiration: that provides the necessary basis for inspiration, so needed today.
Obviously, detailed policies will be necessary when the next national election approaches. Equally, Badenoch has to find a way of dealing with the previous Conservative government’s record, conceding that there were failures but offering the impetus to move on. The more she can express her own beliefs in powerful language – which comes easily to her – the easier it will be to focus on the future and provide hope.
That is a quality which voters long for. It is not easy for Keir Starmer to provide it. He gives every impression that he does not really do hope and to be fair to him, he is not fluent at insincerity.
Nigel Farage is notoriously fluent, but is he serious? Does the man himself really believe that he is serious? As for Ed Davey, his PR team have reduced him to a semi-competent stuntman.
Kemi is serious and fluent. But she does need to unchain her rhetoric to make the voters sit up.
That is not going to happen before Thursday. In the 1980s, David Steel once advised his fellow Liberals not to approach every problem with an open mouth. It is a poor state of affairs when many Tories ought to take advice from a former Liberal leader, but there it is. After Thursday, Mrs Badenoch will simply have to pick herself up, dust herself down and open her mouth. The Conservative Party, and the wider electorate, need to hear her words, her convictions, her message. She and her party both face simple tasks. She has to offer the forceful language of strong leadership. Her party needs to respond, with determination – and followership.
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