I sincerely hope that the rumours that the BBC is thinking of pulling This Week are false. The weekly combination of Michael Portillo, Diane Abbot and Andrew Neil is one that a political junkie like me finds addictive.
Last Thursday’s edition saw Peter Hitchens attempt another hatchet job against David Cameron and the Conservative Party. Hitchens is a useful figure for newspapers and television editors, because he is willing to espouse unpopular causes in a trenchant way. A good polemicist he might be, but his appearance confirmed the lack of sophistication and depth to his views. His argument seems to go something like this: the Conservative Party is failing because it is insufficiently right wing and even if it was more right wing it wouldn’t help because it has a toxic brand. We thus, in the Hitchens analysis, need to start a new right wing party that will somehow be swept to victory.
Michael Portillo made Hitchens look foolish. He pointed out that the new party espousing Hitchens’ views exists and is called UKIP. The Conservatives have lost three elections in a row playing the old right wing tunes, and have been rejected by the electorate three times in a row. Hitchens, as Portillo rightly said, is the Tony Benn of the right. Hitchens is clearly a fringe figure on the right of British politics. However, a less virulent strain of Hitchens’ analysis infects more mainstream elements of the right. There is a view that is gaining credence in some circles that we need to be bolder in offering right wing red meat to the electorate if we are to win the next election.
Those of us who know that elections are won on the centre ground must not be complacent. The war over the centre of gravity in our party is being fought every day. We must explain, patiently and persistently, what we view to be self-evident: that only a forward looking and inclusive Conservatism can thrive in the twenty-first century.
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