On Thursday, we went to the formal launch of Bright Blue, the network for progressive Conservatives. Dave and I had written an article for their new magazine, Progressive Conscience, which you can read on pages 14&15 or in the post below this one.
There’s been plenty of discussion (that’s 3 links there) of the group, so I won’t go into the details of what David Willetts had to say and so on, but I think it’s important to outline why these sorts of groups are vital to the future of the Conservatives.
As we say in our article, and as Will Straw, I think, misunderstands, there are some people – on all sides and from all walks of life – who don’t want politics to change. They don’t want the freeing up of our institutions, they don’t want the accountability and transparency that a Conservative government wants to provide, and they don’t want to live in today’s Britain.
The proliferation of groups such as Bright Blue, Tory Reform Group, Platform10 and so on is for two reasons: firstly, that we want to show that Conservatives are at the forefront of calling time on the old ways – that have been shown to fail – of doing things. And secondly, that there are sufficient numbers of us who are willing to speak out for what we believe, for what we want to see change, and to hold a potential Conservative government to account. We know that there are always temptations to lapse into the old ways of doing things but also that there is no alternative. Politics has to change.
Perhaps a third reason is a little less lofty – but no less valid. We need to demonstrate to voters – the people who decide – that we understand that they are put off politics as usual. And that we want to work with them to attain the changes they want to see. That means electing a Conservative government, which we will all hold to account and push to enact the changes that David Cameron and his team are proposing.
Related posts:
In 2000, Mr Cameron said that the Blair government was obsessed with a “fringe agenda… including deeply unpopular moves like repealing Section 28 and allowing the promotion of homosexuality in schools”.
Two years later, he told a Guardian fringe meeting at a Tory conference that he backed the repeal of the legislation – only to vote for the Conservative motion a year later.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/04/conservatives2006.conservatives1
This really upsets me. How dare you support this man?
Peter: I think he was wrong to say that in 2000. I’m glad he has seen the error of his ways. I’d rather elect someone who learns from his mistakes than someone who continues to make the same ones over and over again – wouldn’t you? Of course I’d prefer that they don’t make the mistakes in the first place. But realistically not everyone can get everything right all the time.
And indeed, as I say in my post, that’s why people like P10, TRG, BB exist – to continue to push for what we believe is right, and hold the Tories to account if they don’t deliver.
Peter, Cameron has the political consistency of a weather vane. Fiona, I think you mean “to continue to push for what we believe is left.” In particular, I see no difference between the agenda of the Tory Reaction Group and the Lib Dems.
Michael: Umm… you might think that, but oddly I disagree! We push for what we believe to be the correct thing to do – better?!
More substantively, I believe that we are correct (see what I did there…!) to argue for the Party to be centrist and to respond to what voters want. As Dave and I said in the article for Progressive Conscience, we have been ahead of, with and behind public opinion in our Party’s past but, when we’ve been successful, never too far away from it. And that is what living in a representative democracy means. MPs are not elected to some powerkick, I know best decision-making body with no accountability. They are elected to represent us and make their best judgements for the greater good.
Problems arise when governments make unpopular decisions that they were not honest about, and that have damaging effects on the people who elected them.
It is, I admit, a difficult line to tread – you can’t set out what you would do in every possible eventuality in a manifesto. But much of politics is about judgement and principles and character. And I, as I said, would much prefer someone who can hold his hands up and say, “I listened to the arguments, and you know what? I was wrong”, than someone who blindly bulldozes his way through, and continues to make the wrong decisions.