With almost perfect timing a book – Tory Pride and Prejudice, authored by Michael McManus – has been published that charts the history of the Conservative Party and homosexual law reform. Greg Barker, in an interview for the book, summarises Cameron’s view on such matters: “David’s approach has been non-doctrinaire, remembering to remind people that what we believe in first and foremost is good manners, civility, kindness and a spirit of generosity which is nothing to do with political correctness.” This position is supported by ex-leaders Michael Howard and John Major. In an interview for the book Major said: “If we are a libertarian party, we can’t be libertarian except for people who are gay.”

The book shows that this was a mainstream issue, not a peripheral one. In the view of David Laws the Lib Dems would have found it difficult to form a full coalition with the Conservatives if they hadn’t possessed a modern outlook: “The previous attitudes of Conservatives on both the ‘personal liberal agenda’ and the ‘social liberal agenda’ would clearly have been a big barrier, potentially, to the type of coalition we have.” As recently as the late 90s there was a significant element in the Party who did not want to see any change to the official Conservative attitude. This insistence maintained the stigma of the Conservative’s being the nasty party, driving away many natural supporters. To quote Shaun Woodward:  “I felt the Tory party had left me, not the other way around”. With the benefit of hindsight Michael Howard now realises the damage that was done, especially by section 28:  “It became a kind of totem of a certain image that a lot of people wanted to pin onto the Conservative Party. I would not do it again. I think it was a mistake. I am sorry I did it.”

Tory Pride and Prejudice starts off in the mid-50s when prompted by a number of scandals in the establishment Winston Churchill asked John Wolfenden to conduct a report into ‘Homosexual Offences and Prostitution’. The original proposals to decriminalise homosexual acts were described as “a charter for buggery” from the Conservative benches. The Earl of Dudley said: “Prison is much too good a place for them; in fact, that is a place many of them like to go –for obvious reasons.” I think Sir Cyril Black MP was trying to be understanding when he said: “I do not believe we serve the cause of these men by suggesting that they are incapable of a better life.”

As you may have gathered McManus, along with his researcher Will Timmins, unearthed a treasure-trove of golden quotes from Hansard and old intervies; one of my favourite being Lord Arran’s reaction to the merchant navy’s attempts to stop decriminalisation being applied to their ships:  “From what I am told, if there ever was a horse in those stables it has long since bolted”

 Tory Pride and Prejudice is about the public relationship between the political party that was in Government for most of the 20th Century and homosexual law reform. Those who are looking for salacious gossip, and are hoping that Conservative ministers – past and present – will be exposed for living double lives will not get their kicks from the book. McManus touches on Edward Heath (“The author of this book worked for Sir Edward Heath between 1995 and 2000 and was left in no doubt whatsoever that Heath was a gay man who had sacrificed his personal life to his political career, exercising iron self-control and living a celibate existence as he climbed the ‘greasy pole’ of preferment.”) but avoids adding to other speculation.

The personal stories of gay Conservatives who at first believed that they couldn’t consider entering parliament because of their sexuality (Guy Black), then those who decided to ‘come out’ once they were well established MPs (Alan Duncan, Nigel Evens, Crispin Blunt) and finally the many0 who entered parliament in 2010 ‘open’ (Nick Boles, Iain Stewart, Mike Freer) provides a touching account of how times have changed. According to Stonewall the Conservative Party has more openly homosexual MPs than all the other parties put together. I find it great that in one sense this matters (the Conservative Party is now comfortable with this issue), but in another sense it doesn’t matter at all (it is about individuals and their abilities, not their sexual preferences).

Tory Pride and Prejudice is much more than a comprehensively researched and well written account of the Conservative Party’s relationship with homosexual law reform. It is a book about the Party’s relationship with the modern world and the journey it took to become comfortable with it.

Indeed, the Liberal Democrats have already claimed credit for policies such as the abolition of ID cards and the pupil premium (an idea developed by Policy Exchange), which were actually in the manifestoes of both parties.  Lib Dems claimed that it was their influence that resulted in the ‘Listening Exercise’ and the watering down of the proposed NHS reforms (despite Nick Clegg putting his name to the original proposals).   They also claim to be holding the Tories back from making deeper cuts in public services and cutting the 50p tax rate.

The Tory side of the coalition need to be very wary about this.  Despite coming to something of a halt in around 2008, the Tory modernisation process did, to an extent, change people’s perception of the Party.  It at least gave the Conservatives permission to be listened to, as well as softening their message and broadening the Conservative focus.  It also allowed Tories, for the first time in a generation, to emphasise the progressive elements of their political heritage.

Liberals claiming the credit for progressive reforms imperils that process.  Their message is basically that, without the Lib Dem brake and an injection of Liberal progressivism, this would have been a typical, right wing Tory Government.  The argument over health reforms has also served to retoxify the Tory brand on the NHS (always an Achilles heel, which was neutralised by the process of modernisation) and the Conservatives would be ill advised to sacrifice gains made in other areas.

The narrative of the “nice Lib Dems”  reining back the “ruthless Tories” could be damaging to the Tories in 2015.  Any suggestion that the Conservatives would have governed  in a more old-style, right wing and less progressive way, without a Lib Dem brake, could have a real impact on their electoral chances in 2015.

The importance of considering this threat was illustrated by a Populus poll which showed that the majority of people still believe that the Conservatives are a “party for the rich, not for ordinary people.”  To counter this threat, Conservatives need to keep emphasising their own progressive policies (why was gay marriage launched at the Liberal conference and not in the Rose Garden, for example) and make sure that the Tory brand remains detoxified and linked to progressive causes.

The latest example comes from Nick Pearce of the IPPR. He’s asked whether the Lib Dems’ proposal for increasing the income tax threshold – the amount you’re allowed to earn before you start paying income tax – is progressive. This is an idea that many Conservatives think we should have shamelessly nicked a long time ago, so it’s worth thinking about.

The full post is here – here’s the key paragraph:

“… the policy is broadly regressive. This seems counter-intuitive, but it’s obvious when you give it a little thought. Raising the tax allowance gives everyone a tax cut, not just low earners, unless it is offset by reductions in the higher rate threshold or other measures. It is particularly valuable to households with two full-time earners who tend to be located higher up the income distribution. It doesn’t help part-time low earners, those earning too little to pay tax, and those in workless households.”

Now, defining ‘progressive’ as ‘you help the poor first’ seems fair. But these are odd ideas about what is regressive.

For a start, it ‘gives everyone a tax cut’. To dismiss this as regressive is absurdly and rigidly relativist, based on an obsession with keeping parity between breaks for different earners, rather than simply helping the lowest earners. You can debate who should pay what, the best means to raise tax, and how much the rich should contribute – indeed these pages had an argument that the rich should do more just a few weeks back – but just because this policy would help everyone, doesn’t make it bad for the poorest. And if we’re looking for a decent working definition of ‘regressive’, then surely ‘something that hurts the poorest’ will do.

And it’s ‘particularly valuable to households with two full-time earners.’ Yes, it is. So what? It remains valuable to single-earner households. And it doesn’t help ‘part-time low earners’, those below tax, and ‘those in workless households’. No, it doesn’t. But that’s because they’re not paying income tax in the first place: that is a good thing. It’s a bit like arguing that scrapping a fuel duty wouldn’t help non-drivers, or that scrapping a (imaginary!) meat tax wouldn’t help vegetarians; it just misses the point. Again, if it leaves those groups alone, and makes no-one worse off – literally, not a single person will be a penny poorer – how can it possibly be regressive?

The logic of Nick’s argument seems to be that it’s not progressive to help the poorest, if you also help the better-off.

Only in the liberal Westminster bubble could people sustain this line. We should submit policies like this to a common-sense test of progressiveness: what would a low-earner say? Can you imagine sitting down with someone on £10,000 a year, looking them in the eye, and telling them that it’s wrong for them to have a little bit more, because someone slightly richer would also become better off by a few extra percent? You’d be brave as well as foolish to do so, because in the real world, a policy which ‘gives everyone a tax cut’ will never be seen a bad thing. It will always be seen as progress.

Maybe the view is informed by an implicit assumption that that tax cuts for everyone are regressive, because that could ultimately limit public expenditure or redistribution. Maybe it’s not; if it is, the social purposes of taxation are something separate to discuss.

But regardless of what underpins this view, the bottom line is that under this income tax plan, the poorest would pay less tax. The lowest earners would be a little bit richer. Surely only a mightily confused, pointlessly relativist, or stubbornly statist mindset could possibly think that that is in any way regressive?

“Common sense” is good, it is solid, it eschews the fashionable fad for what we know works. Common sense politicians concentrate on what matters to me, rather than focusing on fantasy big ideas. Does this mean we will hear no more about “Big Society” or the “Post-bureaucratic Age”?  I hope not. In times of great change and uncertainty it is understandable that a lot of people will want to cling to what is known. But as a country we don’t have the luxury of standing still, or relying purely on reactionary instincts.

David Blackburn over at Coffee House reported that: “Speaking later on the programme, Matthew d’Ancona and Andrew Rawnsley noted that the interview perhaps signified the end of the famous ‘de-toxification’ process…” Now, I have never been a fan of the term ‘de-toxification’. It reminds people that we are/were toxic, and encourages us Tories to both be introspective and look backwards, rather than focusing outwards and on the future. I am happy to end the self-flagellating that started after Theresa May’s “Nasty Party Speech” but we must not stop modernising. (Matthew d’Ancona is spot on about this).

On the contrary, in this rapidly changing world it is common sense to go with the new,- be a radical leader – rather than be a participant in the fight against change. The Conservative Party should be the place for those who understand this. My Platform 10 co-blogger David Skelton often makes the excellent point that it would be damaging if the electorate believe Blair’s line that the Tories modernised “because they had to not because they believed in it.”

I know that there will be many who disagree with this, but therein lies the problem with ‘common sense’; it is not always common and you may think my sense is utter nonsense.

The speech did have one little idea worth a second look, though – the ‘British promise’.

This clumsy phrase is based on ‘the expectation that next generation will do better than the last, whatever their birth or background.’ Miliband observed that this

“is about what happens between generations. That the easy path is to take short-term decisions…. And if we really do care about the next generation, we will have to show it in the decisions we take.”

To fans of conservative thought, this may feel a little familiar.

Last year David Willet’s book The Pinch won attention for its argument that the baby boomers have ‘taken their children’s future’ and the idea they are ‘spending the kids’ inheritance.’

Or, here’s George Osborne speaking in 2008:

“The current generation should not make the next generation pay for its mistakes. There should be fairness between the generations, not just within them. We care for our elders, our children will care for us, and so it goes on from generation to generation.”

Sound a tad similar? Well, here’s Margaret Thatcher on the election trail:

“That’s the way society is improved, by millions of people resolving that they’ll give their children a better life than they’ve had themselves. And there’s just no substitute for this elemental human instinct.”

And moving from 1979 to 1790, here’s Edmund Burke, reflecting on the revolution in France, arguing that society…

“becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

So the ‘British promise’ isn’t new, and even if Miliband’s emphasis was obviously different it’s clear that the talking about fairness between generations harks to a rich vein of undeniably conservative thinking. It’s an important concept, that promotes a pragmatic meaning of fairness - and also allows a conservative to talk coherently about the future, providing intellectual ballast for policies from poverty reduction to debt reduction.

That means this is a serious philosophical battleground. When published, Red Tory was recognised as borrowing heavily from ideas more associated with the left – mutualism, local economies and so on – and Blue Labour, which Miliband’s speech gave a clear nod to, follows the ideological kleptomania-by-colours. This debate will influence thinking for years to come.

There’s also a more immediate political and electoral importance to Miliband’s musings.

Demographic change makes navigating relations between age-groups increasingly vital: those baby-boomers are a hefty voting bloc, and the younger generation a potentially angry one.

What’s more, intergenerational fairness (well, maybe not the actual phrase) resonates with people – it goes to the heart of what most people want from life.

No political party or intellectual tradition can assume it has a monopoly on refining, developing and benefitting from the concept. So this might not have been a great speech.

But precisely because it strayed into traditional Tory territory, if Miliband and Labour develop this theme, then it will surely merit a deeper response.