CAN THE TORIES MOVE ANY FURTHER TO THE CENTER, EXCEPT RHETORICALLY?:

Something of the Knight about him: Michael Howard is almost certain to be crowned leader of the Conservative party but can he re-invent himself and his party to convince a dubious public that they are a viable alternative government? (James Cusick, 11/02/03, Sunday Herald)

The youthful William Hague and IDS, the former soldier, both inexperienced leaders, nudged the party to the right because they believed that was where Thatcher’s Tories had found success. They may also have recognised that as New Labour now dominated the centre, there was no other parking space left.

Now Howard, with right-wing credentials on everything from criminal justice, Europe, the environment, the unions and taxation, appears set to take the Tories back to the centre for the first time since John Major’s short-lived attempt at One Nation Conservatism.

According to a director of a consultancy hoping to advise Howard’s team : “There seems, according to those I’ve spoken to, a desire to return to inclusive Conservatism, almost more Heath-like than Thatcherite. But it’s early days.” [...]

Howard’s twin tasks are to now re-invent himself and re-invent his party. His smile was once described as having “the substance of the Cheshire cat, the menace of Uriah Heep and sincerity of Bob Monkhouse”. The man he sacked as director of Britain’s prisons, Derek Lewis, said: “Too much of what he does is directed to his own personal political career, too little to the broader political and public interest.”

But Howard’s future and the future of his party are bound together and his political pragmatism may be their best asset. Promising to “look forward, not backward” and insisting he would change the fact that “many of the great provincial cities are Conservative deserts”, Howard seems to have accepted the scale of the task ahead of him. His reference to not looking “backward” indicates a revised form of Thatcherism is not on the menu.

Hopefully they're talking about their own version of compassionate conservatism. On a side note, Mr. Howard, it turns out, is a baseball and a Mets fan. That's a point in his favor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2003 7:28 AM