NOTHING DRIVES THE OPPOSITION CRAZIER THAN AN OPPONENT THEY AGREE WITH:

We will all suffer if Cameron's brand of Conservatism fails: A Tory government is all but inevitable. The left is best served by engaging with the policies of a leader still open to ideas (Jenni Russell, 3/03/09, The Guardian)

For 30 years anyone who thought themselves vaguely on the left has been able to rail against the nastiness of Conservatism. We deplored their devotion to the interests of the rich, their worship of the market, their callous indifference towards all those who couldn't flourish in their cruel, competitive world. We detested their xenophobia, racism, sexism and snobbery. We knew, from grim experience, how willing they were to let schools and hospitals crumble and public spaces become sad and fearful. We exhorted them to abandon their disgraceful politics - while remaining comfortably certain that they never would.

Well, now they're trying. There is a real battle going on within the Tories over the party's identity. A small group of determined people at the top is trying to pull the party behind some version of green, progressive, or compassionate conservatism. Its members are doggedly establishing the Conservatives in the centre, and sometimes the centre-left, of the political battleground. And yet, far from welcoming the fact that our political futures could lie in this more civilised territory, much of the left and its commentators are furiously trying to undermine or ridicule this move.

Nothing could be more shortsighted. Look at the polls. This exhausted, demoralised, increasingly authoritarian government has no ideas beyond surviving the immediate financial crisis. Its multiple failings, from inadequate financial oversight to ruthless centralisation, complicity in torture, and vainglorious wars, are piling up against it. It seems most improbable that in a year's time the electorate will decide that what it really wants is to give Gordon Brown another chance to show what he can do.

Anyone who cares about the future therefore has a choice. They can spend the next year hoping impotently that an increasingly irrelevant Labour administration will change its nature. Or they can recognise that the most important political question we now face is how to influence the shape of the next Tory government, since it's what we're likely to be living under for five, or nine or even 14 years.

Labour couldn't accept this about Thatcher. The Tories couldn't accept it about Blair. Republicans couldn't accept it about Clinton. Democrats couldn't accept it about W. There's no way Labour will accept it about Cameron. That's just the nature of the Third Way.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 7, 2009 8:16 AM