October 3, 2010
FINISH THE THOUGHT:
The Tories are still struggling to come to terms with the new order: David Cameron has never really settled the hash with the right in his party. The argument is just waiting to erupt (Andrew Rawnsley, 10/03/10, The Observer)
They did not expect the long years of opposition to end in a house-share with the Lib Dems.The price of coalition has included dumping policies – inheritance tax cuts, demanding sovereignty back from Europe, rewarding marriage – which were very popular with Tory activists. Worse, the well-founded suspicion among them is that David Cameron was only too glad that coalition gave him an excuse to ditch policies that he never truly believed in. Yes, they have a Tory prime minister, his approval ratings are buoyant and they will give him a long standing ovation on Wednesday when he delivers his leader's speech.
But precisely where he plans to take them in the longer term is a continuing source of angst. I have spoken to extremely senior Tory members of the government who can envisage going into the next election asking the country not for an exclusive mandate for the Conservatives but inviting the nation to re-elect the coalition, a concept that is anathema at the moment to most Tories.
Ken Clarke, previously a coalition-sceptic, tells us in his interview with today's Observer that he is becoming converted to governing with the "jolly" Lib Dems as a means of achieving more than a purely Tory government would have done. Most Conservatives would still much prefer their party to be governing alone, which makes David Cameron's evident enthusiasm for his partnership with Nick Clegg the more baffling to them. No less than Labour or the Lib Dems – arguably, more so – the Tories are struggling to come to terms with the new order of things.
They would prefer either not to be governing and accomplishing nothing or governing alone and accomplishing less, such is the lunacy of the ideologues' demand for purity.
