The Tories - a lesson from history
Over bacon and eggs in Birmingham this morning a long-standing Tory activist offered an intriguing theory. In his view, now would be a really bad time to win an election. We could end up with a directionless Tory administration lost in a sea of economic troubles: just like Ted Heath (younger readers might like to know he was Prime Minister between 1970 and 1974 and was an exponent of the namby-pamby neither one thing nor the other school of middle ground thought known as Butskellism. Here endeth the lesson).
Heath ended up losing not one but two elections in 1974 and Labour had another five years until the Iron Lady consigned Butskellism to history - at least until now.
Could Cameron be a similar one-term wonder? The downturn looks frightening and there was already no sign on the Tory leadership’s part of ideological fervour even before Western liberal capitalism became as popular as Gary Glitter at a High School Prom. But under the rhetorical radar, Cameron and Osborne are still saying the right things about markets and wealth creation.
What people forget is that Heath started out himself as a free-marketer but lost his nerve while in governmnent. That’s the lesson from history today’s Tories should remember.