The Conservatives must choose whether to be popular or be persuasive

Only 7% of Conservatives support a policy of reducing both taxes and government spending. What makes this even more surprising is that among all voters this number lies at 6%. Likewise, compared to a national 52% who support increasing both taxes and spending, 46% of Conservatives would do the same. That is the crux of the dilemma: “modern conservatism” – that vote winning behemoth ushered in by Boris in 2019 – has made the Conservative Party as economically left of centre as the rest of the country.

The current political lay of the land is that the majority lean to the left economically. Redistribution, higher taxes, and a bigger state are the status quo.

This leaves the Conservatives with three options.

1.       Embrace the situation. A la Boris, they could embrace, even celebrate, this new reality and build around it. Previously un-Conservative policies such as enlarging the already large state, throwing more money at the NHS without attempting any reformation, and increasing Levelling Up have already shown themselves to be popular policies in the Red Wall.

2.       Become a weathervane. This is what Liz Truss is rapidly becoming: try to push economically right, traditionally Tory, economic policies, but ultimately U-turn if/when the backlash becomes too strong.

3.       Persuade rather than be popular. When was the last time a politician persuaded the public that they were worth voting for, rather than riding the waves of being more popular to begin with? Arguably we have to go back to Tony Blair arguing (in his words) that you can be for the economy, for growth, yet care about those worse off, so should vote New Labour.

Politicians (especially those that have won in recent years) have been lazy – they go with popular policies and avoid or U-turn on ones that receive too much criticism. The Conservative Party needs to make a choice. If it wants to reduce the size of the state – a belief that is surely at the heart of all Conservatives – they must realise that they will have to fight harder, be more persuasive, and engage in a battle to change the philosophical beliefs of the country rather than just enter a popularity contest.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conservative Party Conference, day one: In Search of Lost Tories

The first thing that strikes you is how youthful it all is. Gaggles of young men in suits mill around, greeting people they only half remember, trying their best to look and sound important. Compared to the surrounding streets of central Birmingham, it is noticeably white and noticeably affluent. You catch privately educated pronunciation from passers by; well dressed young women in trouser suits and heels click past while the blue suits laugh loudly at their own jokes.  The ICC is a cavernous, impersonal space, buzzing and humming with a thousand background conversations. The main lobby cuts like a gorge between balconies, windows, and mezzanines rising several stories above on both sides. Like an airport, it is a neutral liminal space where everyone is either waiting or already on their way somewhere else. Soviet sized banners of the four leadership candidates - Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, and Tom Tugendhat - smile benevolently down at us, less like the propaga...
Read more

How do you solve a problem like obesity?

Fat people. They’re everywhere. Especially in schools. In fact, if Jamie Oliver is to be believed, you’re lucky if you have a kid and he’s not obese. But whether that’s true or not (it’s not) is a story for another day. Thanks to Coronavirus this is a bigger problem than ever. The obese are at a far greater risk than the non-obese, hence Boris Johnson highlighted the importance of fighting obesity to combat coronavirus deaths. But what can be done to help? Too many people, in this increasingly Statist country we live in, are rushing to ask this question: how best can the state wield its powers to make fat people healthier? Well, one tried and tested way to motivate people to act a certain way is to provide them with role models. Footballers are encouraged to behave well publicly because it is well known that boys look up to them as heroes and copy what they do- both on and off the pitch. Perhaps there could be adverts with healthy looking models who could become aspirational targe...
Read more

The moral question of taxes has been ignored for too long

 There are economic and moral arguments both for and against taxes. The economic argument will always be a consequentialist one and will always be essentially academic, and so essentially infinitely arguable. All we can know for sure is that the truth will lie somewhere in the Goldilocks zone: too much tax will be economically counterproductive, while too little tax will fail to cover the minimal costs necessary to maintain a functioning state. The debate around this has been going on for centuries and will continue to rage for as long as there is a spectrum of economic beliefs. However, perhaps more interestingly, and certainly less commonly, is the moral debate around taxes. Up until this point, recent discourse in UK politics has taken for granted that the state has a right – even a responsibility – to take taxes in order to provide services. The only debate has been around how much the state should provide; and the answer has been that it should provide more and more. The...
Read more