How to Retake the Moral High Ground

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April 2011

In popularising compassionate conservatism, a new language is essential. Conservatives must learn to stop speaking like accountants and instead start to communicate a mission. This isn't a call to deploy messianic language. That would be a disastrous folly and a departure from the party of practical wisdom that the Conservative Party is at its best. The party's moral language needs to be rooted in everyday common sense. Ask most people today about the Tory brand and despite the "decontamination" phase of Cameronism, the party is still seen as wanting to cut government, fight Europe and unleash enterprise. None of those things is bad but they don't add up to a balanced brand.

Over time, if the language and policies are consistently pursued — and we are probably needing to think in terms of at least 20 years — Conservatives should aim to be thought of in three new ways, all of them rooted in the party's best traditions.

The party should aim to be seen as allergic to government debt; to believe in living within a nation's means; and to be opposed in its gut to the immorality of leaving one generation's impossible debts for the next. Only such a hard-wired aversion to borrowing will starve the national instinct endlessly to expand the frontiers of the state.

Next, the party needs a language on poverty-fighting that can combat the Left's "What is the government doing about this?" mantra and all the consequences that flow from it. Conservatives need to be the party that asks, "What are people and families doing to build their own future?" The aim is to build a culture that sees the elimination of poverty as possible with a good schooling, a good family and a good job — not another government handout. Compassionate conservatism is not, however, libertarian. Such conservatives believe that government has a role to help people get a good education. They believe that taxpayers should support the family. They believe that any system that doesn't incentivise work is unacceptable. Wanting to work, like wanting to save, learn, give and marry, are for compassionate conservatives the greatest and most socially useful of aspirations and should never be penalised by a good government.

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Compassionate Conservatism

The Conservative Party

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Clara X

April 8th, 2011
4:04 PM

Longer comment here: http://feminismfortories.wordpress.com/

Clara X

April 8th, 2011
3:04 PM

The question of what our Conservative values are is difficult partly because Conservatives tend to think of themselves as pragmatic, following the evidence of “what works” rather than ideological instinct. Because “what works” differs between individuals, Conservatives strongly support individual choice. However, a bigger issue than the definition of Conservative values is the frequent conflating of values and morals. Values are one thing, morals quite another. A value expresses a goal worth pursuing. A value can reflect changing circumstances, can incorporate differences of opinion. A value is flexible rather than prescriptive. A value can fit to encompass the choices individuals make. A moral indicates something which “ought” to be done, something which is “right” or even “good”. At their heart, morals rely on being pinned to absolutes, whether humanist, scientific or religious. Morality assumes a norm to be conformed to, a perfect answer to strive towards. Morality is dogmatic, it separates and alienates Yes, the Conservative Party needs to emphasis values. But talking about morals will undermine Compassionate Conservatism. It will take us back towards morals based on dogma instead of values based on individual free choice.

Peel

April 4th, 2011
9:04 AM

The present government has decided to adopt all the ideology of Blair, Blunkett, Brown, with cuts. Ideologically this is a LibDem administration, as Clegg is revealing on Tuesday with an agenda of social engineering only predicted by Orwell. Posh public schoolboys like Clegg, Cameron, Osborne, who have never had a proper job, never scrimped and saved to send their children to decent schools, are perhaps more dangerous than Brown - at least he put his cards on the table and voters were clear about what they were in for. Now the scrimper and saver class are hated by the Tories, 'the bourgeoisie': if you are rich and poor and a minority with a favoured status, you are a winner. Thatcher's revolution is destroyed. We all know it. Never ever trust the Tories again. To my surprise, Peter Hitchens is the pundit who really did get it right about the role of Cameron's Tories as a deceiving siren voice of false reassuranace to the common sense tradition. The state is now allergic to the bourgeoisie, we seem to be in soft marxian world, by stealth, and soon won't be allowed to boot out what we don't want, after May 5.

Anonymous

April 1st, 2011
4:04 PM

Here, in a nutshell, is the answer to why any Tory ‘win’ (under the current leadership) against Labour will be shortlived. A Conservative party that accepts Labour’s moral premise will always lose. In any conflict of ideas, the side with the most consistent philosophy will win. To successfully challenge the moral morass of dependency, state handouts, and the idea that the state has the right to the fruits of your labour (no pun intended), a rational opposition needs to build on the political legacy of the great Lady T, who also emphasised values: the values of individual initiative, achievement and responsibility; that we are not ‘our brothers’ keepers’, that we reject the collectivist big government solutions, both in their Labour and watered down ‘compassionate conservative’ variants; that the state should not nanny people from cradle to grave. There’s a reason why Margaret Thatcher never lost a general election, and why Cameroon failed to win a majority. Someone should tell Mr Montgomerie that a political party, if it is to have a future, must not only reflect the electorate - it needs to lead it.

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