Mr Cameron has described himself, notoriously, as the "heir to Blair". He memorably led his MPs in a standing ovation for Mr Blair on his departure from Parliament, unprecedented in every way. His closest colleague, Michael Gove, has both in the past and more recently burst out into songs of praise of Mr Blair. The Tory party constantly flatters Blairite courtiers, such as Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn and Andrew Adonis, sometimes lauding them in public statements. Now, though I disagree with many old conservative friends who supported the Iraq War and, as it were, "went over" to Mr Blair on this issue after years of opposing him, I remain puzzled by the way in which their entry into the Blair big tent has apparently transformed their view on other, entirely unconnected matters, all of which they used to care about. It is most odd. Many people still think of the Iraq war as being an essentially "right-wing" enterprise. I do not think it is. I also don't think this is true of the "Euston Manifesto" group of acute and perceptive left-wingers who have transferred their utopian hopes, long homeless, to an interventionist US. And I remain puzzled by the way in which people such as Charles Moore have found themselves sharing a cause with Nick Cohen and apparently not been made to wonder, by this unlikely company, whether they have come to the wrong shop. But there it is. It is just so. I have experienced long periods of doublethink myself, in which it has been easier to live with absurdly contradictory positions than to acknowledge the difficulty and resolve it.

But what is much more puzzling to me is the apparent abandonment, by such conservatives, of any concern with issues which once moved them powerfully, including the cultural, sexual and moral revolutions, the man-made global warming cult, the attack on the married state, the pollution of language with intolerant leftist Newspeak, the pursuit of equality of outcome rather than of equality of opportunity, the loss of rigour and authority in education, the break-up of the UK and the unending salami-slicing assault on tradition and Christianity, the general unremitting attack on what Mr Blair once called "the forces of conservatism". Mr Cameron has nothing of any comfort or substance to say about these issues. On the contrary, on many of them he has aligned himself with the other side in acts of public self-abasement to the new orthodoxy. I might add the issue of national independence to these as well, but I have to acknowledge Mr Cameron's masterly ability to appear militant on the European matter without binding himself to any dangerous course. 

Once the coming election is out of the way (and, like the Tory high command, I do not share the conventional view that an outright Conservative victory is assured), it will be time to discuss politics again. And where will the genuine conservatives in Britain be if they have, by silent acquiescence, helped to perpetuate Blairite government? Powerless and alone. Every possible outcome (save one) is bad. If Mr Cameron wins outright, he will attribute his victory to his abandonment of conservative policies and the remaining conservatives in the parliamentary party will be more isolated than at any time since the days of Edward Heath. If he manages to form a minority or coalition government, it will of necessity be a Blairite, leftist coalition which will govern (as would a Cameron majority government) like New Labour. Only a Tory defeat, which would demonstrate that surrender to the Left also cannot save a party which has in truth had its day, would at least create the possibility that a genuinely conservative opposition might be created which could unite the "forces of conservatism" and eventually throw New Labour into the sea. At this election, we have no real power to change the government, but we have — if we choose — the power to change the Opposition.