Absolutely Right

Following threats by party donors to defect to UKIP, which might then bid fair to displace the Blair-Conservative coalition as the natural party of government, Daveybloke has been trying to reassert his Tory credentials without sliding into the dreaded Hague-Duncansmith-Howard syndrome, otherwise known as "barking mode" or, as Daveybloke once wrote, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He did his best to head off a relapse by noting that "The Conservative party has never been the party that is just concerned with tax cuts, Europe and crime. That is a complete misreading of the history of the Conservative party." Well, of course it is. The Conservative party is also concerned about immigration and fox-hunting.

Anyway, Daveybloke's effort today was apparently intended as a "careful renunciation of the centre-left". In this enterprise, Daveybloke has been helped a bit by the likes of Guardian troikanik Polly Toynbee, a tireless exponent of the idea that the Vicar of Downing Street has something to do with the centre-left: moderately high taxes funding a generous social safety net, a modicum of wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor, perhaps even a secular state with a representative parliament pursuing a non-aggressive foreign policy based on collective security rather than military adventurism - all the things, in other words, that Tony and his chums are famous for.

Of course Daveybloke wants none of this. Daveybloke, like Thatcher, John Major and all those other great Conservatives, believes that "stronger individuals make for a stronger society". Therefore, it appears, the state must cease to concern itself with the welfare of its citizens, which can be perfectly well maintained by the twin forces of business and charity. Those who are strong enough to pay will have the privilege of helping to make a stronger society; those who are less strong can live on handouts from the voluntary sector, and if that isn't enough - well, we can do well enough without the weaklings, thank you very much. This is what Daveybloke refers to as "the Conservative party led by me standing for social responsibility". He also considers it, for reasons Polly Toynbee might possibly be able to explain, "a defining contrast" with New Labour.

Daveybloke believes that "New Labour was all about coming to terms with Conservative victory in the battle of ideas". Hence, "the modern Conservative party is about replacing the failed New Labour experiment, not aping it." Certainly it seems a good idea, where possible, not to ape a failure which is based on oneself. The failure of New Labour, it seems, has been the failure to ask "What is business doing in the area, what more could business do in this area?", as with the crypto-Leninist Private Finance Initiative. The failure of New Labour has been the failure to ask "well what is there already, what can people do, what can the voluntary sector do, what could we achieve with more professional responsibility?", rather than throwing money at time-wasting teachers and non-profit-making nurses. The failure of New Labour has been the failure to be more like Margaret Thatcher, belatedly rediscovered as Daveybloke's real inspiration (along with Martin Luther King, Gandhi and the usual lot, of course), who said: "Never call me laissez faire, government must be strong to do those things which only government can do" - things like buying nuclear weapons, removing irritating regulations about public service from the shining path of entrepreneuriality, and ensuring that only real people's snouts get to guzzle at the taxman's trough. And on that, thinks Daveybloke, "she was absolutely right."

Oh, make no mistake about it: New Labour is standing on the edge of a precipice, and Daveybloke is speeding up behind, ready to pass it and take the country with him.