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The problem with Tory ‘modernisers’ Samuel Brittan Financial Times 30/09/05 What is it that is so irritating about self-proclaimed Conservative “modernisers”? It is surely welcome that they have dropped their party’s prejudices against groups such as gays, single mothers and ethnic minorities and that they claim to tolerate a variety of lifestyles. At best, however, Tory modernisers are simply catching up with where others have been for some time. Despite Tony Blair’s authoritarian instincts, the Tories are not going to win as apostles of social liberalism. Even now there is no sign that they would adopt a more liberal attitude than Mr Blair on issues such as immigration and drugs. And some of the modernisers have a barely concealed penchant for compulsory “national service” – the most illiberal policy imaginable. But even if we take them at face value, the modernisers have at most removed one reason against voting for their party. They have not given us positive reasons for voting for it. John Maynard Keynes once drew a distinction between the “agenda” and “non-agenda” of government. There are two main jobs of government. First, to provide for internal and external security with a minimum of damage to traditional liberties. Second, to arrange for the provision of those few services that are better provided collectively rather than by private enterprise or by voluntary co-operation. It is not a politician’s job to supply uplift. As Harold Macmillan once said, if you want inspiration look to the bishops (not that the latter are performing that function all that well today). Too many Tory modernisers speak as if the cause of economic freedom was permanently won under Margaret Thatcher and that they must now look for new territory. They are happy enough to back the free market measures of the 1980s in retrospect. But would they really have backed them in the difficult years of that decade, especially tackling union power against all advice? Indeed, the embrace of some of these modernisers for the Thatcher revolution in economic policy is pretty skin-deep. One of them has reportedly said that the Conservatives would never really recover until Lady Thatcher was dead and buried. In fact, the battle for competitive markets and the price mechanism is never won. As David Willetts has explained, there is far more to economic reform “than cutting taxes and red tape”. In my view, matters such as free trade, willingness to see high oil prices act as a market incentive and, indeed, more liberal immigration rules are far more important than getting a penny or two off the basic rate of tax. There is, in fact, a great battle to be fought against Blairism and its likely successors. One unacceptable aspect is the present government’s desire to insert itself into every nook and cranny of people’s lives. It is not just the micro-management of taxes and incentives. Its control-freak instincts cover matters such as the indiscriminate use of anti-social behaviour orders and the invention of tsars in charge of “respect” and much else. Mr Blair cannot see anything through his car window without wanting to intervene in one way or another. This works in two directions, on the one hand proclaiming ill conceived anti-terrorist measures to an extent where they undermine traditional liberties; and on the other the invention of new crimes such as stirring up religious hatred, which can only undermine freedom of speech. A related charge against New Labour is an indifference to the traditions and procedures that underpin British freedom, such as jury trial, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence. It is not so much that Mr Blair has made a careful case for suspending some of these procedures in an emergency. It is that he shows no feeling whatever for traditional British liberties. Added to this indictment is Mr Blair’s crazy personal penchant for government-supported arms sales to odious regimes. Compared with rolling back these unacceptable aspects of New Labour, most other policy problems dwindle into insignificance. It is far more important than, for instance, the middle-class obsession with obtaining public services without paying for them, either from their purses or via taxation. So the leadership of the Conservative party does matter. I would gladly have urged the claims of Mr Willetts, despite some differences of philosophical nuance, had he stood. But this support is not transferable to David Davis despite Mr Willetts’ endorsement of him. When it comes to the likely main contenders we are left with Kenneth Clarke, warts and all. My main present disagreement with Mr Clarke has nothing to do with Europe. It is that I cannot fully share his admiration for the supposedly impartial civil service of pre-Blair days which was responsible for so many disastrous errors, especially in foreign policy. But I am not looking for a clone, simply someone who beats the alternatives.
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