British Conservatives know the electoral wilderness well. For the last twelve years, the Conservatives have suffered setback after setback. Three leaders have come and gone, each failing to bring the party back to government. Yet their time in the wilderness may soon be coming to an end, and David Cameron’s Tories look to be the team to beat in the next British election. What’s next for the GOP’s British cousins, and what can the Republicans do to avoid the Conservatives’ failures?
Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has an answer. As the founder for the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), Smith has formulated a notion of “compassionate conservatism” that Cameron looks to use as a springboard to victory. Iain Duncan Smith argues that the largest impediment to electoral success is that voters don’t see Conservatives as “caring.” He connects this with the suggestion that New Labour has dominated the British political scene since 1997 because they:
Progressively removed… negative perceptions by jettisoning those elements of their platform which the public did not like: trade unionism, nuclear unilateralism, high taxes and the impression of being soft on crime. They were left with only their positive perception: of the party that cared.
As such, Smith promotes a brand of social justice that purports to make up for Conservative shortcomings. Behind his conception of social justice is the idea that Conservatives must address flagging social mobility. “The idea is that maintaining certain core ideological principles on taxation and free markets doesn’t mean that you can’t follow policies that also have something good for your neighbours,” asserts Charlotte Pickles, a Senior Policy Advisor at the CSJ.
Without a doubt, social mobility represents one of the UK’s most pressing issues. A recent study by the London School of Economics reports that social mobility for the bottom 20% of society has not improved in the last thirty years. Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph laments the fact that the UK is “one of the worst countries for social mobility,” condemning children from poor homes to a lifetime of poverty.
So what do proponents of Smith’s compassionate conservatism advocate? The CSJ’s platform isn’t laden with panaceas – instead, the Centre advocates specific, bite-sized policies that chisel away at state dependence and social breakdown, one conservative step at a time. One recent CSJ publication, Breakthrough Britain, laid out 190 such policy suggestions, 67 of which have already been adopted by the Conservative Party. Among these include such proposals as: providing tax benefits to private nurseries, limiting welfare to those who are genuinely seeking employment, increasing the criminalization of marijuana, encouraging community voluntarism, and promoting private sector charitable organizations through the tax code.
Undoubtedly, these ideas will have a profound effect on any future Conservative government’s social policies. After all, Smith and David Cameron see eye-to-eye on the view that one can “strengthen society and get rid of dependency by increasing social mobility,” contends Pickles. Indeed, one of the first things that Cameron did upon becoming leader was to commission a report from the CSJ about addressing social breakdown. As the party continues to work its way out of the desert, one can expect to see Smith’s compassionate conservatism as the philosophical basis of the Tory platform.
Beyond social policy, Smith’s work contains a final point of relevance for Republicans. In terms that should resound with Republicans today, Smith points out the need for genuine reflection after an electoral loss: “the right response to defeat… is not to fight the same battle again, on the same ground with diminished forces.”
The British Conservatives are just starting to emerge from their time in the desert. Now their American cousins face a similar prospect – year upon year in the wilderness. If the GOP wishes to make their stay a sojourn, it will be crucial to reflect upon the British Tory experience, and imperative to consider the Centre for Social Justice’s ideas.
3 responses so far
1 ottovbvs // Jul 10, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Actually Britain has been the most socially mobile society in Europe since the middle of the 17th century. How else did someone who grew up in cobbler’s shop in rural Wales become prime minister in 1916, or a footman and a teacher become a field marshalls in the first half of the 20th century, or a grocer’s daughter become premier in 1980. My wife’s great grandfather was a coal miner, her grandfather owned five collieries. It is of course argued in Britain that since the nouveau riche have taken over the conservative party from the grandees that’s it’s totally lost its way. Turning to the US there have been several studies have demonstrated that the US is actually far less socially mobile than most European countries. The US less socially mobile than France? Apparently such is the case.
2 dacookson // Jul 11, 2009 at 3:52 am
I’m cynical. For a start limiting welfare to those who are genuinely seeking employment, increasing the criminalization of marijuana are old Conservative polices that are also pursued by New Labour. The drug policy on marijuana currently flies in the face of common sense, public opinion and most scientific research, but New Labour are terrified of being seen as soft on crime. It’s not enough to say they progressively removed negative perceptions leaving the only positive perception of a party that cared, they actually changed policies to account for public opinion and, to some extent, reality. They then had an attractive platform and were elected, thanks in no small part to public antipathy towards a divided conservative government suffering a series of corruption scandals.
New Labour then occupied much of the territory the conservatives had called their own, but also had a social justice dimension popular with the electorate. In fact you could almost sum up New Labour’s success with two words; minimum wage. That symoblised the difference between the two parties. Despite all the horrifying mistakes of the New Labour government the Conservative Party have not opened up a definitive lead in the opinion polls. It’s unlikely that they will sweep the board at the next election because their true policies are usually leaked at some point, like allowing the minimum wage to wither on the vine for example. The CSJ approach is only having a small impact on the popularity of the party in the opinion polls. People are just sick of New Labour. That’s not to say that New Labour isn’t suffering from adherence to outmoded policies, but if the lesson Republicans want to learn is to wait 13 years until the government slowly self-destructs then look to the UK . If it really wants to make itself a dominant force again then drop ideology and construct a platform that’s rational and popular, emphasis on the rational, and put it in writing, not tinker around with perceptions.
3 Looking to Britain for freedom fighters? « Free Spirit Runner // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:32 pm
[...] Conservative Party has not fought the advancing British State effectively and has instead adopted a compassionate conservative approach eerily reminiscent of President Bush’s own big government agenda, Cameron at least has the [...]
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