Lord Ashcroft and the Troubled Times of David Cameron
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The last few weeks have been a classic case of how unmerciful politics is, and how quickly the political tide can turn against anyone foolish or brave enough to try and swim in it. Back in November, when the new parliamentary year got going, David Cameron must have seen a rosy future. He was an Opposition Leader against an apparently wearying government in a time of recession, a telegenic, empathetic politician facing a woefully non-empathetic and distinctly untelegenic rival. The relative collapse in the Cameron fortunes may not offer many actual lessons, but it does illustrate the pitfalls of political leadership, as well as giving us further insights into the state of the Conservative Party.
The Ashcroft Affair illustrates several of the problems of the modern Conservative leader. First, he operates in a political system that requires its parties to raise their election funds themselves. The majority of other western democracies provide state funding for their parties, precisely to head off the kind of potential abuse and influence peddling that private funding can bring. If Lord Ashcroft is unduly funding the Conservatives, Labour have their own prejudicial form of funding in the form of the unions, and their own non-doms.
Second is the problem of the electoral system and the benefits of incumbency. Lord Ashcroft has devised a very particular campaign. He has understood the logic of the British electoral system and hurled vast sums of money at it to give the Conservatives a fighting chance. He has focused on key marginal seats (“buying the election locally” as Labour would have it) and more than offset the sitting Labour MPs’ inherent benefits from the state provided communications allowances. This is actually good campaigning tactics, which is why Labour are so determined to bring Ashcroft down. Of course, it tells us that the election will only be won in a few seats, and that the rest can go hang, but that is hardly Lord Ashcroft’s fault.
The third problem for David Cameron is an internal one. Lord Ashcroft is not an ideologue, but a moderniser, or a pragmatist. As such, he is anathema to the many Thatcherite opponents of David Cameron within the Conservative Party. These are people who have kept quiet while Mr. Cameron looked as if he might be winning them power, but who have started to jump up rather more in recent times to blame him for leading them to possible defeat. Their real reason for hating him is that he has been the most successful post-Thatcher leader when it comes to abandoning the Thatcher heritage. A glance at Norman Tebbit’s lovely new blog gives us a good insight into the Thatcherite mentality, but he is well supported by others. Channel 4 have just run a story about a Tory lobbyist who despairs of the Tory Party, but the real story is that he has long been disillusioned because he is a nostalgic Thatcherite. He is not untypical of Mr. Cameron’s internal detractors.
The odds probably still favour a Cameron victory, and an outright one rather than the current received wisdom of a hung parliament. Simon Jenkins usefully reminds us of 1979, when Margaret Thatcher’s lead over a lamentable government was first halved, and then in one poll even overtaken, but she still gained a healthy 43 seat majority and a full working term. Nevertheless, David Cameron has learned the hard way that there are no givens in politics, and that yesterday’s golden boy can quickly morph into today’s new hate figure.
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