Political notes: Cameron's dilemma

Who knows what David Cameron really wants? The advance of the New Conservatives has been a master study in ambiguity. This occurred to me recently when Cameron got into hot water on his tax and marriage plans. I interviewed him a few years ago for a programme about the rise of a new political generation.

Spontaneously, he emphasised marriage as a “core value for me… something I just happen to believe in and will support.” Along with most of the Tory party, I assumed this meant he would restore the recognition of the wedded state to the tax system. Cometh the moment, the groom is strangely reticent. The practical problems are tricky—what happens to Afghan widows or deserted wives?—while money is too tight to mention. So it emerges that the hitched among us are not to be materially better off under Dave.

Even on the economy, it’s not clear what a Cameronian Britain would be like. He has styled himself as a hungry deficit hawk and sent his shadow chancellor George Osborne on the attack as an instant budget cutter. No sooner had we braced for this onslaught, however, than the message changed to major cuts being unnecessary in the first year of government. He opposes (or seems to) cuts to the army, thus winning support among those who understandably resent fighting wars on a shoestring. While other bits of defence are not protected on Cameron’s list, overseas development, oddly, is.

The popular current theory is that Cameron’s uncertainties stem from a tension between what he says and what his party wants. That much is obvious in every row about identikit blonde A-list candidates imposed on a sullen constituency. It’s not just generational sulking: ideological strain persists. For many on his top team, like Oliver Letwin, chairman of the party’s policy review, decreasing the size of the state has been a long-cherished ambition and a central tenet of their beliefs. It was certainly Cameron’s theology in his early days too. But his major insight has been that the Tories need to win over social groups, as well as winning intellectual arguments. One of the big changes of his leadership has thus been to offer an emollient tone towards the public sector. “Less reason for nurses and teachers to hate us,” comments one Cameron aide, shuddering at the memory of Michael Howard’s broadsides against the NHS.

I suspect it goes deeper than that. The protean Conservative leader is a species of modern politician who thrives on ambiguity. Indeed, it is at the heart of his politics and appeal. The Cameron who says “twat” on Radio Bloke is a different incarnation to the impeccably-mannered chap who addresses Tory fundraisers and preaches a return of decency. His mentor is Tony Blair, who also cultivated multiple personalities. He thrived by appearing to promise a modernised social democracy to the Labour party, while striking much of the rest of middle England as the nearest thing to a Tory they could get in Labour. Far from being brought down by his vacillations, Blair got into hot water only when he wholeheartedly embraced a controversial cause: the Iraq war.

Politicians’ promises have a short shelf life, and policy scrutiny is relentless. So the savvy contender today does not so much pledge as hint. To many of his supporters in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama appeared to be saying, “No more wars.” Now he oversees a surge in Afghanistan. He attacked the greed of Wall Street, yet critics like economist Joseph Stiglitz attack him for too tardy and partial an approach to the banks.

We might see this American example of the “new ambiguity” as further proof of our focus-group driven, media-reactive era. True, Cameron did panic at the start of the year after opinion polls wobbled and focus groups squealed about public sector workers reverting en masse to Labour if they felt nothing awaited them but blood, sweat and cuts under Dave’s rule. The Tories, says an old hand, “are serial panickers”—but an element of controlled panic keeps politicians on their toes.

Margaret Thatcher is instructive here. She suggested rule by iron will, while frequently reaching compromises or ducking rows—no great education clash on her watch, for instance, and public spending continued to rise, despite a reputation for savage cuts. She did, however, choose priorities and follow them, so her government had a clear direction of travel. Such a sense of purpose and reliability are the characteristics the Tories miss under Cameron. They fear that behind the appearance of solidity lies a Macmillanesque manager of the status quo, not a man who knows how he wants to change it. “I am large,” says the poet Walt Whitman, “I contain multitudes.” Good for Walt. But Cameron needs to cut down on his multitudes, lest we forget what he is really all about.