OPINION: Conservatives by name or by nature?

Throughout its history the Conservative Party has taken on the role of the anti-party of British politics. An anti-ideology party based firmly on maintaining the established order, conservatism representing a characteristic inherent in human nature, and whether one supports them or not their electoral success cannot be disputed. However, with the recent spending review and the new direction which leader David Cameron has taken the party, has the Conservative Party become the opposite of what its name suggests and instead become a reformist party?

BY SEAN ASHFORD

Firstly, we must consider that the political climate which exists today is very different to that which previous incarnations of the Conservative Party have faced. Strong bonds to political parties are in decline not just in the UK and Ireland but across the western world. In 1964, 40% of people in the UK identified very strongly with a particular party, whereas today this figure has crashed to less than 10%. Modern issues do not simply align themselves along the traditional right-left divide, with issues such as immigration, the environment and Europe becoming ever more prevalent in modern political discourse.

However the reaction to and the embracing of these contemporary issues may at first glance appear to represent a new form of conservatism, but it is in the traditional conservative ideals of national defence and law where we must look to see if the change really has permeated the core principles of the party.

In the recent spending review national defence and the police force were just as susceptible to cuts as any other governmental department. With large numbers of police being reduced, as well as mass job losses at the MoD, my own immediate reaction was one of shock. How could the conservatives cut what has for been many years been revered as a sacred cow?

Contrasting what has happened with defence to areas of the public sector, it becomes apparent that conservative ideals still dominate even their most well concealed attempts at pragmatic economic reform. The cuts being made in the defence budget, whilst appearing dramatic, are actually more easily managed than perhaps any other department. During the Labour years, far too many defence contracts were allocated not on what would be the best value for money but for what would be most beneficial for Labour politically. Most obviously, the two aircraft carriers which cannot be scrapped as it would cost too much are both scheduled to be built in an under-privileged industrial area of Gordon Brown’s own constituency at greater cost than is necessary.

I am no supporter of the Conservative Party, but a pragmatic approach to contract allocation has to be seen as being a positive step, but not necessarily a reformist one. It would be more accurate to describe such acts as being pragmatic, which again harks back to my opening point that the Conservatives are an anti-ideology party. Of course there remains the issue of what exactly the aircraft carriers will do as they will not have any aircraft now that the harrier is being retired. Seemingly the only planes they will have are of the paper variety, made out of half a million public sector workers P-45’s.

According to analyst Anthony Quinton, at the core of all conservative values is the idea that societal problems are not amenable to “improvement” by the application of social and political theories. To put it another way, to put faith into what you cannot foresee is not a pragmatic solution to a problem. Rather they would retain faith in the institutions already in place, adapting the pre-existing mechanisms of the state to cope with the problems which arise over time. Surely therefore it is unreasonable to say that Cameron is a new type of Tory politician. The spending review, whilst radical in scale, is in essence the embodiment of Conservative policy.

The maintenance of a small state which places the onus on individual responsibility is no more radical than a situation in which the Labour Party came out in support of the trade unions. The problem with this is that the Tories have always been seen as ‘the nasty party’, and these cuts will do nothing to help people forget this moniker. When you hear Ian Duncan Smith telling the jobless to “get on the bus” and find work, reflecting very closely Norman Tebbit’s “on your bike” remarks of 1981, you can’t help but wonder whether the Conservatives really have changed, and only time will tell as the coalition struggles to find a stable plan for the future following the spending review.