It cropped up in my first radio interview as Editor of this site. I’m on Times Radio, and veteran political reporter Michael Crick wants to know “what sort of Conservative” I am.
He wanted to peg me down to a faction – and as I told readers in my first letter to you all, I won’t be. Not at a time when what it means to be a Conservative is a debate the party is really focussed on.
What I also said is I’m a Conservative who always wants to be presented with a convincing Conservative platform, from a credible leader, that I can believe in and support in presenting to the British electorate.
I suspect this will end up my mantra in future interviews: I do not believe it is my job to choose for, or dictate to, the party, who and how that is achieved.
I’m also suspicious of the question, because it has become a test of purity upon which serious judgements are being made. Members know what I mean: “Oh they say they are a Conservative but they’re not a proper conservative”.
Recently this arbitrary litmus test has done real damage. We know thousands of traditionally Conservative voters voted Reform in July because in their judgement the whole Conservative Party was full of people who weren’t proper conservatives.
I don’t believe that to be true, but far more voters than the party could afford to lose did.
Now if you’ve been reading this expecting me now to outline the true definition of a proper Conservative, you haven’t been paying attention. Putting aside editorial reservations about my making decisions that are actually for the party to make, we seem to be at the very point where the party will try to agree on a definition that will bring it together, not force it apart.
Of course, I have sense of what would appeal to me personally. But that’s at the root of the problem: we seem to have endless individual definitions of what a proper Conservative is.
Invariably they are driven by whatever that individual thinks it should be. That’s the easy bit; it’s drawing large numbers to agree that’s hard.
Nigel Farage, a politician I have known well for many years, argued throughout the election campaign that he wanted nothing to do with a party he described as “ghastly”.
It was, by the way, hardly a manifesto for cooperation (although the party has to understand that a significant number of Conservatives, and voters, would welcome that cooperation). But the reason I mention him is a different comment he made in the latter stages of the campaign:
“The Conservative Party may be a “broad church” but it’s a church that seems to have no religion.”
It struck home because it certainly felt the Conservative Party had come to a point where it struggled to articulate its values or core ideology.
Much worse, when it did too many voters weren’t convinced. Those voters were calibrating conservatism in terms of what they thought it should be and judging those with blue rosettes didn’t behave in a way that matched it.
That was back in June. Now, as a result, the party finds itself in the midst of a huge debate about its soul and very survival.
Party members and Conservative MPs are being offered six individuals who want to persuade them they do know what being a Conservative means. At this stage I’m not surprised to be hearing different answers.
The conundrum is to hold a set of values that have always bound Conservatives together as Conservatives whilst attempting to address the ever-changing desires and concerns of the British electorate.
That is something the party has always been very good at in the past: changing its policies, vision and message to address the challenges of the future, whilst holding to values that bind the party together and attract others to it.
The Conservatives have been a party of change and adaption long before the new Prime Minister tried to sell “change” to the British public without really answering “change to what?”
Margaret Thatcher was not considered a “proper Conservative” when she challenged the orthodoxy of the party in the late 1970s; after her years in power anything but her style and message was considered a break from “proper Conservatism”.
However, to go back to Farage’s jibe, you can’t actually build a winning vision for the country with no beliefs – or every belief. Too broad a church and the roof collapses, burying every side under it. Too narrow, and you get a congregation that could comfortably gather in a telephone box.
Again, I’m not here to proscribe what a proper Conservative should be, but to urge the party to genuinely explore what being a Conservative means with an open mind. What are the core values and messages that brought them under one roof in the first place?
Get that right, and the party stands a chance of trying to bring back a lost flock who last month firmly decided to leave the church altogether.
The Conservative’s past is a good repository of values and ideals to unite around. But the future is what good policy should address. If the party can get itself into a place where it feels utterly comfortable with what a proper Conservative is, and unite under that banner, then good solid policies should flow naturally.
That process might mean learning to love ideas that may have sat uncomfortably in the past, or relegating past policy ideas once considered iconic, especially if they don’t actually address the challenges of the future anymore.
I remember in 2005 a local Conservative association chairman asking me about the new leader David Cameron. He wanted my opinion on whether the party had made the right choice. The issue? He wasn’t sure that Cameron was truly a Conservative.
My answer was honest: “you made the right choice if you want to win next time”.
I left hanging the question of Cameron’s conservatism, because winning after 13 years of opposition that was what that Chairman really cared about most. Cameron changed the messaging and policy platform to get into government.
This is not an argument in favour of the left or the right of the party, the north or the south, the young or the old. It is a plea for the party to spend the coming weeks sensibly engaged in building a balance. A sense of shared and agreed political identity and a policy plan adapted to the challenges of the future.
To anyone who says “that’s obvious”, I’d warn: yes, it might be – but don’t underestimate the grave risks of getting it wrong. The political landscape is changed, the challenges keep changing, what the electorate wants is in continuous flux. Obvious it may be – but proper Conservatives have to get this process right or the roof will fall in.