The fundamental re-alignment of British politics, the death of the two-party system and the reform of both the House of Lords and even the monarchy could be an accidental by-product of British voters not understanding what the Conservative Party actually stands for.
Latest Edelman Trust and polling data, carried out by Populus for discussion at this week’s Tory Party Conference, confirmed a general swirl of support for Cameron (principally, for not being Brown) and a general sense of mystery about prevailing Conservative values. While Brand Dave exudes trust, Brand Brown speaks to disillusionment and disappointment. If Labour is ‘tired’ in the eyes of the voters, then the Tories are ‘confused’ – both in how they come across and in what the general public thinks they represent.
What this suggests is that what many think is the most enduring legacy of Tony Blair – the emergence of a Presidential-style of politics – may well in fact be the new reality. Popular opinion (or is that just the Daily Mail?) derides the Presidential construct for being, well, so very un-British. But perhaps we should take another look. The scale of disenfranchisement is such that some sort of new force is swelling and imminent. Better surely, for reform from within than anarchy from without, in the shape of the continued rise of ‘Others’… BNP, UKIP and ‘Not Bovvered’ included. [click to continue…]
I sat next to Professor Sir Brian Hoskins at a business lunch last week. Sir Brian is widely acknowledged as a world-leading authority on climate change and global weather patterns. He was the single scientist amid a clutch of the great and good of British business gathered round the table.
One of our number trotted out the usual, dull falsehood – namely (and I paraphrase only slightly) that ‘it’s fine to look out for the environment when times are good; but right now it’s only the economy that counts’. I tried to point out the madness of this message – and to properly consider the inter-dependency of the two. Sadly, this lady was having none of it.
It is understandable that business leaders need to figure out the shape and duration of the current Recession – but it strikes me that we are just way too obsessed about when the bottom of the ‘V’ will be reached (assuming, of course, that it is indeed a ‘V’) and how we can struggle onto the upward trajectory of that same, single letter. My point is that we cannot afford to remain within the current crippling system. We need to change shape altogether.
Enter Sir Brian. ‘Let us be really clear’, he said. ‘A return to the same business model – on the same V – is the doomsday scenario. There can be no such thing as Business as Usual anymore’.
I asked him if I could quote him on that and he replied ‘with pleasure’. Whatever Nigel Lawson (Economist, Journalist, Politician) may ask us to believe, the science does not lie.