The Lords can actually help save politics

I found Labour's very cynical plans about reforming the House of Lords, revealed last week, quite frightening. In the eyes of the public, politics could not be viewed with much less regard at the moment. Particularly following the expenses scandal, people are at the end of their tether with politicians and their trust and faith in them to run our country is at an all-time low. So what’s Labour’s answer to a reform of the Lords? Replace it with more politicians!

What a joke! I should not be surprised: Labour have shown an absolute disregard for the constitution in their time as government and have set about destroying as much of it as possible. In actual fact, the Lords represent one of the rare positives about how law is created in this country. It includes all talents, the best minds from their respective professions. That is how I would like a country to be run, with input from every perspective, and crucially not simply from those who have only inhabited the very isolated world of politics. Proposed new laws in the Lords are scrutinised and debated in a way that is not possible in the Commons because of the party whip. This has often resulted in getting a much better thought-out piece of legislation than would have been the case if it had been rushed through by the career-politicians. When it comes down to it, the Lords actually represent the beacon of hope in politics- maintaining standards and keeping a check on politicians. Yes, it does need reform. Hereditary peers should be phased out. But we need to ask ourselves what kind of parliament we want. The answer is not more politicians, but less. We should hold on dearly to the Lords, for we would be a much poorer nation once it has gone.

Of course, we all know Labour have announced this as a cynical tactic to back-foot the Tories. If the Tories were to oppose it then they would look like they are aligning themselves with privilege and an old fashioned view. So in the end, the result is we get nobody standing up for the actual rightful argument, that being, the Lords is a wholly good thing and we lose it at our peril.

Never mind the Tory brand, people’s preconceptions need to be decontaminated

‘The Tories could do almost anything and I would never vote for them’ said a friend of mine the other day. Continuing on a theme from last week’s post, this is a huge problem for the Tories: the fact that there is a significant proportion of the electorate who, no matter what the Conservatives say or do will not bring themselves to vote for them. I have had a number of conversations with like-minded people to my friend that I quote above. Many of them, as is the case with this particular friend, have political views of the right and many of them would agree with the policies of the Conservatives if they did not know they were policies of the Tory party. This supports the research carried out by the Cameroon conservatives during the 2005 election campaign. Which noted that people agreed with the immigration policy of the Conservatives until they realised it was the policy of the Conservatives at which point they disassociated themselves with it, referenced by Daniel Finkelstein’s excellent article in the Times last week.

We all know that this is has been a huge problem for the Tories and therefore they have embarked on a strategy of ‘detoxifying’ or ‘decontaminating’ the Tory brand which means the Tories must do the unexpected. My great frustration is that this results in no serious political party talking about what I am interested in or care about. As part of the decontaminating the brand the Cameroon strategy refuses to focus on European Union membership, immigration, taxation, grammar schools, the break up of the NHS etc. The list goes on. The great irony of this, is that quite often you find, as in my friend above, people are very much interested in these issues. They care about them deeply. They care about immigration of the last 10 years or so that has rocketed. They care about ceding sovereignty to the European Union on which they have not been consulted on (even when they were promised they would be). They care about the fact that grammar schools are off the agenda even though they are the most effective way to aid social mobility.

It is not that I don’t accept the Finkelstein analysis. I absolutely do. The Tories have to continue to change their brand if they are ever to be successful again. But because people have such immovable, entrenched preconceptions about the parties, it is stifling real debate about ironically the issues that a lot of people truly care about! Where does this leave us? When will we ever have an honest debate about these issues without preconceptions playing their part? This is not something we can solely blame politicians for. We have to take responsibility for our hang-ups. Stop being prejudiced. The decontamination of political brands only goes so far, it is the people who must decontaminate their prejudices also.

Cameron must hold firm – it is the only viable option he has

Last week’s YouGov/Channel 4 poll contained good and bad news for the Tories. On the one hand, their lead in the key marginal seats is better than it is nationally against Labour- as many positive Conservatives have been arguing in recent weeks. On the other hand, it is still not enough to secure an outright majority to form a Government. The reality is now sinking in that there were no rogue polls and that a hung parliament looks like a very real possibility. What an earth has gone wrong and what can the Tories do to recover their position?

The answer to what they should do is very simple: not a lot. They should continue with the highly detailed and well thought-out plan they have formulated to fight the election. Should David Cameron change course now, he would risk what I wrote about last week: being seen simply as a man who changes his mind depending on what he thinks people want him to say. In addition, he should be careful of the powerful force of momentum. There is a growing feeling that the Tories are on the back foot and their prospects declining. If Cameron panics and announces grand policies that conflict with previous ones, he risks providing further momentum to the decline. People like to get a call right, so I suspect this is what has been, in-part, behind the polls recently. Some people have been less likely to say they will vote Tory because of the relatively poor showing in the polls- they think voting Tory might be the wrong call, because they might not win.

It is impossible to know whether they will reverse the leaning of the polls at the moment, but holding firm is the only chance Cameron has. He and his team must be feeling, in private, very disillusioned. They ought not to be: the modernisation and detoxification of the Conservative brand were very much required. They would simply not be in contention if they did not carry this out. (This is not to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the Cameron strategy and policy, but more of that to follow I am sure, before polling day). The reality is that there are still great swathes of people out there, many of whom are very intelligent, right leaning and dislike the current government, but cannot bring themselves to cross the box next to the Conservatives. These people will take many more years to persuade, if they will ever be turned at all. Cameron needs to steer the same course and hold on in there. There is an awful lot to play for yet.