Cameron conquers London- now for the UK

Published on Sunday 7 May 2006 00:58

AS POLITICAL assassination was taking place in 10 Downing Street last Friday, something just as significant was happening in a grim, concrete-lined street half a mile away. Above a branch of Starbucks, Tories were celebrating.

It is a long time since anyone in what is still known as Conservative Campaign Headquarters has had genuine cause to cheer - unless they are deposing an unpopular leader, or winning a bet on how badly they will do during elections.

Last Thursday, Labour should have suffered far worse. Its share of the vote is back to where it was in the 2004 local elections, and from which it went on to win the following year's general election. But what encourages the Tories is the flow of the political current.

The energy was transferred through the Lib Dems, who lay motionless in the middle. Labour lost 319 councillors and the Conservatives gained 317 - it was an almost perfect correlation. The Lib Dems were only up by two seats.

Sir Menzies Campbell spoke about "consolidation", which is political code for "zero progress". When the party had no leader, it won the stunning by-election victory in Dunfermline and West Fife. Now, when he's in charge, its luck has evaporated.

Since Cameron took over, he has decided that his best path back to power is by copying Lib Dem policies and by making his party more appealing to the up-market voters who have hitherto found the Conservatives too vulgar.

Since Cameron took over, every change he has introduced to the party has made it more closely resemble the Lib Dems. Blue and yellow together make green, and this is exactly the colour Cameron has been painting his party in recent weeks.

His primary task is not opposition, but re-branding. He wants to drive home a new image for the Conservatives, and that means doing as many stunts as he can to get the message across that the party has changed.

The visits to Norway, getting into bed with Bob Geldof and the windmill on the roof are all advertising tricks to change the way people think about the Conservatives. They are deliberately aimed at Lib Dem voters.

They have another purpose, which no-one in the Tories will admit to. Should there be a hung parliament and Cameron has to enter coalition with the Lib Dems, then he will find this a far easier task given the newfound harmony in their policies.

It's not just the environmentalism, but the Lib Dem-style interfering - as witnessed by the ghastly 'ten commandments' leaflets produced at the Tory spring conference. "Don't overfill your kettle" and "Catch the bus when you can", they advised.

Many Conservatives are in the party because they believe the public to be smart enough not to need such patronising advice from politicians. Much of what Cameron says appalls many Tories, who mutter that he is lobotomising, not saving, the party.

Their concerns have been backed up by recent polls showing hardly any Cameron factor - and suggesting the Lib Dems were hoovering up Labour votes, just as they did in last year's general election. The stage was set for a Cameron disaster.

Yet things went exactly according to Cameron's plan. His message chimes with eco-conscious Londoners and the Tories have now become the top party in the capital. Boroughs such as Hammersmith & Fulham are under Tory control.

Now for the bad news. The message Cameron is broadcasting was only picked up on a certain metropolitan frequency. They had already won Hammersmith & Fulham in the general election anyway.

Newcastle, Manchester and Gateshead remain areas where the Tories are utterly unrepresented. The risk is that the Cameroonian message has the same reach as London's Capital FM radio: you do not get it up north.

It is unclear how prepared the Conservatives are to engage with, or even understand, the concerns of the more deprived British cities. Francis Maude, party chairman, said last week he has "never met anyone who is not concerned with the environment". But consider those in sink housing estates afflicted by the most horrific violent crime (which has quadrupled under Labour) worried about getting home safely and hoping their kids learn more than drug use at school.

Recycling San Pellegrino bottles is pretty far down their list of priorities. And they are very disaffected with a Labour Party they (rightly) believe has deserted them. The rush for up-market votes, from all parties, leaves them orphaned.

The British National Party had no democratic place in Britain when the Tories left power, but it doubled the size of its foothold in Britain last week. When the BNP won a ward in Tower Hamlets in 1993, mass protest ensued. Now, no-one cares.

Cameron was lucky that the mainstream right had nowhere else to go. Two years ago, the local government elections coincided with those for the European Parliament, and the UK Independence Party put in effort it did not apply this time around.

Then there is Scotland. The Conservatives won more votes than Labour in England in last year's general election - it is the Celtic fringe that poses the greatest problem. While no other part of the UK held elections last week, the signs are ominous. And none more so than those from the recent Moray by-election, where Mary Scanlon decided that the word 'Conservative' was such a vote loser that she dropped it completely from her material. The Cameron magic helped not one bit.

It must be remembered that last week's local elections played to Cameron's strengths. He is a Londoner, who instinctively understands the desires and prejudices of the capital's middle-class voters.

He has forced an agenda against the better judgment of many in his party, and been proven right. This has purchased him more time, and will silence his critics. But London has never borne less resemblance to the rest of Britain than it does now. It is its own capital - a global stopping point whose preoccupations and political patterns are unique. Winning in the rest of Britain will be different and tougher.

Phase One of Cameron was a success: electorally as well as presentationally. The next stage is to develop a message for the low-income voters that resonates outside London. This will be by far the harder task.