In one sense, the election is over before it’s begun. The resignation of countless Tory MPs marks a seismic generational change. Not only will the next government be unrecognisable, the opposition will be, too.
The list of those we’ve lost in a brave but doomed campaign reads like a Belgian war memorial: Andrea Leadsom, Brandon Lewis, Theresa May, Paul Scully and, most regrettably, Michael Gove. A couple of Thatcherites have thrown in the towel, too – their late presence in the Tory swamp a throwback that proves there once were dinosaurs. The clever John Redwood; the lovely Bill Cash. Every time we meet, Sir Bill forgets we’ve met before, which means I get the pleasure of meeting him all over again – for he is a true gentleman.
As for the rest, well, “they were the future once”. I paraphrase David Cameron, as it is largely his cohort that’s called time.
Dave is the biggest loser thus far. Rishi only brought him back into government seven months ago; he’s barely mastered the wine list in the Foreign Office restaurant. According to Fraser Nelson’s gripping account of the election announcement – when Rishi stood in the rain and declared “avec moi, le deluge” – Dave described the decision to go over the top as “bold”. That’s Etonian for “dreadful idea. You’ve ruined my life.”
Tory politics never recovered from the fall of Thatcher. She gave the party a philosophy, then it dropped the pilot, sailed around the Atlantic for two decades in search of ideas, before deciding to imitate Tony Blair instead. Mr Gove embodies the epoch. He’s a Blairite to his fingertips. As a columnist he called Tony “outstanding”; as shadow education secretary, he pledged to “carry forward” his agenda.
Journalists adore Michael because he’s adorable; charming, intelligent and well-read, to the point of quoting random bloggers in conversation as if they were Rousseau (“Have you read the poetry of @AngryWelshFairy?”).
He’s also responsible for the one concrete area of reform that I dread Neo Labour getting its hands on: choice and standards in schools. But Rory Stewart, in his memoir, recounts a dinner party at which Gove told the table that he would “take land from the dukes, tax the public schools, increase inheritance tax and abolish the brigade of guards”. Rory replied that he didn’t sound much of a Tory. Gove said: “I am not a Tory. I am a Whig.”
Gove and Stewart are unique. Alas, many MPs elected in 2010 were copies of Cameron – and if he was a copy of Blair then they were effectively copies of a copy, with the inspiration of the original faded to mist.
They will tell you, in retrospect, that Cameron represented a more decent, pre-Brexit politics, a wave of Centrist Dad nostalgia upon which Dave rode as foreign secretary (how the peers swoon when he speaks in the chamber!). Yet Cameron made Brexit possible by calling the referendum, and more likely by imposing austerity. His cuts coincided with the worst riots since the Poll Tax.
Today, populist Tories, including Suella Braverman, are calling for the abolition of George Osborne’s two-child welfare cap, either because it is cruel or depresses the birth rate.
Far from wanting to shrink the state, as the Big Society promised, Rishi would institute a national service. The flirtation with Beijing is over; the unspoken winding down of defence is reversed. It feels unlikely that even gay marriage would find the votes for legalisation today, given the turn towards cultural conservatism.
Consider the surprising decline of trans rights – a hobby of Dave’s home secretary and successor, Theresa May – or the invention of the Rwanda Plan, which Cameron is forced to pretend he likes. Brexit and Covid have transformed even Gove into a protectionist. In short, Cameroonism was over long before the Cameroons quit their seats.
Assuming the Tories lose on July 4, the choice faced by MPs will be a candidate who repudiates populism (Penny Mordaunt), who offers consensus (James Cleverly, most likely Priti Patel) or anyone from a growing list of Right-wingers who want to push the revolution to its logical conclusion (Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch).
They are Dave’s children, in that the Tory talent is more racially and gender diverse than ever. But don’t expect a return to the bland centrism of the past – to Dave in his kitchen, pretending to wash dishes while he talks about the ice caps – for the world has changed.
Voters hanker for authenticity. Brexit and Corbyn prove they are open to big ideas. Unless you grab the people’s attention, they simply won’t listen; disengagement is widespread.
I was in the hair salon on Wet Wednesday, and when I told the ladies an election was about to be called, they smiled politely, as if I were talking about a holiday that sounds nice but has nothing to do with them. “We’ll put you under the dryer now, Mr Stanley.”
Cameron became leader in 2005 at the height of Blairism, when philosophy seemed dead and the voters easily fooled. Within three years, the global economy collapsed, releasing radical social forces, from Syria to Pennsylvania, that the Tories needed substance and imagination to grapple with. Arguably Cameron’s politics were over – out of date – before he’d even been elected PM.
We fight on. We fight to win
A note for readers who have kindly asked about my bowel operation. I’m great! In fact, I just got a letter from the NHS that officially says I don’t have cancer. There was a time when I would’ve celebrated with a bender in Las Vegas, instead I had a jacket potato at the garden centre. As Maggie said: “We fight on. We fight on to win.”