Tory Schmory
One cosies up to Christopher Hitchens at one’s own risk.
But when the man’s good, he’s very good:
David Cameron has become the green challenger. His party’s events feature tie-less informality and earth tones and much grave talk about the need for “organic” attitudes. Confronted with things like youthful crime, which used to bring out the authoritarian beast in his party’s traditionalist ranks, Cameron speaks soothingly of root causes and compassion.
…
Twenty or even 10 years ago, it would have been inconceivable that the historic left-right divide in British politics could have taken this form. Old leftist friends of mine from the 1960s are now on Labor’s front bench and staunchly defend the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a part of the noble anti-fascist tradition, while dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries are warning against American hubris. I keep having to pinch myself.
Some of this is dictated by public opinion, which generally regards the Iraq operation as an exercise in hysterical egomania by a prime minister too eager to please his master in Washington. At the moment, British politics are still too dominated by the figure of Blair for opinion polls to be very useful as a guide, but there is a lot of intuitive evidence that Gordon Brown would have a very tough time fending off a challenge from the younger and fresher Cameron—especially a younger and fresher Cameron who chose to appear in so many of the borrowed plumes of environmentalism and multiculturalism.
If you look at it in this light, it can even seem like a plus that the latest leader of Margaret Thatcher’s no-nonsense party is now inescapably linked to certain dreamy voyages of the imagination. But I can’t easily adjust to the fact that for the first time in memory, there is nothing intimidating about the British Conservative Party. For all I know, its current leader might regard that as a compliment.
I can’t say that John Major was all that intimidating, but he at least had some intellectual bodyguards nearby. Michael Heseltine, for example, was not to be trusted as a political ally, but if you went up against him he’d kick you in the balls just as soon as say good day.