a)a focus on the communities is the BIG idea in Britian. However this will have to work within the boundaries set by

i)))) what is best for the British economy and how the
UK can be effective in foreign policy matters.

On both these fronts, edging away from the US
and working thru Europe seems to the next BIG thing.
In terms of protectionism Europe will have to take the lead from the U.S
(as a precurser to a gradual shift of the special relationship – from UK-U.S to Europe-U.S).

More locally, UK will need to become protectionist to some extent (in relation to Europe) but
only in the sense that
the Brits feel that they are not losing out to their European neighbours.

ii)))) that there are some areas that Brits could play the goody2shoes role in terms of leadership
on a global scale – such as reducing world poverty and nuclear non proliferation.

so the approach which could work, and if it is the right one, will be imposed on us by society and that being Red TORY Plus Plus.
or Pragmatic Communitarinism.

Strangely, he takes the point which Daniel Johnson of Standpoint made (that there was nothing conservative in an argument which gave the community priority over the individual) and attributes this to the Fabians as the emerging critique from the left. But I didn’t argue it. I have blogged on this curious confusion between his Fabian left and his TradCon/neo-con critics to his right.
http://www.nextleft.org/2009/02/letwins-curious-confusion-between-his.html

I have posted on this at Next Left, but the gist of it is below

http://www.nextleft.org/2009/02/cameronism-politics-of-tory-court.html

“the emerging strategy of Cameron’s Conservatism is to run a Tory court. All will have his ear, and none his full allegiance. He will embrace the many contradictions by stating that Toryism at its best is never doctrinaire ….

… Yet, paradoxically, a leadership which sees merit in having no firmly fixed view about the ideological direction of the party can not take a laissez-faire view about the party’s internal debates. For it is impossible to run a Tory court politics without there being different and competing views in the party. The Tory wets had no successor generation, while the Eurosceptic right has organised effectively at constituency level and in parliamentary selections. To the extent that the party has been thinking, it mainly thinks one thing: that less state equals more freedom. Many on the party’s right see this as a good thing: ideological unity. But it means the leadership is pressured in only one direction, with an echo of ‘no compromise with the electorate’ in it.

… To begin to make a ‘Tory court politics’ in the post-Thatcher Conservative party possible … he has had to take a “top down” approach to creating voices and pressures which would not otherwise exist.

Prospect’s Maggie as Che image can be seen at ConsHome, who have used it with permission from Prospect
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2009/01/red-toryism.html

i would disagree.
both are about devotion
to a cause.

surely faith is a good thing,
hope and optimism is linked to it ?

This has the potential to be even more divisive than the green initiatives.

Economically she was Whig but socially she was a Tory: a romantic nationalist and Victorian moralist.

Thatcherism was about using the tools of traditional liberalism to restore a conservative society. This project only partly succeeded – its biggest failure was an inability to to restore cultural and social conservatism through welfare reform and state shrinkage.

Cameron is a Thatcherite, but not as we know it. His ambition – and it is a grand one – is to reduce the state over the long term by reducing the demand for the state. This will complete, not replace, the Thatcherite revolution.

The great lady casts a long shadow.

From what I read, and that is a lot, I still see this “Well the Tories are going to get in any way” – that maybe the case – yet I do see a viable alternative with the LibDems – and not on the theory that if you can’t vote Tory vote LibDem, though that, in itself, would be good. I am one of them – I couldn’t vote Labour nor Tory. Both are the same to me – if there is a difference then show me.

I do want to see the ideas behind LibDem thinking – being on their site I see a lot of what I want.

Why don’t others?

Something I notice is the understandable assumption that right wing think tanks are as important to the Conservative Party as left wing think tanks are to the Labour Party. They are not, at least that’s my impression . In the Conservative Party there would be some cynicism about anyone “thinking “ for a living and in general the membership are more central than the blogasphere by a very long way.
Conservatism requires that sufficient numbers have a stake and that morla authority is retained by the goverment so that the country can be run to in a Conservative way. I cannotsee any way to graft actual socilaism onto the tree though .

Is big state /high tax not a fair description of the Labour Parrty then ? I thought that was the point

“He spoke about the need to “restore a modern version of medievalism” with a range of different types of property rights, relationships and duties of service and, when this was greeted with laughter, worried that “we have become an ahistorical people”.”

I said in a post yesterday (http://e8voice.blogspot.com/2009/01/red-tories-are-coming.html) that there is an awful lot of water under the bridge since then. We’ve had an industrial revolution, globalisation, political reform to the point of revolution, socialism, social democracy….

I’m sure that Labour would love to nudge Cameron in the direction of neo-medievalism. Seems so fitting somehow.

I look forward to the book- perhaps it will become the Tory version of The State we’re In- popular but ultimately rejected politically. Or perhaps it will simply echo around the think tank universe. Whichever, you have to admire the intellectual derring-do.