‘If you want to destroy the Conservative party as it has existed for 150 years, press one’
It must be odd, joining the Conservative party today. What do newcomers favour? The worldly-wise have long explained that Conservatism does not stand for much. It is what Tory politicians have to say to the voters in order to win office.
Some Marxists say so, which is inconsistent with the Marxist belief that Conservatism is one of the means by which we are forced to live under capitalism. If that were so, there must be limits to how liberal or progressive the Conservative party can be. Otherwise the cost of Ms Toynbee’s welfare state would intrude on the profits of the fat capitalists. To circumnavigate this problem, Marxists invented ‘false consciousness’. To distract them from overthrowing capitalism, the workers are lulled into believing in childish institutions and causes: the monarchy, patriotism, religion, wars. Having thus distracted the workers from the masses’ true interests, the capitalists are free to make their profits.
There are signs that this system, if it ever existed, is breaking down. The capitalists have nothing left with which to distract the workers. The Iraq war, for example, has not inspired mass patriotism.
Mr Cameron is the first important postThatcherite politician. Mrs Thatcher’s causes were so popular among those falsely conscious workers — though she herself was not — that John Major and Tony Blair had to say that they would not undo them. But voters have short memories. They take it for granted that the unions no longer cause winters of discontent. It is safe for politicians to confront ills about which nearly everyone agrees: greenery, the ozone layer, Africa.
Hard causes remain. Healthcare cannot be reformed unless more private money is spent on it. But that is now considered too dangerous a cause for a Conservative to espouse. Private healthcare is thought to favour only the rich. So, everywhere the First Post-Thatcherite turns, he is faced, to an extent endured by no previous Tory leader, with his party being thought solely the party of the rich. The Iraq war’s unpopularity shows that he cannot appeal to patriotism. Denunciations of immigration and illegal asylum-seeking are thought to upset the Liberal Democrat vote on which Mr Cameron relies for victory; the traditional Tory vote being thought not big enough. He has only one course: he must disown his party.
Yet there will always be those of us who think of ourselves as Conservatives. Today is hard on us. Still harder on the young, coming new to Conservatism. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, has often attracted the young. The 1960s, lazily thought of as the decade of left-wing youth, was also the decade of right-wing and libertarian youth: that of Hayek’s revival, Friedman’s arrival.
Perhaps these idealists could telephone Conservative Central Office and offer to serve the cause even though the only people who are welcome these days seem to be donors. The Tory cause remains, but it is different from that of the 1960s; unrecognisable as Conservatism, and possibly no cause at all except turning Mr Cameron into prime minister and his friends into the Cabinet.
‘Conservative Central Office speaking. If you want to destroy the Conservative party as it has existed for 150 years, press one. If you loathe Lord Tebbit, press two. If you are a careerist who wants Nicholas Winterton’s seat, press three. If you are Nicholas Winterton, resign your seat and make way for someone who’s not barking. For all other inquiries, please hold.’ Music: Bob Dylan medley: arr. Toynbee.
Further recorded message: ‘All of our agents are busy at the moment. But your call is going up in the queue.’ Eventually, a live human voice: ‘Hello, Francis speaking. How can I help?’ ‘I want to join the Conservative party.’ Mr Maude: ‘Is this some kind of a hoax?’ ‘No, not at all. I feel I can make a real contribution.’ Mr Maude: ‘How much?’ As Christmas looms, it is harder than ever for adults to imagine what it is like to be a child today, away from television screens and DVD games. Most of our ageing population can still just about remember pantomimes and the big Christmas television show amusing and exciting us.
But how can Widow Twankey or Aladdin interest children compared with the modern screen’s technological resources? Pantomimes must all seem tame to the young. And yet theatres in London and the regions still stage them. Someone must go. Perhaps, just as audiences in the early 20th century liked to see what the great variety artists — who appeared in pantomime without fail every Christmas — were like in the flesh, so today you cannot beat a supermodel or a soap star who is up on the stage in front of you instead of just on a screen. Perhaps technology has not completely triumphed.
How to explain, though, the continued productions at Christmas of the ballet The Nutcracker; one at Covent Garden this year, one at Birmingham Royal Ballet, the third from English National Ballet at the Coliseum in London? Few of today’s children have heard of any ballet dancers, except possibly the magical Darcey Bussell.
The Nutcracker seems to be a particular trial for adults. Nothing much seems to happen. Act One is a cosy Christmas Eve party in a grand house. An elderly magician entertains the children and hands out presents, including a nutcracker in the likeness of a prince. For reasons which we need not go into, the nutcracker turns into a real prince and carries the daughter of the house to the Kingdom of the Sweets where they, and quite a few others, dance. The end.
Some of us believe that this is a story of some profundity: a child’s awakening to adolescence, though we do not go as far as Nureyev’s production which has the magician turning into the prince. Adolescent girls tend to concentrate their fantasies on real princes, cutting out the middle man. Like many such ideas, it was described as ‘Freudian’.
But at least it must have made The Nutcracker more interesting to the accompanying fathers. Those of us who every Christmas proselytise to our friends on behalf of the work have a better recommendation: the music. If you do not know it, it should astound. Tchaikovsky brought the symphonic sound to ballet as much as Wagner did to opera, though sadly there were not the composers to follow. The overwhelming passage in which a Christmas tree rises up from the floor is worthy of any of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies and operas. Listen, marvel; do not give up on The Nutcracker.
Previous page
