A Lack of Substance?

Writing in today (16/08/2009)’s issue of The Guardian, Alan Johnson summed up the Conservatives’ electoral strategy, in one short paragraph, better than I ever could:
‘In Cameron and Osborne’s corner of London, decontaminating the Conservative brand requires lashings of style to compensate for the lack of substance.’
The only flaw I could pick out in such a succinct appraisal was the employment of the term ‘substance’. Mr Johnson is not quite correct; the Conservatives do have a certain substance – and that substance is potentially toxic.
Popular MEP Daniel Hannan’s desire to dismantle the NHS and erect, in its place, a prohibitive, financially-motivated temple for Tory values are a perfect reflection of the ideals of a reactionary party who, in an era of tolerance – an era in which few are yet willing to stand in the way of humanitarian and egalitarian progressive democracy – could only ever hope to slip into power through the back door.
The response of Cameron’s political machine has, as ever, been swift. Once again, we have been told that the ‘nasty party’ is a thing of the past and that those who have a real say in party policy are, in fact, ‘progressives’. My great fear is this: that the debate as to the real intentions of the Conservative Party will overshadow the absence of any official and concrete policy emanating from among those MPs who, so we are told, have a real influence over the party line.
In response to the Tory rift, Labour’s moral positivism has returned in force, with fresh allegations that the Conservatives’ ‘modernising’ public persona bears little relation to its ‘unchanged rightwing underbelly’ (the words of Cabinet Minister Pat MacFadden). This may well be the case but it does nothing to excuse the lumbering, inefficient bureaucracy the NHS is slowly becoming under a Labour government talking the egalitarian talk while overlooking some of the blatant inequality at the root of the present system. Take, for instance, the fact that the vast costs of running the NHS are incurred mainly by retired people (who contribute much less in taxes) and subsidised mainly by the younger generation.
Tragically, it had all been going so well for Cameron; all he and his Party apparently needed to do was keep quiet and watch Labour talk their way out of power. Nobody questioned the absence of policy. Nobody even paid any particular attention to the gross and extravagant expenses claims filed by Conservative MPs as Gordon Brown (having just worked minor miracles at the G20 Conference) reacted a tad slower than the erstwhile Cameron to the whole sordid affair. Indeed, observing Cameron’s very public verbal flogging of his own party was akin to watching a criminal offering a speech of repentance, having just been given a lighter sentence than his partner in crime. Now, Cameron runs the risk of being talked out of contention by a party which, in exposing the inherent chasm between reform and traditional values at the heart of his political machine, has adopted his own policy of propaganda to distract the public from discussion of policy.
In my opening essay (read below), I suggested a sickness at the heart of British politics. Let us hope that our awareness of our own health can help us to discover it.