Press baron Lord Beaverbrook used to ask of his newspapers when they seemed rudderless: ‘Who’s in charge of the clattering train?’ The same question may be asked of the Tory Party, which has been through a horrible few weeks.
With sublime incompetence, David Cameron has turned his pledge of an EU referendum, which ought to have been an electoral asset, into a fiasco.
His gay marriage legislation, for which there is no public clamour whatever, has been an embarrassment. And now one of his inner circle is said to have dismissed party activists as ‘mad, swivel-eyed loons’.
Yesterday saw an extraordinary milestone in Tory history, when UKIP – the party Mr Cameron called ‘fruitcakes and loonies’, and which is now lagging only two points behind him in the polls – took out a full-page advertisement in the Daily Telegraph, house journal of the Conservative Party.
The irony is that, while written in saloon-bar language normally disdained by the Telegraph, every word was bang on target.
Indeed, the beer-swilling, chain-smoking UKIP leader homes in on everything traditional Tories find most exasperating about their party’s high command.
Nigel Farage declares: ‘Only an administration run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives, could so arrogantly write off their own supporters.’
More... PM's humiliation: Cameron forced to accept last-minute deal with Labour to head off Conservative rebellion over gay marriage Cameron spared a potentially embarrassing session of PMQs tomorrow QUENTIN LETTS: Fingers were wagged about not respecting minoritiesHe goes on: ‘Conservatives are used to a party that is patriotic, supports business and believes in aspiration. Today they are led by people obsessed with wind farms and introducing gay marriage and happy to open the door to Romanians and Bulgarians from January 1 next year.’
Yes, some of Mr Farage’s jibes are a trifle unfair. Though it is true that Mr Cameron, like the Labour and LibDem leaders, has never had a job in the real world, he has given no cause to question his patriotism.
As for believing in aspiration, he is doing far more than his predecessors to dismantle the benefits trap and reward self-reliance. Crucially, his economic strategy is at last paying dividends, with growth beginning to return.
The beer-swilling, chain-smoking UKIP leader homes in on everything traditional Tories find most exasperating about their party's high commandBut who can doubt the main thrust of Mr Farage’s attack – that Mr Cameron’s circle looks down on the party’s natural supporters?
True, the Prime Minister’s hands are tied by the shackles of coalition. But then Tory activists fully understand this.
In the same way, they understood how Margaret Thatcher, during her first administration, often had to compromise with Cabinet ‘Wets’, who were quite as viscerally opposed to her policies as the Lib Dems are to Mr Cameron’s.
More from Daily Mail Comment... 'Loons' that Cameron alienates at his peril 19/05/13 Green shoots for the Tories? 17/05/13 DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The legacy of Labour's migrant search parties 17/05/13 DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Painful lessons from across the Channel 15/05/13 DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Police, secrecy and the legacy of Leveson 15/05/13 DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This is one EU crisis that need not exist 14/05/13 DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Tory Euro shambles lets Labour off hook 13/05/13 Cameron must lead EU debate, not follow it 10/05/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEThe huge difference is that Mrs Thatcher fought ferociously, night and day, to bring her colleagues into line with her convictions. And everybody knew it.
In Mr Cameron’s case, the question is not so much whether he’s fighting for his convictions as whether he has any in the first place.
On the matters that grassroots Tories care passionately about – such as curbing mass immigration, standing up against the EU, reforming the NHS, cutting red tape, recognising marriage in the tax system or protecting children from internet porn – there seems to be no fight in him at all.
Worse, on the few matters that appear important to him – such as gay marriage, wind farms and overseas aid – he is utterly at odds with traditional Tories.
Indeed, he is driving them into the arms of an engaging, pint-guzzling eccentric whose natural place is on the Tory backbenches.
At a time of infighting like this, there is always a temptation for a Prime Minister to retreat further into a closed group of like-minded friends who share his outlook and background.
This would be fatal for Mr Cameron. Instead, he should be broadening his entourage to include hard-headed Tories with experience of the real world and the gut instincts of the British people.
Above all, he should remember the lesson of the council election results: if he could unite all those in UKIP and the Conservative Party who share those gut instincts, he would win the next election by a sweeping majority.
