The other day Tigerhawk noted conservatives in the States are in trouble because the U.S. has lurched — for a variety of reasons — to the left in the past six years. Interestingly, U.S. conservatism is of course of a very different brand compared to its British counterpart’s. Still, it’s intriguing how it appears that as the U.S. is being “inspired” to the left, Britain seems to be emerging with a hangover, following its decade-long-governance-by-leftists-party. Politics.co.uk, February 1:

Gordon Brown has been urged to present a future agenda that can win an election against a newly socially liberal Conservative party.

The thinktank Progress urges the new Labour leader to set out an agenda which is “post-Blair, not anti-Blair, building on the achievements of the past decade, not running away from them”…

…They state: “The public no longer view the Conservatives as the nasty party of the 1990s. We are now engaged in a serious fight for the centre ground with a party which is socially more liberal and constantly engaging in counter-intuitive positioning.”

But the statement maintains a “fundamental divide” exists between Labour and the Conservatives over the role of the state, with Mr Cameron not breaking from the Thatcherite commitment to “roll back the state”.

Some weeks back, I had received an unexpected email from a member of David Cameron’s communications team. He was gracious enough to drop me a note pointing out webcameron.org.uk. That got me to thinking how while Mr Cameron is leading in the polls, and even despite Labour’s all too numerous and continuing shortcomings, for some reason the Conservatives have not pulled clearer away.

Something’s amiss. The public seems to be reserving judgement, because they desperately hope Mr Cameron and his party will be different, not just repackaged more of the same; but they aren’t sure. For what it’s worth, here’s what I think the Conservatives must do to get wider “positive separation” between Mr Brown and Mr Cameron:

1. The “malaise” gripping this country — in this outsider’s modest opinion — currently is not due mostly to Labour’s being less “liberal” than the Conservatives. Rather it has to do with Labour finally having run out of 1990s Conservative economic coattails to ride.
2. When Labour won in 1997, it did so primarily because the country desired to “feel good” (sort of Mr Blair as the then British “Barack”), and was tired of the same old Conservative faces; not because voters thought Labour was intrinsically more capable of running the show better. They did believe, however, that New Labour was not old Labour, and that proved true briefly. (But mostly because the man at the top was not old Labour.) In power, Labour early on essentially followed ongoing, reasonably successful Conservative economic politics. (The only memorable measure the Labour government dramatically introduced initially was — very un-old Labourly — to de-nationalize the Bank of England.)
3. But within a few years it was no longer possible for Labour to coast on that Conservative economic template, for time — and economic challenges — had, inevitably, moved on. Needing to find its own monetary and fiscal voices, Labour proved voiceless. What has followed, in order to fund Labour’s “social vision”, has been the repackaging for a new generation of the traditional leftist parade of outright stupid measures, and ignorant and even silly efforts at micro-management. Government by “flailing” had arrived.
4. Say what one will about the scandals that engulfed the Conservatives in the 1990s, but at least they knew how NOT to ruin an economy. In contrast, Labour is composed of too many empty party suits and former polytechnic lecturers who aren’t qualified to run a corner shop. (Although, they could undoubtedly introduce a thumping “diversity” in employment plan for it.) The consequence has been a gradual downward trend economically since 2002.
5. Business (especially small business in particular) has been continually beset. Of course, as the economy slows, and lacking any ideas or experience in real economic matters, Labour responds with still more anti-business measures. And new contributions, uh, fees, uh, taxes. Such just causes still more despair in the business community, and merely make matters worse. Who wants to hire anyone when hiring anyone simply means wading through an increasingly confusing minefield of regulation likely leading to the Labour “watchmen” coming a-calling, waving this morning’s latest revised version of, say, PAYE regulations? And what government in history has demanded tax payments in advance of when people actually get paid, based on projections of what they had earned the year before? And who then banks the interest during the period before final determination of real tax owed or refundable? And which government holds tax refunds due UNTIL you ring them up to ask them to be sent to you, also again banking the interim interest themselves? This group.
6. The knock on impact of governance by the economic and business illiterati has been devastating socially also. Thus also the growing troubles in too many areas of British life. State non-selective education (to name just one) is, as is well-known, increasingly a wasteland.
7. Rarely in the last generation have British people seemed to feel so over-officiated through an ever-increasingly incomprehensible and spreading tangled web of (often perceived to be) capriciously applied laws, through which almost anyone could be deemed a lawbreaker in some form. Millions also feel more socially pestered and cornered than previously over every personal action they (are graciously permitted still to) undertake. It might not be so bad if Britain really were a “nanny state”, since nannies do often a great many things FOR their charges; but this Labour government doesn’t do: it takes. And it hectors. Incessantly.
8. The din never ceases. Not a day goes by without some minister’s new suggestion, with the — of course — necessary new regs to follow. Just in the last day or so the public has been treated to discourses (including, but not exclusively) on sick notes, why they should drink tap water (from the increasingly ridiculous Labour London mayor), English as a priority for migrants (What if they don’t speak enough English to understand? How do they know they should make it a priority?), calls to curb “supermarket power” (from the Lib Dem leader, true; but many in Labour concur), the need for “financial guidance” for expectant mothers (guidance from the same entity which oversaw Northern Rock), and charging for rubbish collection by weight. (But according to the Minister for Waste — a serious title — it won’t be a “tax” of course, but merely a means to encourage more people to recycle. Ah, huh, so in practical terms, yesterday, I cleared up a smashed lager bottle strewn on the roadside outside our house, which would never have been cleared away otherwise: my responsibility to recycle or pay the “non-tax”, or the bottle smasher’s, under this useful legislation? Oh, one shouldn’t worry: the BMA wants government to bring in higher taxes on “cheap alcohol”.)
9. This Labour government is indeed “revolutionary” in its view of “the role of the state”: they’ve turned Britain into a “nagging state”. Mr Blair was (”middle class”) strikingly personable enough to be able to help paper over much of the internal Labour ineptitude. Like President Clinton, while your world was crashing down around your ears, Mr Blair had the ability to make you feel that it would somehow all come out right in the end. Mr Brown utterly lacks that personal touch. (Happy now, he’s gone?) Thus “Daily Mail Mums” are now this close to voting Conservative. Sun readers, too. Telegraph readers and Times readers also. Express readers will likely vote Tory already.
10. To win them all over firmly, don’t waste effort trying to appease Guardian and Independent readers; they are too few to be concerned about and they will never vote Conservative anyway. Instead toss Conservative arguments squarely at “middle Britain”, and give those tens of millions what they crave: not promises of utopia and a laundry list of still more “programs” (only the left thinks government can create perfection), but offer instead a firm sense of reassurance that your party when in power will try to lift the yoke off Britons’ necks (and promise also to make it a sackable offence for any minister to announce the rolling out of any new measure more than once a week). People want to exhale and feel that their government doesn’t despise them, and isn’t out to get them. If Conservatives can manage to convey that their party will work in that direction, they will win the next election — whenever it is — by a huge margin.

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On the “pestered” and “cornered” issue also, here’s one to watch, from across the Channel. The BBC can’t resist. C’est impossible!:

Giving birth to a boy can increase the likelihood of severe postnatal depression, a study suggests.

Thus we get an insightful BBC report on yet another “study”. Incidentally, note the “study” size:

French researchers examined 181 mothers, and found 9% had severe depression - three-quarters of these had delivered a male child…

Got that? 181 mothers, of whom 9% (that’s 17 women) developed “severe depression” in total; and therefore “three-quarters” of those 17 cases . . . are 13.

That’s right, 13. A baker’s dozen (who could be depressed for a lot more reasons than merely just having given birth to little Georges). Your average MA thesis probably has a bigger sample — and most of those don’t end up as BBC pieces.

…However, Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the numbers of women with severe depression were too low to draw firm conclusions.

He said severe depression results were compromised by the finding that a majority of the mothers with mild depression were more likely to have given birth to girls.

He said: “It’s an interesting talking point, but I’m not entirely convinced by this, and would like to see it replicated in larger trials…

So Dr Hallstrom feels it is “interesting”? Oh, boy dear. And he’d also like to see it “replicated in larger trials”? Sense a UK “study” coming, undoubtedly backed by Labour government funding? After all, it’s obviously government’s role to make sure expectant mothers are not only lectured about their finances, but to see to it also that they are worried about boy-induced depression.