Good news for Blairites
Posted by Andrew Adams on September 30, 2008
Filed Under Politics |
The Independent reports that
Oliver Letwin has promised that David Cameron would complete Tony Blair’s unfinished legacy by pushing through reforms that Gordon Brown had thwarted while Chancellor…
Mr Letwin mischievously praised two of Mr Blair’s prominent allies – James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, and Lord Adonis, the Schools minister – and said the Tories had “exactly” the same agenda as the former prime minister.
Of course the Tories have been pushing this line for a while, Cameron being keen to make it known that he is the true “heir to Blair”. Admittedly they may appear to be dangerously liberal for some über-Blairite tastes - hell, they can’t even be relied on to be beastly to asylum seekers nowadays, but fear not, I’m sure they can be relied on to return to type. After all, look at all those lovely new prisons they want to build (private ones no doubt, even better), and they will abolish the Human Rights Act (boy, don’t you regret that one) and stop those nasty judicial activists insisting that people accused of a crime or seeking sacntuary in this country are actually entitled to something resembling due process.
Add to that the shared antipathy towards public sector workers, anti-war types and anyone even moderately left wing (including most of the Labour Party) it seems to me a marriage made in heaven. I mean can anyone give me a good reason why any arch-Blairite should not vote Tory at the next election.
Update: David Aaronovitch responds to my question here (although to be fair he may have penned his column before reading Mutantblog this morning).
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