Furthermore when promoting marriage David has made party’s view more comprehensive with Gay relationships by abandoning the radical Thatcher position on gay issues ,he therefore promise to consolidate the status of gay couples whiting their right of adoption and equality
In the justice area Cameron favour a new approach which suggest that offenders sometimes merit “sympathy as well as punishment” conceding that personal background has something to do with offenses, in the Tories immigration policy Camron has made sure to involve the party in more crucial public issue rather than racist ideology debates, this made him to look at a new kind of immigration when the immigrants is not exploited by opportunist employee and is not lured to promise of better life.
the new conservative leader also opposes the identity card and has asked his party to appear less Euro sceptic when approaching general election, a new Europe relationship has been drawn based on free-trading nation-states, he also came with a new Green agenda which is represented in the new party logo and slogan, he therefore promised to take part to all environmental issue in order to make the party more eco-friendly
Section I: Q1
Criticism of Camron:
Camron seems to not have a real opportunity by which he can prove that he is coming with radical changes compared with the past like the abandonment of clause IV by Blair ,also Camron is more focused on his appearances in front of the medias as wel as its image rather than concentrating on political issues. this make his changes cosmetic than substantial.
Although his position in social policies is clear and strong, he is still vague on foreign and economic policy like Iraq and Afghanistan
The Camron party is still Eurosceptic and Immigration is still an important issue for the Tories as they want a limited number of non-UE migrants.
Some theories suggest that the Brown’s unpopularity led to a lead of Camron in the polls .
Section II: Q2 : why was it so important for the conservative party to change ?
After the controversial Thatcher mandate in which unemployment increase sharply, mainly caused by closing inefficient companies the Tories have lost three general elections (1997,2001,2005) and have passed through five leadership elections since 1990.
During the mandate of Jon Major a disaster took place on black Wednesday (16september1992),Britain was taken out the exchange Mechanism of European Monetary System ,devaluating the pound ,this has highly damaged conservative’s reputation for economic competence ,in addition to that the Tories were called as the “Maastricht rebels” because of their constant Euroscepticism and were accused of ‘sleaze’.
Then Tony Blair was elected, he has led Britain for ten years during which he followed the ideology of Margaret Thatcher by adopting conservative policies, for example the acceptance of privatisation as well as the need for legal reduction on the activities of trade union, Blair has also abandoned the Clause IV (nationalisation), consequently he promoted Public-Private Partnership and Private Finance Initiatives. All of these made the labour appealing to “Middle England” who voted for Blair three times causing big problems for the Tories.
Indeed from 19997 to 2005 three Conservative leaders appeared and two of them have lost in general election against Blair ,the first one William Hague made the Tories more Eurosceptic and moved to the right which position is anti Europe, anti immigration, pro-tax cuts, Hague lost in 2001 General Election, then Duncan Smith became another Eurosceptic Conservative leader who kept the party ‘s opinion poll ratings low , Smith distinctively lacking in charisma ,was removed from the leadership in 2003 and was replaced by Michael Howard who firstly promised to lead the party from the moderate centre before bringing the party back to the right, in order to adopt the old strategy of the “core vote” in the 2005 general election, that election was lost by the Tories despite of Blair’s growing unpopularity.
All these leaders were unpopular, right-winger , and failed to modernise the party in order to it more electable.
The emergence of Cameron, Clegg and Brown as new party leaders after 2005 , has made parties ideologically more difficult to distinguish as they were brought on the same line in the centre ground.
Section II: Parallels between Cameron’s modernisation project and Blair’s third way
In the modernisation of the conservative party David has come with the ideology which is described by Richard Kelly (2008) as the new “third way” that basically means the reconciliation of conservatives politic to the changes that Blair came with, distinctively , Blair’s third way was dedicated to triangulating some principle of labour with the consequences of Thatcherism ,in other world Blair reacted to Thatcherism and Camron reacted to Blair, both reaction are seen as a way .
Both of Blair and Camron have paid much intention to their image and have tried to influence potential electorate through the process of manipulating media.
Because of the significant growth of the national debt, mainly gained during the economic crisis, Camron is able to promise Tories cuts to reduce the debt with more public support than opposition.
Bibliography:
Richard Kelly /February 2008 /Conservatism under Cameron: the new 'third way'./ 17.3
Mark Garnett /April 2008/ Party ideology after Blair/17.4
The Manchester college/2009/ and Society ,Course Booklet/ The Manchester college.
Marks Thomson Notes/2009
