Peter Hitchens: There Is Now No Difference Between Tories And New Labour

The Conservative Party has now almost completely morphed into New Labour, Mail on Sunday colunmist Peter Hitchens has said. Although most of the media commentariat heaped praise on the Prime Minister’s conference speech this week, Hitchens akses whether it was really discernably conservative, or whether it could have been given by a politician from any major party.

There are a few finishing touches to be added between now and 2020. But after much writhing and struggling, the chrysalis finally burst open to reveal the Heir to Blairism, glistening with snake oil and hair oil and surrounded by trilling choirs of happy billionaires, just as in the old days of Lord Cashpoint and bombing Iraq.

The process will only be complete when Lord Mandelson himself accepts that his life’s work is now being done by David Cameron and George Osborne, who is even starting to look like the Blair era’s Sinister Minister. Perhaps it’s time for a moustache.

The Tories also yearn for the open endorsement of Alan Milburn, whom they already employ as Commissar for Equality.

For the moment, they will have to content themselves with the embrace of Lord Adonis, more Blairite than Blair, who is in charge of concreting over what remains of the English countryside, a long-term New Labour obsession.

Privately, they are on good terms with the Blair creature himself, whose advice is always welcome in Downing Street. He is known there as ‘The Master’ and, with a few very minor changes (mainly the replacement of the word ‘Conservative’ with ‘New Labour’), he could have delivered the Prime Minister’s Manchester speech on Wednesday.

Who said (I have removed any mention of the party name): ‘It wasn’t just me who put social justice, equality for gay people, tackling climate change, and helping the world’s poorest at the centre of our mission – we all did’?

Honestly, could you tell? Where now are all those who thought David Cameron would unleash his inner Tory when freed from the embrace of Nick Clegg? Mr Cameron doesn’t have an inner Tory, and Wednesday’s performance suggests that Mr Clegg is actually the more conservative of the two.

Despite the friendly exterior, Hitchens says, Cameronism is actually deeply authoritarian, especially with political correctness, and concerned only with winning power at all costs.

[Blairism/Cameronism] is at bottom a nasty mix of greed, Leninist party discipline, advertising slickness and ruthless, intolerant political correctness. It attracts and promotes power-worshippers.

To survive and prosper, it must always pretend to be something else.

And as long as it succeeds in doing so, we are stuck with it.

Read the full column at the Mail on Sunday website.