Interesting story from the London Spectator’s new blog (you may have to scroll down, no Permalink) abiout the new Tory leader:
“Last Tuesday, as Cameron prepared for his coronation, one of his top aides, Nick Boles, addressed a private meeting of right-wing think tanks and campaign groups at the Adam Smith Institute.While the hope of many Conservatives has been that Cameron is “really” on the Right but would use better PR to sell a Thatcherite agenda, Boles made clear to the audience that they would be disappointed. The issues of tax cuts and school choice were raised. Mr Boles said that they would not campaign for vouchers and “choice” was not their priority. In reply to questions about tax, he said that tax pledges and guarantees had been tried before in previous elections, they had failed, and they could not commit themselves to cut taxes beyond the current aspiration. Mr Boles said to the audience that, just as Blair said that he won as New Labour and would govern as New Labour, so – “Dave has run as a compassionate conservative and will govern as a compassionate conservative”.
Now, Cameron probably had to say that. Given how leaky such meetings are, telling its attendees that he had some double secret plan to rule from the right would not have been very clever, but there’s no doubt that some of the mood music (and appointments) coming from the new team is somewhat discouraging.