In recent years a number of American conservatives have speculated that Republicans could revive their party by taking lessons from the resurgent British Tories. A vigorous pushback against that idea is now being mounted. In the Weekly Standard, Sahil Mahtani argues that Britain differs from America in ways that make the success of David Cameron’s Tories impossible to replicate here. In National Review, John O’Sullivan claims that Cameron has actually undermined the Tories’ ability to take advantage of the Labour government’s travails.

[B]arring miracles, Cameron will be the next prime minister — handed victory by the sheer scale of Brown’s failure rather than as a result of confidence in the opposition. Why is there no enthusiasm for the Tories? Why have they actually lost their polling gains of last year? There are many possible answers, but the one that knits them all together is that the voters sense something not quite serious about the Cameron Tories. . . . [A]cross the spectrum they selected policies on the basis of their popularity with media liberals rather than because they would solve or ameliorate problems.
In short, they abandoned a broadly coherent post-Thatcherite conservatism without having any clear idea of what might replace it. They are today ideologically and psychologically directionless. They hesitate and wobble indecisively even on so clear an issue of principle as free speech in the Geert Wilders controversy. . . .
All these things mattered much less last year. When prosperity looked permanent, the voters could risk a flutter on the Tories. But they are electoral weaknesses now that any new government will have to cope with a long and dangerous crisis. A healthy touch of pragmatic “nastiness” is required today to restore the British people’s confidence in the Tories. Cameron is no doubt capable of this personally, but he has forsworn it ideologically. He must reverse that if he is not to fail — not in the election campaign but, worse, in power.

Iain Duncan Smith, a leading Tory MP, is speaking at the Heritage Foundation this coming week on, yes, the lessons his party has to offer American conservatives. I hope he will address the points that Mahtani and O’Sullivan make.