Dave’s Unsustainable Position

The much-trumpeted Tory Green Agenda is under threat in these Recessionary Times.

One of the more irritating questions posed in recent weeks is whether the ‘whole Green thing’ will fall victim to the encroaching economic crisis and inevitable recession. There have been too many smug comments disguised as questions from those who have only ever seen the environmental agenda as a boom-time plaything, rather than a societal imperative. Their naivety astounds.

A version of this same question is, of course, being put with increasing frequency to David Cameron. His beacon of new light in the reformation of what was once, allegedly, the ‘nasty party’ is under threat of extinction in graver times - now that other, apparently more important agendas have come in to play.

It will come as no surprise to find that Citizen Renaissance calls for resistance at all levels to this sort of feeble capitulation and ignorant blackmail. Even so, Cameron finds himself in something of a bind. Witness the protracted debate in Congress over the Paulson rescue package. It was as if, to many, the Free Markets (and their oxymoronic protection) represented the soul of our society – and that we were locked in a Good versus Evil battle for their continued liberation. Despite the markets behaving as though they had lost any sense of compass or orientation, there were still those ready to believe that their freedom must prevail at all costs.

Cameron will face similar ideological battles – on both the economic and the environmental front. Sensible regulation, the curbing of wild excesses, a decent sense of equality and social justice are (as they have always been to many of us) clear needs. A new sense of fairness should prevail in this impending period of austerity and beyond. Cameron will no doubt find that there are fierce ideologues within his own party that will kick against regulation, just as they kicked against European integration. On this basis, the illiberal liberals in the Tory party - resisting societal intervention whatever the need - could yet provoke the schism that Dave’s otherwise able stewardship has managed to contain since his elevation as Leader. He has cleverly re-branded ‘The State’ as ‘Society’ but there is a sense that too many is his party will see through his cunning linguistics and fight back. Thatcher’s shadow may well once again lengthen.

The wider threat, however, is no longer merely a monetary/economic one. The wellbeing of our planet is equally at stake. The science does not lie. The Conservatives need to be alert to this reality – there may otherwise be no roses left to smell when they finally awake.