Detoxifying the Tory Brand

Cameron is praised for detoxifying the Tory Brand. He has made them gay friendly. He has increased the presence of minority candidates and of women. He speaks little of immigration, almost vacating the issue for Labour to claim that it (belatedly) 'gets it'. It tries to say little of Europe - it's main message going into the campaign is that it doesn't want to pick a fight with 'our partners'.

But, where is 'class'?

There are vast swathes of the country where the working class worry about crime and worry about immigration. They have little time for those in their midst who sponge off the state. Their women are scathing about all-women shortlists saying that Betty Boothroyd needed no such things. They want discipline in schools, and probably wouldn't mind their sons and daughters having a crack at the 11-plus. They oppose European integration. Their are thoroughly patriotic - the sort of people whose children still consider the army as a career. They have nothing in common with the left wing intelligensia of the Labour Party - and are probably a little tired of party insiders being foisted on them.

How little these people have in common with New Labour?

Nothing, of course.

But they will not vote for a Tory party that devastated their industry in the 1980s. They were never pro-Tory before, but the 1980s made the Tories anathema. They have not forgotten.

To these people class matters. Not in the crude sense of hating Etonians, but in the sense that the Tories are not like them and care nothing for them. This was something that Cameron did not tackle. He denied it - encouraged by the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. But when recessions come, the question is rather stark: who cares if you suffer? The rich Tories or the Labour Party?

How the Tories could have done with teaching the white working class that the Labour Party did not care! The Republicans had achieved this in America with considerable success. While rich Democrats bussed poor whites to the worst schools, the children of the same Democrats were not bussed. Is it not the same with our state schools - do Labour MPs take the same chances with the kids' education as poor people (of all colours) are made to do?

Did Cameron reach out? No - he reached out to rich Guardian readers with his denunciation of grammar schools. All part of the detoxification, of course.

So, vast parts of the country will not vote Tory because the Tories are the party of privilege. They may have more in common with Tory policies on a vast array of subjects, but they are more likely to leap all the way to the Nazi Party than to take the comparative pixie steps to the Tories.

Why? Because Cameron never tackled this part of detoxification. Class was too close to home for him to acknowledge it.

He deserves to lose for failing to do so. Sadly, the alternative makes us hope he wins.