Revival Preaching

The Vicar of Downing Street has emailed me another sermon, aimed largely at publicising a longer sermon to which he subjected some of his remaining activists earlier today. "Our opponents are forced to try to imitate us," he gloats. "Across a whole range of issues, politics is defined on our terms, on our issues, governed by our values."

Of course, one should never underestimate what a competent team of spin doctors, backed up by a D notice or so and a little blackmail, can achieve in the matter of defining terms. This Tony defines as "having the courage to change" and "taking and keeping the centre-ground". However, "continued success rests on having the courage to keep changing". This is certainly true. If Tony had been less willing to keep changing his excuses over the assault on Iraq, he might not have succeeded in getting our troops to go; which in turn might have meant the loss to the world of his Churchillian speechifying on 7 July, to the incalculable detriment of British culture.

So, having taken and kept the centre ground, we (that is, Tony and his chums) must now abandon the centre ground. "In policies and in our public services, we have to get away from taking power to the centre and trust people and communities to take control of their own lives," under maximum surveillance, of course. Nevertheless, those who are scrambling to ape New Labour's policies, when they arrive on the centre ground "will find us already there, with the ground staked out". It is certainly reassuring that Tony defines "government" as "being unable to engage in ... fudge, ambiguity, lazy thinking".

Whether we (Tony and his chums, that is) remain on the centre ground, or stake it out before abandoning it for the Tories to find us there, the one thing we absolutely must not do is move left. A left-wing government would lead, always has led, "to a Right wing Conservative government." That would be disastrous, of course. If there's one thing this country does not need, it is another government of pious, privatising, patriotic Atlanticist warmongers.

Now that politics is defined on our terms, on our issues, and governed by our values, "we need a new politics to revive our democracy," Tony preaches in his email. "We have to look afresh at our party to ensure our structures draw people in, not put them off." In the speech, Tony practices what he preaches: "thank you for the advice, but we want [the] centre ground shaped by progressive politics" as defined by ourselves.

We (Tony, that is, and his chums) need a politics that is "open, inviting and rooted and engaged in local communities"; which, as you would expect, means taking "tough decisions that offend people" and "aiming for respect rather than affection". Most people are well aware of Tony's decisions to be tough on public services, tough on the unemployed, tough on the sick and tough on Muslims; and, of course, his aspiration to the respect and affection of George W Bush is too well-known to need more than a passing mention. Given this unrelenting success story, one wonders why our democracy should need reviving at all. We (that is, Tony and his chums) might do better simply by withdrawing its feeding tube and turning off its ventilator.

As though in preparation for this act of terminal mercy, Tony informed his remaining activists of the role of debate and compromise in government, and his Christian conviction that material wealth is not the only thing that matters. Government, he evangelised, "means decisions weighed not in argument and counter-argument, but in pounds, shillings and pence in people's pockets."