Model of the charmless man
IDS next to Bush at during a visit to Washington.
Iain Duncan Smith is a surprisingly impassioned man. Widely lampooned for his ‘quiet man turning up the volume’ speech to the Tory Party Conference in 2002, his visit to the Union proved that he has kept the volume on high since then. It also showed how much more comfortable IDS is with policy formation than with the more exposed job of party leader.
His speech to the full debating chamber on Friday afternoon was always likely to be well received, being populated largely by Conservative voters, and a large OUCA turnout. This did not mean, however, that IDS allowed himself to relax and bask in the awe bestowed by junior activists to a man that was once their leader.
His speech is measured, thoughtful, but rhetorically effective, and his expressive gestures by the end of his allotted time show how emotionally involved he is with his chosen topic, social justice. None of this changes the fact that as a politician, however, he is likely to be judged as a failure.
The only leader of the opposition since the war to be voted out of offi ce before fi ghting a single general election, perhaps IDS’ most signifi cant contribution to the political landscape was as the speaker of the most unfortunate fi nal words ever spoken at any party conference. The quiet man was quite clearly not there to stay. IDS himself, though, would claim that he made signifi cant advances in the development of Tory party policy, implementing The Fair Deal.
It was this that he was trying to highlight, he says, when he made that now infamous conference speech. “I don’t regret it. What I regret is the media trying to turn things into a Punch and Judy show. What I was arguing against was doing this in politics. Normal people don’t care about such a show, and in wider society, it’s the quiet people who achieve more.
The problem of course with the speech, though, was not that people didn’t understand why he was saying what he said, but that he used a sound bite that could so easily be turned against him. “It was a rhetorical statement about how we were now moving to the next stage of the strategy. We wanted to say we now had what we wanted to say in place and we now needed to say it.
We now needed to be able to take it out there, that’s the whole point about what we were saying about turning up the volume.” When asked about wider regrets about the way in which he ran the party, he offers a more tantalising answer. “How long have you got?” he asks with a smile. Soon, however, he slips back into consummate politician mode, if perhaps with a somewhat confusing answer: “I don’t regret doing anything. I regret making mistakes, but in essence I would do the same again.
I do have a few regrets, but I’m not about to talk about them here and now.” It is perhaps answers like this that have led to IDS being branded as one of the less interesting and charismatic Tory politicians over the last few decades. Capable of eloquence and passion, he nevertheless fails fully to engage his audience. Only at times do his jokes hit the right note, and only once did he seem to relax and let the charm and charisma that he obviously has take over.
When asked about his experience during Prime Minister’s questions, he visibly brightens. Here is a topic that he no longer feels guarded about, and he can open up. “It is the most intriguing thing you could ever do. It is peculiar, stupid and pointless.” He pauses, and warms to the laughter. “It’s like driving a car at 155 mph with everyone looking at which eyebrow you have moved.
The laughter grows as he comments, “Facing Tony Blair over a long period of time at Prime Minister’s questions is like being married to him. I had to know where he was going to go, how he was going to answer my question and think of a follow up. Not once, but up to fi ve times. If you get it wrong, there’s no hole in the ground big enough. If your comments are greeted with laughter by the chamber, it’s the loneliest place in the world.
Finally, he offers a rare insight into current Tory politics. “I know Michael Howard must be over the moon. He has the enviable problem of deciding, of all the ways in which he could bring up the David Blunkett affair, which one should he take.” Apart from this, he is unwilling to comment much on current Westminster intrigue, railing against the attitudes of the chattering classes.
When asked about David Davis’ comments during his live televised debate with David Cameron last week about a role he would be willing to give IDS in his shadow cabinet were he elected, IDS initially claims that he didn’t even watch the programme. When I pressed him on this point, he did admit that he had taped it and watched it later, but that he was still unwilling to comment on any potential offer to serve in a Davis shadow cabinet. “I haven’t had any offer.
All I’m told is that somebody said something on television about me. I’ve been around long enough to know that I should wait until something happens.” Although he says of Davis’ potential offer, that he has “heard it all before”, he insists that this does not make him a cynic. “I’m not cynical about it. I’ve been there, I’ve done it. I stood for leadership. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve seen it all before, I’ve done it. I’m in a unique position.
He does admit, however, “I’m weary with Westminster politics in that the change I’m talking about isn’t just about the Conservative party, the change is to the whole of Westminster, the chattering classes, the media and what they report on - the sort of circus that takes place around Westminster.
When he says this, he does so with a defensiveness that is seen in many of his answers, and apparently borne out of his frustration with the continual attacks he has suffered both from the press and members of his own party. “I’m sure that someone’s going to attack me for that. They will label it as pathetic.” He goes on to defend his idea of creating social justice by empowering individuals and local community volunteers rather than through centralised, Westminster-based action.
“I stand by it, because when you see kids dying of drug abuse and you see families in deep diffi cult breakdown, and they don’t care about us because they don’t think we care about them, you know there’s something wrong with our political process.” It is this idea that now forms the basis for his political credo. He says that his party’s problem in recent years has been that they appear as if they don’t care about social justice.
In fact, at times, his rhetoric sounds more like that of a Labour politician than a Tory one. “We’ve never had so much money and choice, but when I look around I see that quality of life is getting worse. The bottom ten per cent of society has become worse off in relative terms. Society is collapsing and imploding around us.” I can’t help but have the feeling that such talk would not have been tolerated in the years of Margaret Thatcher and ,“There’s no such thing as society.
However, as IDS himself admits, the boundaries between the parties have become blurred, and the Tories have had a diffi cult job defi ning themselves against one of the most successful conservative governments this country has seen. However, where IDS’ stance differs from the Labour line is very much about reducing the welfare state so that what he calls the ‘welfare society’ can fl ourish.
The ‘welfare society’, he explains, is one that relies on traditional family values providing the cohesive element of society, rather than people continually looking to central government for support. On how exactly one might go about creating such a society, though, he seems unclear. He does not advocate the style of American moral conservatism. “It is not about pushing for family values. You can’t push for something like that.
It’s about making it as easy as anything else to make the decision to stay together. There should be nothing in the way of you doing that. “This Government is placing things in the way of doing that, and we’ve got to get rid of that. That’s what it means. It’s not about wagging fi ngers or anything like that.
When I ask what barriers there are to staying together as a family, he answers vaguely, “I think sometimes people think it’s not viable to stay together, or they don’t want to do it, because society says it’s not fashionable.” Similar confusion seems to surround his attitude towards the welfare state. At times, he advocates its reduction, since it fuels demand and creates an unhealthy reliance on government measures rather than community support.
However, when asked if he advocates rolling back the welfare state, he denies that this is his stance. “This kind of argument is what we’ve been using for a while. It appears strong and macho to talk about reducing benefi ts and rolling back the welfare state. I would rather see it stabilise and become what it was always intended as, a support for those most in need.
IDS is certainly not the macho Tory politician of which he talks, and the likes of which we have seen all too often in recent generations. He is intelligent and passionate about his ‘big idea’ of devolved power to local communities, and says that it will be the only basis on which he will vote in the leadership election (though he claims not to have made up his mind on which of the two Davids he will vote for).
He is the party’s self-styled ‘quiet man’, an unusual, and ultimately unsuitable choice of party leader. I can’t help but feel, though, he is one who may have taken the Tories further, had he represented the type of macho politics that continues to characterise his party.
10th Nov 2005