What does the leftwing ‘Occupy’ movement have in common with the rightwing ‘Tea Party’? The answer to that, remarkably, is ten per cent of American voters:
This, if nothing else, is proof that millions of ordinary people are angry with big business and with big government.
Writing for the Atlantic, Amitai Etzioni has some friendly advice for America’s centre-left:
Etzioni calls this a “lovely thought”, but then debunks it:
To win people over, the Democrats need to show that they are against all selfish vested interests – whether of the public or private-sector variety:
There a lot of this that applies to us in Britain – only it tends to work the other way round. Thus while increasing numbers of people are coming round to conservative positions on issues like welfare, immigration and deficit reduction – they still vote Labour or, if they’ve had enough, turn to protest parties like UKIP. The one thing they don’t do is vote Conservative.
While they may be disgusted with the incompetence and irresponsibility of the state, they feel just the same about the banks and other corporate interests. While Labour is associated with former, the Conservative Party is associated with the latter – and for a lot of people that either makes us the greater of two evils or just one of two cheeks on the same backside.
British Conservatives need to follow Etzioni’s advice to American Democrats – and become the party that crusades against all vested interests.
Two Conservative MPs are showing the way. The first of these is Robert Halfon who has run a brilliant campaign on allegations of price fixing by oil companies. The second of them is Jesse Norman, for articulating a new – or, rather, an age-old – philosophical framework for a Conservative Party that is pro-market and pro-community, but not pro-corporate.