If only Britain had had a Conservative government for the past decade instead of the crypto-socialists who botched everything, including Brexit. Ever since his resignation last year, David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, former cabinet minister, peer and latterly ferocious evangelist of the lost creed of true Toryism, has been compiling a charge sheet against the government in which he served.
He has now published an essay which is the latest salvo in the ever shortening cycle of disavowal which characterises Tory politics. Naturally the problem is not too much conservatism but too little. Forget austerity or Brexit, Frost suggests the past 12 years were an era of surrender to the New Labour consensus of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Such is the party’s malaise that he opens with Orwell: “We have now sunk to such a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” Crikey.
These are not just the musings of someone who used to be somebody. Frost was an early backer of Liz Truss and with her ascent to the premiership looking ever more likely, he is tipped for a big role. More important, he captures the terror and rage of a party that fears it has lost the big political argument.
He may not speak for Truss, but his pamphlet does speak for those on the Tory right who will have helped win her the top job and it offers a good sense of her own point of departure. Truss has declared implausibly that there will be no “handouts” to help with energy bills. The phrase is nebulous — is targeted help a handout? — but it shows her worldview.
Frost’s charge is that Tories have been complicit in entrenching the role of an overweening and inefficient state. From in-work benefits to increased labour regulations to the pursuit of net zero goals, the Tory right sees a leadership which pursued policies that create dependency and elevate crises only the state can solve. Meanwhile, artificially depressed interest rates have undermined market economics, preserving “zombie” companies and inflating asset prices. Too much political ground has been ceded, too many people are being sheltered from the harsh, clarifying winds of capitalism.
The Tories must again fight back against the statist orthodoxy. The essay is infused with the spirit of Thatcher and the language of Hayek, replete with warnings of sleepwalking towards “more collectivism, more socialism”.
This argument handily connects the diverse grievances on the Tory right. It reflects the disappointment over Brexit which was meant to be the catalyst for lower taxes and deregulation but has morphed into a Conservative Gaullism: protectionism, interventionism and higher taxation. The pandemic lockdown was a midwife to big government and the net zero targets are seen as a back door to socialism. The same is true of social reforms which Tories argue have been used by left-leaning campaigners to take the state deeper into the private realm. Notably, the labour regulation Frost targets for priority repeal is the anti-discrimination Equality Act.
One does not have to share this outlook to recognise that the Tories under Johnson and Theresa May abandoned the case for a smaller state (defenders might note it has adapted to the prevailing need).
And it is important that Conservatives make some of these arguments. The state should not be the first resort for any problem and the lure of regulation is often too strong. Frost is not a libertarian. Progress for him is to take tax down to the levels seen under Blair. Public services, the NHS and the police especially, are crying out for serious reform.
The dilemma for Truss is that while her heart will be with Frost, the political head that got her here, on the brink of entering Downing Street, knows she must contain these tendencies. For they are a challenge to the electoral coalition built and held together by Johnson — an active state was part of the deal.
And we may not be in a small-state moment. Many of today’s challenges, especially energy security and climate change, require government. Discomforting as it is to the right, the centre-ground of politics has shifted towards a belief in a more active state — if not necessarily in the taxes to fund it.
The logical stance is for a victorious Truss to talk the smaller-state talk, while picking her battles carefully. She can set the course with promised tax cuts and some deregulation. It is hard, though, to see any premier choosing this moment to slash in-work benefits. And for all the bravura, Truss knows there will need to be a new support package for energy bills. Public service reform takes time. Hence the appeal of totemic steps like cutting civil service numbers and confronting political correctness.
Get the balance right and she can borrow to maintain spending until a general election while goading Labour to walk into a sucker punch of calls for higher taxes. The risk is that a cost-cutting party is out of step with the public mood. Labour victories come when voters think key services are not working. Even temporary caution may disappoint Truss’s right flank but, while the ideological direction has been reset, the path runs through an economic downturn and an election in two years.
Frost is not wrong to say Tories have surrendered the argument but it cannot be re-won overnight. Thatcher built her case while out of power. It’s a strong agenda in opposition. But overdo the zeal now, and it may become a prescription for getting there.