WHAT THE TORIES CAN TEACH US: IT’S THE IMAGE, STUPID!

You have to admire David Cameron. He took control of his party when it looked as vicious and unelectable as it ever has following the brief rule of the alarming Michael Howard. Dave hugged huskies, rode a bike, tried to buy a windmill (but failed), introduced a tree, got a blog and generally said lovely things to everyone.

Nearly three years down the line, having got the support of many more people, Dave is now moving cautiously back to the core Tory agenda, which is self help – selfishness, if you want to be uncharitable – a moral approach to society, a smaller state and lower taxes. At least that’s how they would like to be seen and this current post is not the place to demolish their key beliefs.

Dave has condemned knife crime – who doesn’t? He believes that society is ‘morally neutral’ and that people suffering from obesity or who drink or smoke bear some responsibility for their conditions: once again, I suspect that most of us share this view, regardless of the varying approaches we would take to dealing with these people, which would move between condemnation and a desire to offer help and support. On the environment, well, families need help so lets let the planet go hang to boost sales of people carriers.

In short, he is gently humming an old, familiar tune which others are picking up gradually, including those core Tories who must have been a bit fed up over the last few years as they saw this ‘liberal-lite’ apologist take over their beloved party. It is a brilliant strategy and deserves praise.

Of course, the truth is that an incoming Tory government (still a statement which causes me to shudder involuntarily) will do nothing, change nothing, keep taxes where they are and generally maintain the same course, with a few tweaks round the edges for effect but the mood music is beguiling and at the moment it looks like being successful.

The key question for us two years away from an election is what we can learn from Cameron’s remarkable reinvention of traditional Conservatism? I think there are some very good lessons.

Firstly, you don’t have to ditch your core values when you revamp your image. If we changed our name or logo we’d still be Liberal Democrats, with all the values that unite us. However, that’s perhaps a bit too radical an idea for the moment

Secondly, you can connect with the public and keep those same core values. It’s okay to be populist – and you can still keep your soul

Thirdly, a good idea will win people over if it is well presented. We often suffer from a ‘holier-than-thou’ approach which may cheese people off as no one likes to be lectured. However, we have some great policies which would be popular - if only voters knew about them.

The key message is that the Tories have not changed one iota under Dave’s leadership. What they have done is re-connected with the public and they are reaping the benefits. Perhaps its time for us to put the endless policy reviews and votes on goldfish on hold for a few years and do a bit more selling of the excellent policies we have. As any good company knows, R&D is all well and good but it has to be paid for by shifting your existing products off the shelf.

Let’s get a bit more shallow and start connecting with people.