Cllr Lucius Vellacott is a district councillor in East Cambridgeshire
There has been much reason lately to reflect on why we are Conservatives. I am occasionally asked if the Conservative Party is a lost cause.
It will surprise no-one that I do not believe it is.
Our local elections in Cambridgeshire were an incredible mix of emotions. On the one hand, we won only 10 seats where previously we won 28 (just three short of a majority). But in the usual bucking of the trend, we demonstrated resilience and unity by electing our Paul Bristow as Mayor by a majority of over 10,000 votes, in a GAIN from Labour.
Paul’s manifesto is a testament to the power of clear ambitious and positive Conservative leadership. It represents why I stay; our party is the natural home for positive practical solutions and ambition for the future. That’s what we’ve demonstrated at East Cambridgeshire District Council, enabling us to freeze Council Tax for 12 years straight with no external debt – and still providing incredible services. Delivering in office is the key to voters’ trust.
Granted, Reform (narrowly) won 10 seats too. But their crowning achievement was to allow the Liberal Democrats to reach a majority of one – by just seven votes over the Conservatives, in Gamlingay.
It is horribly demoralising to lose. Though it is not personal, it feels as though our values are not shared any longer, which is not true.
Do I advocate a deal with Reform? Never. This is democracy. Ultimately, the Conservatives would be remiss to attribute the result to anyone other than ourselves. We must own our successes and failures equally else we will lose motivation to change things. And Reform has the democratic right to attempt to capitalise on the temporary gap. A lot of their voters see no alternative for now.
That is where we can come in. This is an opportunity for growth rather than another chance to divide ourselves. We have learned the lesson by now that voters are demoralised when we are disunited. Our decisions, not just as a party, but as an institution of this country, affect lives.
Our party is a big church, but no other party has a leader who is not afraid of short-term public opinion in the course of carefully setting this country on the right path again, slowly and meticulously. That, after all, was Thatcher’s defining characteristic.
What we need now involves using the best of our past to inform our future. What we need now is to innovate new methods to share our old values. It is not enough to merely react to results; we need to campaign all the year round. If we leverage the power of our local councillors, and of social media, we can effectively demonstrate our commitment to improvement.
When I was 16, I sat in a PSHE lesson. I was taught about how the UK was an intolerant place, made worse by the oppressive Government of the day. I was encouraged by teachers to attend protests in the streets and to share things on social media posted by left-wing activists. Never once was I encouraged either to consider an alternative view or even to take pragmatic action about the issues we learned about – even when I sat down to talk about it with my teacher.
In fact, when I did finally argue the toss over a particular case we were presented with, I was reported to a senior teacher for expressing intolerant views.
‘This is not preparing me to engage with life in this country,’ I remember thinking. ‘This is preparing me to be a mouthpiece.’ So that was the day I joined the Conservative Party. I never understood why anyone thought this was an intolerant, or even illogical, thing to do.
Surely, I thought, genuinely helping people to help themselves is the most respectful endeavour of all? Surely choosing to respect tradition and our country gives our lives structure and meaning? I loved that I was able to come through hardship in my life and protect and be proud of what I had earned – the Conservative way.
I still want to do more to ensure that my generation’s children are better prepared than we were; more financially literate, more tolerant and understanding of views they don’t agree with, better able to stand up for themselves, and better prepared to work hard to meet their futures. I am certainly prepared to make this my life’s work.
So my values have not changed, and they are not going to. If we use this vision to inform our every action and our every policy, we already have the advantage over the long term. I think we are the only party which starts from a place of coherent values and principles; the others are all merely reacting to the rapidly changing opinion polls.
When we make use of that fact properly, locally as well as nationally, we will slowly begin to re-earn people’s confidence. And we have learned enough not to be complacent with that trust ever again.
