The New York Times's view of Cameron

 
Christopher Caldwell’s interview with David Cameron – long anticipated by those inclined to wait with bated breath for such things (I hold my hands up here) – has been published in the New York Times. It’s long, thorough and makes a good read.

There are two points I’d particularly like to hear your thoughts on. The first is Caldwell’s deft reflection on what Cameron might teach the Republican party:

Cameron’s rise has led some conservative thinkers in the United States, notably the Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks, to suggest that Republicans follow his lead.

Speaking to Charlie Rose in April, Brooks described Cameronism as the “natural alternative” to the “technocratic” politics of Barack Obama and summed up Cameron’s philosophy this way:

“You’re going to champion the technocrats in government; I’m going to champion every other institution in society, whether it’s family, career associations, the church — every other association you can think of.”

A pragmatic kind of communitarianism runs through a lot of Cameron’s policies. His advisers, particularly the party’s shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, argue in defense of local institutions, from schools with competitive enrollments to small post offices, whose contributions to community cohesion don’t appear on the bottom line and are often invisible to orthodox Thatcherites.

The second – presented as rather more of a fait accompli by Caldwell – seems more contentious (though I’m not inclined to say he’s wrong):

The gap between rich and poor is wider in Britain than it is in most advanced economies. The politics of class, however, are more complicated than they used to be.

Political consultants, when they describe the electorate, often use a classification system devised by British sociologists. ABs are managers and professionals, who were once reliable Tory voters; Cs are various laborers.

But ABs broke for Labour in recent elections, and C2s (skilled laborers) were a bulwark of Thatcherism, playing a role in Tory coalitions analogous to that of “Reagan Democrats” in Republican ones.

As elites have become more meritocratic, the Tory Party is no longer their natural home. A result is that having a toff as leader now worries the Tories less.

Maybe Cameron’s popularity means that the public is falling back into what the historian R. H. Tawney called “that habit of mean subservience to wealth and social position, . . . which is still the characteristic and odious vice of Englishmen.”

But maybe a shared consumerism is making people think about class less in terms of power than of lifestyle. Consider Johnnie Boden, a graduate of both Eton and Oxford, whose catalog business sells an image of casual refinement to Middle England and Middle America.

'Toffs' - a redundant, relic of a moniker that's ready for scrappage, or still a real sore point in our society and politics? Lend me your thoughts.