We can only make more progress if we are honest about the scale of the problem we still face. At no point in the past eight years of opposition has the party recognised the deep problems it faces and resolved to do something about them. We cannot delay any longer. To win the next election we need to increase our share of the vote by one third and the number of our MPs by more than a half. And seeing a failing Labour government with its vote down to 36%, it is impossible to avoid the thought, that had the Conservative Party not spent the last eight years down a cul de sac, we might be once more serving our country in government this weekend.
We were afraid that any argument about the future direction of Conservatism would make us appear disunited. We must now confront these questions in a spirit of mutual respect. No one individual has all the answers but, as a team, we can crack it.
Conservatives have become the victims of a kind of cosmic joke played on us by history. Twenty-five years ago we were telling hapless businessmen and stubborn trades unionists that they had to adapt or die. There was no place for tired old products and outdated working practices in a tough competitive market. We all heard it (and I used to say it) a thousand times. Now our businesses, our trades unions, and many other institutions besides, have indeed changed. But the Conservative Party does not appear to understand the Britain which it, above all, has brought into being. We have gone from one of the architects of modern Britain - forward looking, individualistic, meritocratic - to being seen as a party that inhabits a different country from most of our fellow citizens. We need to look at ourselves as others see us. Successful renewal of the party after the massive defeats of 1906 and 1945 involved much bigger changes in the party's organisation and policy than we have delivered since 1997.
There is no brilliant slogan, no verbal magic which will suddenly enable us with one bound to be free. Instead we need to think rigorously about exactly what Conservatism means in contemporary Britain. The challenge is the same as the one which Disraeli set one hundred and fifty years ago: to clarify "the real character and nature of Toryism", and to shed those qualities which had "become in time obsolete, inconvenient, and by the dextrous misrepresentation of our opponents, even odious".
There are some lazy reactions to defeat which, however tempting, we must avoid. We mustn't just wait for Labour to fail. Labour fought this election believing above all that their economic record was an asset: in time it could well become a liability. Gordon Brown is going to face the moment of truth when he either has to put up taxes yet again or cut the growth of public spending or both. But Labour's failure will not automatically bring us success unless our critique of them offers what must be the real alternative.
Our starting point should simply be this. All Labour are interested in is the short term. All they live for is headlines. The conspicuous failure of this campaign has been the way big problems such as local government finance, or the pensions crisis or nuclear power have been kicked into the long grass. All they could offer was the ultimate cop out of the politician who doesn't know what to do - a review. We should be the party that identifies the big challenges the country faces and shows how to tackle them.
Our economic performance has been falling behind everyone apart from sclerotic Euroland. We need to do far more to create a modern flexible market economy. Low taxation is part of this. But we have become too pre-occupied with tax as distinct from everything else that raises our game. Britain is going to need massive investment over the next decade, especially in areas like energy and transport. How are those to be financed and regulated? Can the next generation look forward to home ownership or is it soon to be a privilege reserved for the old or the rich? Congestion in transport, the environment and beyond is going to be at the heart of the economic policy debate in the future. So far, it is not the main political parties but an independent socialist mayor who has made the boldest single attempt to tackle the issue.
We should be a party of the long term. In an age of quick fix policies and politics, we should emphasise the issues that will shape this country for the next 20 to 30 years - sustainable environment, affordable home ownership and independent retirement. We Conservatives are supposed to understand the principles of freedom and choice, but we have been surprisingly wary of applying them across many areas of the economy apart from our eternal battle on tax.
But this is only half the story. We mustn't fall prey to the libertarian fantasy that all a government has to do is get if out of the way and suddenly life's problems are solved. All too often we Conservatives have seemed preoccupied with cutting back the supply of government. I believe we need to think about this very differently and recognise that the real issue is the demand for government. A country with too many broken lives and fragmented families is going to depend on public services more. As well as a strong economy, we need a strong society. How do we disentangle the catastrophic mixture of poor social housing, rigid school catchment areas and long term welfare dependency which disfigure Britain? The compassionate part of our Conservatism goes back deep into our history and must be renewed. We sometimes talk as if all that matters is the individual and his or her freedoms but Conservatives have always valued the ties that bind us. That's why we've never settled for the conventional bureaucratic welfare state. It's why we understand the ties of family, neighbourhood and nation. I don't want to live in a country where there is individuals and government but nothing in between. We can renew Conservatism by showing that we understand this hunger, not just for a stronger economy but for a better society as well. There must be nothing mean spirited about us.
There is no law which says that families must weaken, crime must increase, and societies must decay. But all too many of our fellow citizens feel that politicians are reconciled to such failure. But imagine a Conservative Party which showed it understood these fears and knew what could be done to tackle them. It is not nostalgia. All round the world there are successful centre right governments which do precisely that. We can do it too, and then we really will be ready for government.
David Willetts MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions
