David Willetts, centre-right. Photograph: PA
The Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary is perhaps the only senior Tory who actually seems to get a simple idea: that the massive swing to New Labour in 1997 wasn't just some routine pendulum movement that would inevitably be reversed in the course of time, but a shift away from sink-or-swim individualism back towards politics with a social conscience.
Plenty of other Conservatives have tried to strike a compassionate tone, but it's hard to shake the feeling that they deep down still think those awful poor people are probably in a mess of their own making. Willetts at least seems to have made an ideological journey from shock therapy Thatcherism to Third Way-ish middle ground. (Or maybe that's just what he sounds like when he's talking to the Guardian.)
In any case, Willetts's speech to the Social Market Foundation is surely a leadership bid. The ground he wants to occupy is quintessentially Conservative, in that it sees a lot of government intervention as meddling, but is not hung up on the ideology of small state at the expense of social cohesion.
The real and interesting battleground of politics today is non-state, collective action - everything that stands between the individual and the state. The best of the economic and social liberals understand this and want such a society to flourish. ... But even this won't quite do on its own. We sometimes talk as if government is like the thick snow on an Alpine meadow: as it melts away a thousand flowers bloom just by force of nature. But government disengagement doesn't automatically solve our social problems. ... We talk as if the problem is just the supply of government. But increasingly I believe the real problem has been the demand for government that grows as a consequence of a fractured and fragmented society.
A Conservative party united on that patch of ground would scare the bejesus out of New Labour. And make politics a bit more relevant and interesting.
Tim Hames in the Times today makes a good case for a straight Willetts v Davis Tory leadership match. He also says the winner should appoint the loser as Shadow Chancellor, or something equally important. We agree with the first half, but prefer the idea of a political death match. If Davis wins let the Tories become the political wing of the Daily Mail and be done with it. If Willetts wins jettison the hang 'em, flog 'ems once and for all and let battle be joined with New Labour in the centre.
Regular readers please indulge the Observer blog this excursion onto the right. It's all a bit new this taking Conservatives seriously business. Normal liberal left chatter resumed shortly. Meanwhile, here's a sensible blog that is much more familiar with the terrain.
