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You can get measure of how far the Conservative Party has fallen in recent years by the way that in the Good Old Days it was a substantial and complex issue such as Europe. This was of course much more complex before the issue became rather more simple in the 2010s as the Eurozone started to fall apart. The big fuss among the Tories appears to be not over Plan A, B,C on reviving the economy, unemployment or taxes, but a third runway at Heathrow where if you are out of the noise contamination zone you almost certainly don’t care either way.
Enter Zac Goldsmith, taking up the environmentalist mantle from his tycoon father Sir James who died the same year as Princess Diana in 1997. So far the generational transition here has been rather more appealing than Prince Harry, who admittedly has inherited his mother’s ability to raise an eyebrow.
Goldsmith’s threat to quit his seat and force a By Election is great politics in kicking an already weak, spineless and largely clueless Government when it is down, as well as being against the grain for a posh Conservatives to be on the side of not destroying the environment. It could also be that the young Goldsmith heads towards being another “maverick” Tory in the way of the deceptively batty/scatty Mayor of London. Boris Johnson is someone who breaks the mould in defining a real Third Way, at least in terms of appearing to hold the party line at arm’s length. This is not the Third Way spinning rhetoric of Tony Blair, but pushing us into politics which is defined by individual issues more than merely Left and right.
Given the way that the tax and spend, spend, spend economics of the big three main parties leave us little to choose between them it would be appropriate if one hit wonders such as Heathrow and the fate of the Green Belt start to become matters which are the only thing which really galvanizes the hustings.
In fact, it may have been better for Goldsmith to intervene over the Green Belt, where “planning reforms” effectively risk this along with the playing fields sales, becoming family silver offload in the way that the Privatisations were in the 1980s. There are doubtless many who would swap having another runway or even a couple more for a hands off approach to the Green Belt. The fact that Chancellor Osborne apparently has so much spare time on his hands that he can act as Environment Secretary as well – in the form of serving up planning law reforms seems to be the the most worrying part of the saga.
