YOUNG CONSERVATIVES:Next-generation Tories came of age under New Labour and are a diverse bunch – but has the party really changed? asks MARY FITZGERALD
NOT SO long ago mention of the Young Conservatives would inevitably summon images of braying Hooray Henrys mooning at the press or wearing “Hang Mandela” stickers on their lapels. To be young and Tory was to invite comparisons with all the stereotypes embodied in Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy.
But what of today’s young Conservatives? Children of the Thatcher era, they have little or no recollection of the bitter ideological battles of the 1980s, and only a hazy memory of the last Tory government.
Politically, they came of age in New Labour Britain, yet they are drawn to the Tory party in such numbers that their organisation – named Conservative Future (CF) – is now the biggest youth political body in the country.
Founded in 1998 when William Hague fused the Young Conservatives with three graduate and university organisations, CF’s membership has grown to nearly 20,000, many of whom have hit the campaign trail to preach their gospel of Cameronite Conservatism.
Mention of the socially maladroit Tory Boy cliche prompts a smile from Michael Rock, CF’s national chairman and a local campaign manager. “I guess there was an element of truth in that in the 1980s but I think there is less of a stigma attached to being a Conservative now. David Cameron has made a huge difference,” he says.
Fellow CF member Sonia Chohan interjects: “It’s suddenly cool to be Tory.”
Rock laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Rock (31) is an IT project manager from the Midlands. Married and expecting his first child, he describes himself as a “Gladstonian liberal”. Rock’s parents worked in local government and he was the first of his family to go to university. His was an “aspiring class” background, he explains, and a natural fit for the Conservatives.
“I’m from that kind of background where Thatcher helped us out. We were made better off in the 1980s,” he says. “I’m not going to say the Thatcher years were perfect . . . but I think that in 1997 there was more opportunity to improve your lot than there is now.”
Chohan (26) is a lawyer who lives in Bedfordshire. She describes her politics as “centre right” and admits to nurturing political ambitions of her own. “I don’t really remember anything of the Conservative party of the 1980s but I think Margaret Thatcher was a very inspirational woman,” she says. “She opened the way for more women to enter politics.”
The child of parents who migrated to Britain in the 1970s, Chohan believes the Conservative party’s values chime with those she imbibed at home. “My parents came over from India with nothing and they built up everything from scratch,” she says. “The values they instilled in me, such as an emphasis on the family, individual responsibility, and the importance of being self-made, are truly mirrored by the Conservatives.”
Chohan lists crime – “I don’t think we’re being tough enough”– education, and immigration as the issues that most concern her. She says the latter often comes up when she is canvassing “I’ve had people say to me at the doorstep: ‘I don’t mean to be rude to you personally but immigration needs to be toughened up in the country.’ I tell them: ‘I’m right there with you,’” she says. “My Indian background, and the fact my parents came here in the 1970s, doesn’t change my view that we need stricter controls. The quality of life and services in this country is falling.”
Both Rock and Chohan are Cameronite true believers. Rock is proud of the fact that the first vote he ever cast, in 1997, was for Cameron, then a neophyte candidate standing in his home constituency in Staffordshire.
Asked what makes Cameron different to Conservative leaders of the past, they talk of his inclusiveness and energy. “The thing that Cameron has done so well is to be able to engage on topics that we don’t normally talk about. He has managed to break the stereotype,” says Rock. “There is also his positivity – that has had a huge effect.” Rock also believes that the ideological muddying that occurred in British politics during the Blair years has helped Cameron reshape the Tory image.
“Growing up in the 1980s, I remember the strong left/right divide but it’s a completely different world now,” he says.
Chohan argues that younger voters relate more to Cameron than Gordon Brown. “Cameron is young, energetic and dynamic. Contrast that with Brown. People want a fresh face, someone energetic to lead the country. Labour doesn’t provide that anymore,” she says. “Cameron has brought change. People can’t say we are the same old Nasty Party because we are not.”
But claims that the Conservatives have changed have been tested in recent weeks, not least by once prominent members of CF. Anastasia Beaumont-Bott (20), the former head of the Tories gay rights campaign, defected to Labour and accused the Conservatives of an “elaborately executed deception” on gay policy following shadow home secretary Chris Grayling’s assertion that BB owners should be able to turn away gay couples.
“It feels like there is a different message for every audience. I think we should think about what Cameron’s Conservatives stand for . . . A leopard does not change its spots,” Beaumont-Bott said.
Another woman, who once sat on the CF executive, claimed that she was humiliated because of her Mancunian accent, ridiculed for having attended a state school and bullied for working in the public sector.
Both Rock and Chohan are coy when asked to predict what kind of government Britain will wake up to on May 7th, though Chohan ventures that she feels “quietly confident”.
There was a time when being young and Conservative sounded like a contradiction in terms. Neither wants to contemplate the same being said about Conservative and future.