Confessions of a liberal Tory voter

The 'nasty party' image has stuck, but if you look at policies rather than personalities, this Conservative party is the most socially liberal we've seen in a generation

Theresa May's image is a big problem for a party which is much more liberal than it seems (Getty)

It hasn’t been a great few months as a Conservative voter. Even before the recent election, enabling the Tories and being a decent person was seen by many as mutually exclusive; like a Sith Lord opening an Ewok sanctuary.

However, socially liberal Conservatives with a conscience are a thing, I’ve met many who woke up in the morning and waited at least thirty minutes before their first diabolical laugh.

I do get jealous sometimes. While Labour’s guy is high-fiving in a political hall of mirrors at a music festival my “leader” is travelling the country receiving all the adulation of rain at an outdoor wedding. Still, the fact she keeps making her way out into situations she’s not wanted gives me some heart in advance of this summer’s Edinburgh festival.

The simplistic idea of the two-party system as “goodies vs baddies” has been around for a while, but this recent demented Tory tailspin has made it harder to fight back.

David Cameron was the first Prime Minister I'd ever heard mention that having a non-white name harms job applications. The current government has commissioned an audit to tackle racial disparities in public services. However, given their current PR ineptitude you're more likely to encounter video footage of Boris Johnson trying to win an argument with judo. The toxic – and potentially reckless – coalition with the DUP only furthers that.

The teacher who doesn’t accept the law on corporal punishment just employed the school bully as a minder. For many, it consigned to history the work the Tories did in actually bringing in gay marriage. Indeed, many of the party’s resurgent “nasty party” problems are an issue of image versus reality.

Rewind to the beginning of the election campaign (I wish I could, I’d manifest on that walk Theresa May took in Wales, become a lamb and run into a wheat field to remind her of the lifetime of shame that ensued the last time she followed her reckless impulses). May’s public support for a free vote on fox hunting was hubris borne of a healthy lead in the polls. It didn’t matter that it had been in the last two Tory manifestos or that it stood almost no chance of succeeding in the Commons, when the public harbours a suspicion that you are strong against the weak don’t provide them with an apt metaphor for what the relentless pursuit of the vulnerable might look like in practice. The only way to make it more vivid would’ve been to dress the fox in a beanie hat.

Then there was the “dementia tax”. Once again the Tories were trying to grasp a tricky nettle, in this case the social care time-bomb. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn would never grasp that nettle, they’d claim it wasn’t even a nettle but a rose in disguise which should be given to a leper.

The clunky communications around it meant a potentially progressive tax played out with all the subtly of telling a day-room full of geriatrics they had to either try Vietnamese food or be shot.

All the more galling was the actual Conservative manifesto having been the most Left-wing in a generation. Remember the whole “Red Tory” thing? What kind of shambles ends up with the press thinking you’re a Labour mole and the public thinking you’re the kind of woman who shouldn’t be trusted around Dalmatians?

Even though the care and support has improved, the initial reaction to the Greenfell tragedy got off to a terrible start, which was underlined by the failure of May to meet the public. I don’t doubt that she was advised not to do so, but, equally, if you’re going to have all the stress of being a minority Prime Minister at one of the most fractious points in recent British history surely the one perk of the job is telling faceless dickheads they’re not the one who’ll be called heartless and to kindly step away.

All of which leaves people like me fire-fighting to defend our political leanings. The Conservatives need to be careful, they’ve already lost the young ones and the old ones. If they completely lose the ones with gay friends they could end up in opposition.

All it would take to catch those voters’ eyes is for Labour to inch towards the centre. Luckily Corbyn shows little signs of doing that. He spoke of reaching out to all wings of the party the day after the general election. So far that’s resulted in a new look front-bench that pans all the way from hard left, to very hard left to “John, this is a mainstream political party not Occupy Number 10”.

So I guess for confused Cameroonians like me this period is similar to that experienced by Labour voters after Iraq, tuition fees and PFIs. I know what I think the party stands for in its best iteration – the Tories have serious talent behind the front bench and when the 2010 intake have their shot the public could see just what a force for good a coherent One Nation Conservative message can be.

But l suspect many Conservatives who have a conscience (or at least like to think they do) will be treading political water right up to the point a five foot lesbian strides into Number 10. That would be one very neat way of washing away the image problems of this deal with the DUP.

Geoff Norcott's new show 'Right-Leaning But Well-Meaning' will be at the Edinburgh Fringe 2-27 August