Cantirino on the Blond/Cameron Split

Blond v. Cameron; Or: How Do You Turn Localism Into a Governing Agenda? by Matthew Cantirino

But I also wonder what, if anything, this says about the ability of this kind of deep traditionalism to impact politics at the national level (and vice versa). “Red Toryism” and the “Big Society,” broke new (or, more accurately, long-untilled) ground when they first emerged. They offered a genuinely interesting way of articulating conservative principles that looked set to finally push the conversation past the now-several decades old tropes of regulation v. the invisible hand and individualism v. collectivism. More than that, the reclamation of communal language and localist emphases allowed a party not often identified with compassion the public mind to speak authentically and convincingly about its concern for the poor without sounding like it had simply flip-flopped or paid for an image-improvement campaign. While some dismissed the rise of the Red Tories as little more than convenient rhetorical facade to cover for planned austerity, or as wholly insincere, in truth they represented an authentic attempt to rethink what had become regnant political orthodoxy along the lines of older (and still ostensibly functioning) principles–a kind of radical traditionalism, if such a term can make sense.