Bruce Anderson: The Tory Party must placate its own angry brigade

It is very strange. The Government has lost all momentum: political, intellectual, moral. Around Westminster, a lot of Labour supporters fear that it will be impossible to recover, even under a new Prime Minister. A few of them are already contemplating opposition.

This explains a covert aspect to the debate as to whether David Miliband should challenge Gordon Brown. Some of Mr Miliband's friends cannot see the point of a premature contest. The campaign would be bad-tempered and divisive. The Brownites' blows would leave scars on the youngster's bright paint work and the Brownites themselves would bear an enduring grudge; they are good at that.

All this assumes that David Miliband would lose. Were he to win, it would be much worse for his long-term prospects. He would have to lead a fractured party, while a clunking fistful of daggers was permanently aimed between his shoulder blades. Better for Labour's young David to let Goliath have his turn, and not move in with the slingshot until after the election defeat.

The Government has lost contact with events. The PM has lost contact with reality. Senior New Labourites are oscillating between despair and conspiracy. What a mess. There is only one problem. The voters do not seem to have noticed. The recent polls all put Labour at around 32 per cent. By historic standards, that is hardly bird flu. By historic standards, it is the Tories who should be sending for the vet. Their 37 per cent is strong grounds for anxiety. In similar circumstances 20 years ago, an Opposition would have expected to be 20 points ahead. So there are two mysteries. Why is Tony Blair doing so well and why is David Cameron not doing better?

Mr Cameron's difficulties are easier to explain than Mr Blair's successes. The Tory leader has a problem with a lot of his own supporters. He is too grown-up for them. David Cameron is a post-fantasy Tory.

Most political activists have a locked room in their brain, in which they download fantasies. They sometimes share these with other perverts. There are Labour supporters who still fantasise that this government will eventually turn socialist. But 12 years of Blairite repression did close most of the Labour chat-rooms. The Tory Party has still to learn the same discipline.

So a lot of Tories - including a fair few MPs - fantasise away. In their dreams, Britain is no longer in the EU. The coloured population of these islands is less than a tenth of its present total. Instead of being allowed into government, the leaders of the IRA were shot. Every town has a grammar school: every schoolmaster a cane. The death penalty has been restored and crime is under firm control. The state is only spending a quarter of the nation's income. Margaret Thatcher is still Prime Minister.

If you were to make a speech advocating all that to 100 Tory activists, 10 would disagree. Thirty would cheer. Another 30 would agree but keep quiet. They want to be councillors and there might be a spy reporting to Central Office. The final 30 would also have agreed, after one more drink. But Mr Cameron would be firmly among the 10.

He is convinced that government has no place for fantasists. Despite being an anti-federalist and a Eurosceptic, he knows that we have to co-operate with the EU, just as Mrs Thatcher did. He also knows that it is expensive to run a modern state, just as Mrs Thatcher found. Again like Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron believes that grammar schools could not meet the educational needs of the great majority of children.

There is one difference between David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher. Even while she was in Downing St, she paid regular visits to those fantasy chat rooms. This explains why her colleagues often found her so impossible. She was regularly in the grip of divine discontent - because neither they nor she could turn fantasy into reality.

In practice, and however much blood she spilt, she would acquiesce in reality. But simple-minded Tories often overlook this. They are still in search of a leader to sweep away the constraints and sweep the party back to power. Mr Cameron refuses to pander to this self-indulgence. Hence the mutterings in many Tory constituencies.

David Cameron is not only dealing with fantasists. The Tory Party has its own angry brigade, and there is a problem. Those around Mr Cameron are 30- to 40-somethings. Even if they were not all at Eton, they are all well-educated. In one respect, they have a lot in common with the contemporary middle class. They work long hours, so they lead disciplined lives. But there is a crucial difference. The Cameroons enjoy their work and their lives. That tends to cut them off from a lot of middle-class Tory supporters, who do not and who resent those who do. Such Tories often feel that people who enjoy life cannot understand them.

So David Cameron has to find a way to placate the angry brigade. This will not be easy, and the scale of the problem is underestimated around Westminster. Much of the left-wing commentariat is now reconciled to a Cameron government, partly because it believes that New Labour can no longer rise to the intellectual challenge of public service reform.

There are powerful reasons for believing that those former left-wingers are right. But before Mr Cameron can meet their expectations, he has to be elected. In order to do that, he has to win the votes of many Tories with different priorities. In terms of his own party, he still has to find his big tent, which can somehow include Norman Tebbit and the ghost of Willie Whitelaw.

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