The Tories' temptation

摘要

If you want some idea of how the Conservative Party wishes to be seen these days, visit the homepage of its official website. Pride of place this week is given to four "news" stories about the recent doings and utterances of the Tory leadership. In one, the party's education spokesman, the thoroughly nice Damian Green, sets out to show that his policies for schools are, above all, aimed at helping "our most vulnerable children". A second tells of how the thoroughly earnest David Willetts, who speaks on work and pensions, spent a night with down and outs. He explained: "Some of our most vulnerable citizens continue their struggles to find shelter for the night, and I wanted to see at first hand the situation they face." The third was a picture story about the thoroughly bald leader of the party, Iain Duncan Smith, playing a five-a-side football match wearing rather tight red football shorts. But not just any old match; one held to raise money for the Refugee Council, a charitable body that helps, among others, asylum-seekers. The fourth was an item about Mr Duncan Smith making a speech in the poor London borough of Hackney during which he proclaimed: "My mission for the Conservative Party is to provide equal opportunity in our schools for all our children, particularly the most vulnerable, wherever they live, however much their parents earn."