"I cannot remember a time in opposition - I am talking about the last four years - when we have done less work on policy and more on slogans. But because of my European views I wasn't allowed to participate"
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A veteran Conservative with a long memory is basically accusing his own side of political malpractice: four years in opposition spent branding, not building. Clarke’s complaint lands because it’s not coming from a starry-eyed technocrat; it’s from a parliamentary lifer who treats policy like the job, not the vibes. The key friction is between “work” and “slogans” - a sharp little pairing that frames modern party politics as a choice between governing competence and marketing discipline.
The context is post-2010s Conservative civil war, where Europe stopped being one issue among many and became the loyalty test that reordered everything else. When Clarke says he “wasn’t allowed to participate,” he’s pointing to an internal purge dressed up as ideological tidiness: expertise and experience are liabilities if they complicate the message. The subtext is brutal: opposition should be the laboratory phase, the moment to stress-test ideas and assemble a credible alternative. Instead, he implies, the party treated it like a focus group.
Clarke’s line also reveals a particular kind of institutional sadness. He’s not only mad that his “European views” got him sidelined; he’s warning that a party that can’t tolerate internal disagreement will inevitably outsource its thinking to the slogan-makers. It’s an indictment of a politics that confuses unity with silence, and electability with emptiness - and a reminder that the cost of purging dissent is usually paid later, in government, when the slogans run out.
The context is post-2010s Conservative civil war, where Europe stopped being one issue among many and became the loyalty test that reordered everything else. When Clarke says he “wasn’t allowed to participate,” he’s pointing to an internal purge dressed up as ideological tidiness: expertise and experience are liabilities if they complicate the message. The subtext is brutal: opposition should be the laboratory phase, the moment to stress-test ideas and assemble a credible alternative. Instead, he implies, the party treated it like a focus group.
Clarke’s line also reveals a particular kind of institutional sadness. He’s not only mad that his “European views” got him sidelined; he’s warning that a party that can’t tolerate internal disagreement will inevitably outsource its thinking to the slogan-makers. It’s an indictment of a politics that confuses unity with silence, and electability with emptiness - and a reminder that the cost of purging dissent is usually paid later, in government, when the slogans run out.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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