Ex-Tory Staffer: 'David Cameron's liberal lie'

Ashish Prashar has worked for the last two and a half years in and around the Conservative Party. He's spent the last 11 months within the press office, serving as a spokesman for the Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, Shadow Leader of the House and the Conservative Head of Policy.

Ashish has written an article in the New Statesman saying that he spent those two and a half years believing in Cameron's "liberal Conservativism", but that he now realises that this is a "lie" and the Conservative party remains basically "white, rich and elitist".

When I started working for the Tories I was convinced that because they had no idealistic anchor they could adapt, becoming what they needed to be to suit the age. So when Cameron claimed he is a ‘Liberal Conservative’, like many others I fell for it, and I was so wrong.

I’m sceptical of the idea that you can be both socially liberal and politically conservative. With the economy facing recession, a Tory government will have to rely more on its politically conservative instincts at the expense of any liberal agenda.

The Tories talk about social mobility and opportunity for all. This is hard to believe when the party itself hasn’t changed at the core.

Firstly, the Conservative parliamentary party is unrepresentative of modern Britain. In the two and a half years that I worked in and around Conservative Party Campaign Headquarters, I encountered only a handful of staff from black minority ethnic backgrounds.
Cameron’s top table is even more elitist, looking like something out of a 1960s American boardroom, pre-civil rights movement.

As for Cameron’s credentials as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, it was he who authored the Conservative manifesto at the last election, with its dubious undertones of “are you thinking what we’re thinking?” on immigration.