However, there are many occasions when Conservative PMs have shown that concern for the worst off drives policy. The repeal of the Corn Laws (tariffs on the importing of foodstuffs) was pushed through by Robert Peel in the teeth of vicious Conservative opposition. This was pushed through to lower food prices for the poorest in society.

Even in the 1950s the Conservative Party would promote that they built more council houses than the Labour Party.

At its heart, the Conservative Party is pragmatic, empirical and cautious. Thatcher made the party more radical and taught it that the Conservatives can be drivers of change. In Australia, the Liberal Party lacks the deep and diverse history and you can see it in the debate that is going on in the party. I have seen people who will say that the Liberals are about small government but ignore most of Menzies policies which were very paternalistic. With party members not knowing the history of Conservatism, and the history of the Liberal Party, you tend to see leaders resembling American Republicans than UK Conservatives.

So how come the Poms get this soft-hearted centrism from their Tories, and we get Abbott?

One explanation might be that the Liberals are fighting their first election from opposition while the Tories have been wandering in the wilderness for more than a decade. In a piece for the New Statesman Vernon Bogdanor notes that oppositions take time to find to the centre:

David Frum, a former speechwriter to George W Bush, once wrote that “when a political party offers the voters ham and eggs and the voters say, ‘No, thanks,’ its first instinct is to say, ‘OK then. How about double ham and double eggs?’” Three successive Conservative leaders – William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard – responded to defeat by seeking to mobilise the Tory “core” vote. They did so by highlighting the “dog-whistle” issues: the so-called “Tebbit trinity” of Europe, immigration and taxes, or what Tim Bale calls “the politics of the 19th tee”.

Another theory is that the Tories built up a damaging reputation as a party that knew what it opposed but not what it stood for. And in their choices about what to oppose, they managed to alienate vast slabs of the electorate including many professionals and managers.

In a 2002 the party’s chairwoman Theresa May warned:

voters will only think of the opposition as an alternative government if the opposition acts as governments should – in a reasonable way, judging issues on their merits and people on their records.

She went on to say that pandering to the party’s core supporters was not a winning strategy:

Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the nasty party.

I know that’s unfair. You know that’s unfair but it’s the people out there we need to convince – and we can only do that by avoiding behaviour and attitudes that play into the hands of our opponents. No more glib moralising, no more hypocritical finger-wagging.

We need to reach out to all areas of our society.

The Tories had a lot to live down. As well as the Thatcher and Major governments, they had the years in opposition. Just as Blair had to prove he was tough on law and order and capable as an economic manager, Cameron needs to prove he can be trusted with the NHS, the welfare state and the environment.

The Tories didn’t lose in 1997 because their voters stayed home while Labour’s went to the polls — they lost a significant share of votes to Labour. Now they need to win them back.

I think the latter may be correct but I’m not sure about compulsory voting pushing parties to the ‘middle ground’. Without getting into semantics defining the ‘middle ground’, it would seem to me that the ‘middle ground’ is determined more by focus groups, opinion surveys, msm, computer models of voter behaviour etc The agendas of political parties tend to reflect the data – politics is not about changing the world, it’s about pragmatism and power. One would expect compulsory voting to confirm the data. I suppose I’m suggesting that compulsory voting is a passive rather than active element in determining the middle ground (whatever that may be!)

A few weeks back on Q&A there was an academic who made some really interesting points about what we now call conservatism as being quite different to the traditional notion. I found his thinking to be quite interesting and valid.

He made the point that one could not really describe the Howard government as “conservative” and it may be more correct to call them radical. If you look at some of the big ticket items, GST, etc, the radical term is apt.

Progressive conservatism does seem strange, perhaps an oxymoron. The central meaning of conservatism is that it is about slow and incremental change.

I will admit that as I get older, the notion of conservatism, being that change should be slow and deliberate, is becoming more attractive. So, I am wondering about the idea of left conservatism. Can I be a leftie, as I am, yet be against radical movement in policy.

I fear that the 24/7 news cycle and the insatiable need for big headlines is part of the issue. A healdine such as “Govt delivers small change to …” is not as powerful as “Govt in radical overhaul …”

I see one problem is the almost co-dependant relationship between the media and govs. Everything has to be a crisis nowadays.

A few boatloads of refugees, almost miniscule in number compared to the global flow, is now a crisis. Even the great GFC, can be seen in another light as not having been a crisis. Global warming is the great moral crisis, and the list goes on.

Look at health. My god!!! It is a crisis. Are we joking. Try that on in a thrid world nation. Tell them all about the wait for elective surgery. Share with them the four hour wait at emergency for a sniffle. No, our health system is amazing. So, why is it called a crisis.

So, everything is a crisis and all gov action needs to be radical.

However, let us consider a place like Australia. Truly, what is so wrong here that could be ever declared a crisis? I propose that there is nothing that needs to be declared a crisis and nothing that requires radical action.

Which leads to Abbott. There is no way he is conservative. He is as radical as they come and I suggest that it could go either way. Fed by the murdoch press, the people may well let him in entirely because he has radical plans to fix every crisis we have.

Yep, I think that we need to challenge the need for anything radical. We need to get back to the basics of left/right. Even the dismissing of these as being relevant only reveals that all sides are now in constant crisis mode and always looking for the radical solution.

I believe that the new meme of crisis and radical action is now the burning issue as it clearly leads to bad policy (think insulation scheme) and sadly it is mostly leading to bad economic policy.

I agree with James’ view above that our system should incline parties to the centre. I think it has largely been that way until Abbott’s ascension. I’m entirely baffled by what the Libs think they’re up to – either they have some very secret polling about a drift to the right amongst mainstream voters (and they’re exploiting it) or they’re setting themselves up for a mighty fall.

Either way, their politics of difference and fear on all things is entirely distasteful. That said, I find much of Labor these days equally distasteful.

Cameron’s words in the video you link above provide something more of a drilled down view to that which he presented at TED this year. Which, unsurprisingly, sounded not a small amount like parts of what was said by Brown at TED Global in Oxford six months before.

The sample size is one, but it’s an interesting comparison.

So how come the Poms get this soft-hearted centrism from their Tories, and we get Abbott? Wouldn’t one predict the opposite on the basis of out voting systems? Compulsory voting should push parties to the middle ground, while voluntary voting should encourage rightwing demagogues who can motivate their footslidiers to come out and vote.