Election 2010: a new mini Restoration?

After more than a decade of bossy mismanagement, the nation restores its natural leaders. A weary population has tired of a government that promised a new dawn, but whose vision quickly turned out to be a muddle. It claimed to be liberal, but in practice, it lurched from libertarianism to control-freakery. Its original leader was a shaman of tear-jerking social hope, but his rhetorical flights could not carry the nation for long. His sense of holy mission became an embarrassment. His successor, lacking his charisma, had no chance of propping up this empty ideology. So the nation repented of its flirtation with reforming zeal, and returned, with relief, to its natural rhythm. I am talking about May 1660. Three hundred and fifty years ago this month, the English parliament decided to restore the monarchy and the old established Church , after 11 years of modernist republican experiment. It is a timely anniversary, for every return of Tory rule feels like a mini Restoration. Here, after another spell of utopian dreaming and liberal scheming, come our natural leaders, full of calm realism, suave assurance and excellent manners. 1660 remains our foundational national event. The revolution that preceded it was a failure, and the " glorious " revolution that came after (in 1688) was a sop to reformists: it increased parliament's power, but stabilised the old constitution (with amazing success). 1660 defined us as the anti-revolutionary nation: a self-image that was heightened by the American and French revolutions in the following century. This memory, of order being reasserted against dangerously radical usurpers, still provides the basic plot for our political narrative. It still determines the shape of the national psyche. In a sense, this is now clearer than ever. For the Tory party spent a few decades, from the mid-1970s, trying to complicate the narrative. It chose low-born leaders, and developed its own rhetoric of radical reform. The change was not complete: it was still the party of sober realism rather than mushy idealism, and it hardly broke its links with the pathos of aristocratic order. Thanks to a certain old Etonian, that pathos has now been restored to the centre of Toryism. In fact, thanks to two old Etonians. For Boris Johnson was a crucial first stage in the process. His performance of merrie England cavalier wit has been the most effective bit of political charisma since Tony Blair's. He showed that the old Tory style has life in it; it can be intelligent, contemporary, liberal. And it can gently expose the progressive consensus as chippy, meddling, guilt-hobbled, uncool. As it happens, I visited Eton for the first time earlier this year. I am reluctant to say so (being a chippy, guilt-hobbled liberal, who has doubts about private education despite having benefited from it), but a bit of me was impressed – by the air of calm, intelligent order, of total assurance. Maybe class distinction is part of the natural order of things, one half-feels, amid its scenic quads. The young men, in their aristocratic uniform, were disarmingly polite – humble in their superiority. Then I entered a room in which a small group of them were doing some cleaning, with dusters, while singing. My first thought was that they might be rehearsing for a play. No, they were doing "chores", a form of detention. I heard one of them explain to a teacher why he was there: "Apparently, I was rude to my boys-maid," he said, in a languorous drawl that half-dared to dispute the charge. And the spell was broken. "Boys-maid" shouldn't be part of the lingo of a school. Boys shouldn't have servants. Or rather, there's something wrong with our culture if this odd school retains any real influence. Why do we still allow an ideal of aristocratic order to impress us? Why has our liberal tradition failed to kick such a style into final irrelevance? Why is the English mind still so determined by the anti-reformist spirit of 1660? • More Guardian election comment from Cif at the polls