My latest Daily Telegraph article is HERE. The main points are...
* This is Gordon Brown's moment. The Tories will be ignored for a few weeks
* This gives Cameron time to reflect and build a strategy to prepare for government
* Oliver Letwin needs to use language that normal people can understand
* When he reshuffles his team in July Cameron needs to combine youth with experience
* He should bring David Trimble, Eric Pickles and Dominic Grieve into his Shadow Cabinet
* Newer names might include Michael Gove, Ed Vaizey, Maria Miller, Nick Herbert, Shailesh Vara, Jeremy Hunt and Julie Kirkbride
* Junior shadow spokespeople should stop briefing journalists about their respective merits
* Any reshuffle needs to demonstrate that the Conservatives are preparing for government.
31 comments:
“the intellectual powerhouse Michael Gove”
Hmm . . .
Thanks Iain, I will not bother buying the DT today. Why do I nearly always agree with your analysis! It's uncanny - apart for your penchant for Meatloaf.
Michael Gove, an intellectual powerhouse...duh! Must live on a different planet there Dale...
Some well thought out policy suggestions would be nice too.
For ten years I have waited to wke up and know that the end of Blair was nigh.
Now that he is going I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from me.
My thoughts on Blair's legacy are as follows, 'Good bloody riddance, now hurry up and sod off abroad and stay there'.
It just, may not, be too late for the rest of us to rescue something from the wreckage of this evil country that Blair has created.
What should Letwin say: "Well...you know...we will do a lot of well good stuff innit. Da hospitals'll get a ton more dosh, and the learning in da schools will be well smooth."
Stuff them, plebs the lot of them. I don't want the vote of anyone not intelligent to understand sophisticated argument. In such a country, Opposition has a certain dignity.
"It just, may not, be too late for the rest of us to rescue something from the wreckage of this evil country that Blair has created."
That being the 'wreckage' that Cameron said we are incredibly fortunate for just yesterday?
So what it it, eh? Cameron lying or Brown doing a good job? Because neither appears to be a good reason for the rest of us to vote Tory.
We need another failed RSC applicant (Dave) like we need a second.............
Wouldn't it have been nice if Dave had made that Letwin speech?
Gove is wonderful and talks the language of the Dog and Duck.He looks brilliant on TV and should be given much more exposure.With Gove in his team how can Dave fail?
Agree...the Party must now get serious...lets see some policies soon & speak publicly in language we all understand...Blairism is dead.!
Michael Gove on being asked whether he thinks it is acceptable for David Cameron to have so many Old Etonians on his front bench:
"Well all that tells me is that their parents thought enough of their children to want to invest in their education. End of story as far as I'm concerned."
What a prat!
Cold hard policies are not required now - they will be dated by 2009/10.
DC and his team need to set out their priorities and their philosophy. When it comes down to it we don't all read the manifestos and vote for the party which ticks the most boxes, we vote for the party we think will react to "events" in the best way.
I can understand why you would consider Grive a shoo in for the Ministry of Justice. I think it is highly unlikely he will get it though. He is hardcore Davis man, probably one of the reasons you see him as suitable non?
Cameron is not going to be bolstering Davis's position more than he needs to.
It is also worth noting that Grieve has no experience in any of the MoJ areas despite working with both the Home Office and Constitutional shadow ministers. Prima facie he may look suitable, even if not likely to get it, but would struggle on some of the more intricate areas. I fear this may make it too easy for whoever GB puts in place.
I would leave him as the shadow attorney general. He has done well in this role and someone with his experience will be necessary to defend against any ill considered attempts to reform the role.
In my view the MoJ needs someone with strong experience - especially as it is widely expected that tearing up the constitution will be a main plank of Brown's distancing attempt. I would stick with Heald who certainly knows his stuff and who I know has impressed the experts in the areas he deals with. He has done very well so far in what is a fairly low public interest area. If Garnier, who is very highly respected and also knows his prison issues backwards, were added in support then this would be a formidable team.
I am just blinking and rubbing my eyes with astonishment, having read this statement in a Telegraph editorial:
Yet despite it all, while a small, vocal minority loathe him for Iraq, most people remain rather fond of our departing Prime Minister. He arouses no great passions, for or against.
What the hell is happening at the Telegraph these days?
Yes Oiky Gove deserves a clip round the ear for that gove schnove. The point about Oliver Letwin is a good one .'He should use English ' is the way I would put it . For someone whose job is the judgement of language this was beyond laughable.
“ It seeks to identify externalities( social and environmental responsibilities ) , that participants in the free market are likely to neglect , and then seeks to establish frameworks that will lead people and organisations to internalise those externalities “
On a related theme of freedom and responsibility , if you decode , WH Auden wrote
'We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come naturally to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbour because our “natural” attitude toward the “other” is one of either indifference or hostility.
( Thanks HG)
I know what Letwin means but the language is the message it says “ I am struggling with an idea I barely understand myself “
Your recommendation of Dominic Grieve is a good one. (I'm always impressed by Edward Garnier as well.) Is either of them an OE?
Michael Gove seems fairly 'sound' but comes across as a dreadful stuffed shirt on TV.
I'm afraid Julie K could be characterised as "nice but dim". However, she is female - which may be a sufficient qualification these days.
Ollie Letwin thinks some clever stuff but, as you suggest, it's not suitable for undigested public consumption! Hope he keeps on with the thinking though.
(1) Don't you think coming up with new policies should have come before rebranding? After all, how can one sensibly do the second without knowing the first? But then Windwill Dave is/was a PR man...
(2) Of course none of your suggested names will make it into the Shadow Cabinet as none went to Eton and the token non-Etonian places are already filled...
----
I've said it before: Cameron is the wrong choice for the next GE:
In France on Sunday seriousness (Sarosky) decisevly defeated niceness (Royal). So it will be here. The British electorate are fed up to their back teeth with a 'nice' leader (Cameron); they have seen wgere it leads, and seriousness (Brown) will win hands down when the day comes.
[2br02b]
P.S. (anonymous 9:40) - you might well ask "what the hell is happening at the Telegraph these days". I believe they're suggesting today that a transition to Brown will mark a welcome end to the era of spin!!
I take your point, Iain, but I'm not sure you're right. When John Major became Prime Minister, the Tories rose in the polls largely because Labour let themselves become invisible and allowed the Tory message to get through unchallenged. Given that it looks increasingly likely that there will not be a serious election for Labour leadership (and perhaps no election at all), David Cameron should run a parallel campaign drawing attention to the many Labour weaknesses.
Anon:9.40-Have you seen a picture of the editor?
I agree,why didn't Dave deliver the Letwin speech-was it not supposed to be a definition of Daveism?
Iain - I actually read your article in the Telegraph (online) earlier. As a Telegraph contributor and a leading political blogger, I would like to invite you to be a fellow judge of my Blair haiku competition - and of course any of your readers to enter the competition too! Please blog about it if you will...and let me know if you will cast an eye over entries. (I am suggesting you, Guido and Ceri Radford as judges)
Over on ConsHome Houston suggests that there's an elephant in the room.I regret that elephant is a herd and he would be a very silly Dave indeed to spook them.
He points out that Dave has had it tough-he had to fight two elections to get in you know!
Letwin is a Moral Philosopher and it shows. However I think he is wrong when he he says it "all goes back to Marx". Clearly, it all goes back to 'liberté, égalité, fraternité'. Marxism is a religion not a political theory. 'The Wealth of Nations' propounded a theory. A theory requires evidence to support it, a religion does not and of course with every attempt at practicing 'liberté, égalité, fraternité', a Robespierre emerges which is one, but not the only reason it is unworkable.
As to Gove and his Old Etonians, his problem was that the correct answer is so obvious that it was difficult to think of a plausible alternative. "Since the abolition of Grammer Schools, an enormous amount of talent has been lost to this country, and most intelligent people who were not privately educated are pathologically chippy and run off and join the Labour Party."
Although I never voted for him to be the Leader, I actually think that one of the more heavyweight positions in the Shadow Cabinet - should go to Kenneth Clarke, he still carries and would give lot of gravitas, he has a sharp political brain too. This would, I feel show that David Cameron has the depth that people (as yet) do not give him credit for (I do btw).
Hague should remain where he is, people who moan about after dinner speaches should 'nob off' (says my old man)
Julie Kirkbride is another good pick says the old man...
I don't mind Gove but I hope he doesn't get too big a post as yet.
Grieve and Garnier? WOW!
Anyway that is enough from a disgruntled Conservative Eastbourne granny!
jo
Clarke is still 100% for the Euro and would help Con friends to stay in the EPP.An inspired suggestion.
"Intellectual powerhouse". Thanks for a good belly laugh, Iain. Meanwhile Anon says "Gove is wonderful and talks the language of the Dog and Duck.He looks brilliant on TV".
Nope. He's a lightweight who talks in quacking superficialities and looks like Mr Bean, or maybe Ross Clark. This won't matter, of course, because he's wangled his way into the Notting Hill glitterati, so his illustrious future is already safely in the bank. There'll just be that nagging little question mark hanging over him - not an OE. Not quite "one of us".
Dominic Grieve - Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford.
Edward Garnier - Wellington College and Jesus College, Oxford.
Not a whiff of an Etonian about either of them, but perfectly respectable schools so we'll let them off. Admittedly Wellington has its fair share of the intellectually challenged but, hell, who can argue against comprehensive schools, and Garnier anyone has proved he has a perfectly good brain despite mixing with all those Army types.
An Anon this morning said that "the token non-Etonian places are already filled..." - those token places being everyone except the three there are (+ Cameron himself) you mean? Some token.
Stuffed Shirt-You must realise that what the Country needs is some good old fashioned Etonian/Bullingdon leadership-the northeners will love it and will vote in tens of thousands to get Dave into No 10.
"Too-clever-by-half" Gove, more like.
Instead of giving Brown 6 weeks free propaganda in the run up to his Coronation, courtesy of the Labour Broadcasting Corporation, would it not be better for "Dave" to be ambushing Scots Gordon with something every week and keep him on the back foot, and actually earning the salary accorded to him as "Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" so that when the Scots Emperor arrives at his throne he has no clothes on?
The idea that "Dave" should simply leave the field for a period of extended reflection is ludicrous. He has had loads of time for reflection and should now be getting on with the business of harrying Labour.
The problem is that "Dave" and his friends are far too chummy with and politically close to the Reds and so attack dog mode is out. After all, attacking Labour is tantamount to attacking "Tory" policy these days, so we should expect a prolonged period of wetness.
Getting round all of Hilton's publicity stunts is an energy sapping exercise and the sordid business of attacking Labour can be left to the lower orders.
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