Today’s ICM poll will not make easy reading in CCHQ; but then there isn’t much that has made easy reading for CCHQ recently. Conducted in the middle of the Northern Rock crisis the poll doesn’t simply show Brown ahead of Cameron but shows him trouncing Cameron; worse still it shows Cameron to be less popular than the bumbling Ming (and lets be honest that’s not easy). That said it’ll be great to see what the CCHQ spin is on it: “um, well, uh, it… it looks bad, but basically… um… flying on planes is immoral and people should be taxed more for… oh wait, that’s what got us here in the first place… um… aha, yes that’s it... we expected this dip… it’s completely normal and…”
It’s difficult to say what’s the most significant thing to come out of this poll (and let’s remember it is only one poll, at the moment). However one thing certain to be at the top of the list is Labour finally hitting the 40% mark after sitting at 39% for a while; 40% being the symbolic mark Cameron has chased for the past two years. What makes it worse of course, as today’s Guardian points out, is that the Conservatives have fallen to 32% which places them in the biggest deficit in an ICM poll since Cameron took over in 2005.
The big thing for CCHQ though has to be Cameron’s approval rating (or lack of) with Conservative voters. Lower than both Brown’s and Ming’s with their respective voters; Brown is three times as popular with Labour voters than Cameron is with Conservatives and, most worryingly, Ming is twice as popular with LibDem voters. Languishing on +25 now is a time for Team Cameron to take a moment and re-evaluate.
The reality is that Cameron is in this position because [cue anger from the win-at-any-cost-brigade in the comments] he appears to many in the Conservative base to have abandoned them. And that’s the point. In politics image is perception and perception is reality. Accordingly if the image you portray is one of tax hikes (regardless of whether they are in aid of a better environment – which is disputable), if your policy review mechanisms are able to propose things that anger you base, if you constantly chase floating voters to the exclusion of those who form the rock upon which your political church is built, guess what? Things don’t go so well.
If Cameron wants to turn things around he faces an uphill struggle. Firstly he needs to prevent Brown from going to the polls for as long as possible (not easy when even Northern Rock appears to have strengthened Brown’s position – something I argued yesterday). Secondly he needs to reconnect with the base without losing the floating voters. The reality is that the environment is not the issue that’s going to achieve that; aside from anything else it rates rather low on the list of issues people would vote on (6th according to the ICM poll). But Cameron can win big on issues like crime and social disintegration.
When for example Cameron talks about social breakdown he talks like a conservative; rolling back the state, empowering the individual, allowing communities the freedom to support themselves. But most importantly he talks about those things with compassion – in a way that connects with the wider electorate – without angering the base.
As I’ve said already, I have yet to make up my mind about Cameron (which after two years in the job is incredible), but equally I haven’t turned against him. I’m just waiting to be convinced, and the base is the same. The base isn’t going to run into the arms of Ming, and they’re certainly not going to run into the arms of Brown. But they may simply stay home. Cameron just needs to give them a reason to open the front door and walk to the polling station – and the thing is he can.
But he needs to adjust his strategy quickly.
45 comments:
Iain, where are you? We need your thoughts!!!
Oh, I'm convinced - as a member of what should be Cameron's core vote, I'm deeply uncomfortable with what he and his chums are producing. I completely understand he's not talking to me, why should he, it's not like I'm going to vote swivel-eyed UKIP loon, but it'd be nice if there was any resonance with any of the ideas which I hold dear - lower taxes, smaller state, that kind of thing.
...and don't even get me started on smug little millionaire Zac telling me to dig deeper in my pocket as that'll save the planet.
Will someone, please, for the love of all that's holy, give me a political party I can bring myself to vote for?
Cameroon is missing an open goal.
The Northern Rock debacle was caused by the fact that the Central Bank and the Bank Regulator (the FSA) were split 10 years ago, and the organisations are now jealous of each other's powers.
Who split the 2 functions of the old Bank of England in 1997?
Dear prudence himself - it was his first act in power. He split them despite warnings that in the time of Banking distress, the function of cutting the discount window in response to a bank or banks distress has to be done in house because that way it can be timely and kept quite and therefore done without panic.
Brown ignored this advice.
Brown's actions caused The Run.
This is an open goal. What's the Torry leader talking about?
- parking taxes in out of town Tescos.
Its enough to make you weep.
"Shows" and "makes" don't have apostrophes in them :)
I have to agree Shane. But if David does change tack back onto the correct course, the squabbling must end and he must get our full support.
Shane, good analysis. I have realised since the Gummer-Goldsmith fiasco, that is, Cameron's ever allowing it to exist, never mind endorsing it afterwards, that I need not worry about Conservative policies and how they might impact me, because they will never get into a position to implement them.
My strategy now is to minimise the impact of another 4 - 5 years of the Brown terror.
ALan Douglas
I'm a believer in tradition Conservative values but I can accept that Cameron has to make his pitch towards the centre. What I can't accept is a complete U-turn on various policies guaranteed to incense his core support. I don't want to hear the Shadow Chancellor committing to Labour's spending plans for three years after an election victory. Since a typical term is only four years there would seem little point electing a Conservative government at all on that basis. I want to hear him promise to consign them to the dustbin of history on day one, shortly followed by an overall reduction of the taxation burden we are suffering to pay for it all.
Matt
The media is at the moment giving Brown the easiest of rides while hammering most of what Cameron does. They are looking for material to fill their 'Cameron in trouble' stories and you go and give them it.
Just when are the party going to wake up and get rid of Cameron. He was taken on to fight Blair, he has gone and so should Cameron. He is just to far left and green.It looks like even Mrs T prefers Brown.
That's a long post, Shane. Hope you checked it with Iain first!
As it happens, the ICM poll shows changes in each party's positions which are well within the margin of error, and therefore any "change" is, in the context of a single poll, irrelevant.
Before wasting so much time on writing such a lot of guff, you ought to do your homework...
In the John Redwood week, things were going very well. Brown's lead was being squeezed, despite the BBC's best efforts to make him appear as Vulcan-like with a serious lurch problem.
Then came Ancram, Mercer, Bercow and a bunch of useful idiots at play, coupled with Goldsmith/Gummer offering to bring the economy to a grinding halt.
If we just stuck to the common sense and experience of Redwood coupled with Osborne's energy, the polls would steady up, but trying to bring policy reviews out in rapid sequence, without good PR assessment first is asking for trouble.
cameron should rein in a few of his policy review teams, stop trying to be trendy and cool to match Blair in 2001, and see that people want the economy to survive number one, crime under control number 2, with immigration in check number 3.
That said, ICM have been a bit dodgy of late with their likelihood to vote sums, even going so far as to distort a Cameron popularity poll assessment, for which they were forced into an apology.
If cameron wants another common sense operator like Redwood with an interest in broader social issues, he should buzz John Hayes.
Of course he might prefer to go into an election threatening to make foreign holidays prohibitively expensive instead. We would lose the election, and him the leadership - deservedly if he does.
Brown has lost his auto-lead in Scotland where he is digging a bigger and bigger hole as each week passes, being on barely speaking terms with Alex Salmond. In the SE, the rate of interest rates has bitten deep, and many are tired of council tax bills out of control. Conservative support is drifting back.
Brown is piling up useless votes in the North in seats he will already win. If cameron just uses the right stuff at his disposal, he could well win any election that Brown may choose to call.
Can cameron run the right strategy? It's really very simple. He should just follow what works and it's all there just waiting for him. easy peasy.
The core is insufficient Shane, deeply insufficient, lots of Tory leaders have now shown that to be the case. Relying on the core just isn't good enough. Which is fantastic news fore the rest of us.
Dave-id is so unpopular - according that is to a Top Tory Boy Blogger's monkey - that he cannot even guarantee the core will be bothered to go and vote. Cameron is a disaster for you lot but like the Libs and Ming you're stuck with him until he loses an election.
June 09 I reckon that'll be. In the meantime things can only get worse as Dave-id so transparently wishes he was somewhere else.
PS Nick Clegg is sounding like more of a Tory than Dave-id ... all about freedom ...
Well, Cameron's courting the Lib-Dem voters seems to have been yet one more failure of judgement. Ha ha ha ha. Perhaps Cameron should have been true to the Conservative mission and preached its worth, to convert the Lib Dems instead of pretending to be one. To come in below Campbell is truly disgraceful. This is what happens when you listen to a little circle smart-arse "advisors" instead of going with your instincts. Do you think Ronald Reagan had a bunch of young Yalies round him when he won his two terms? No. He spoke from the heart and his words went straight into the hearts of the American voters.
Cameron's lack of judgement is appalling in a would-be prime minister and I for one would be fearful if he ever won the office (which he won't). God only knows what he would take it into his head to do in the cause of popularity.
UKIP and the BNP are going to be huge beneficiaries of his smug-faced failure. I am voting UKIP, as are hundreds of thousands of previously loyal Conservative voters. At least they stand for something I agree with.
Somebody in the Conservative party voted Cameron to be in charge,I don't like him or his policies or the non active idiots he has as his cabinet,but he is all we have at the moment, so for crying out loud back the guy up and don't call him in public,unless of course you want another 5years of Stalinist Brown.
Cameron thinks (or his itzy-ditzy clique thinks) that the average person gives a monkey crap about the environment, other than clucking about it occasionally. It doesn't loom large in anyone's life except committed Greens. Making the environment a central pillar of policy, to the point of promising to raise taxes to stop the sun from changing the climate of the universe, is lunacy. Pun intended. Moon bat.
(Just as a point of interest, I read that the temperatures are also going up in tiny increments on Mars.)
anon 3.28 Oh grown up. Blair promised no tax rises, clean and honest government, education education education. What you promise scarcely matters any more. I do not like the jejune insinuation that Cameron must return only to the core values expressed slightly differently.. Don’t say single mums are on the list say you want to support the family although this is part of it .
A more important part is the change that the Party has to go through just as the Labour Party did , if not as painful. It must accept in its soul that the market is not coextensive with Conservatism , that immigration is and an unalloyed bad and that the Public Sector is not perfect but still vastly better than the market would provide for a large range of needs. It must forget this pathetic dream that any UK politician is ever going to stand up and say
1 I want to bring back Secondary Moderns
2 I wasn’t to dismantle the NHS
3 I want to abandon the goal of a fair and humane society for the sake of Libertarian doctrine
Those who are unable to accept this must accept that they will be permanently disenfranchised until a new apocalypse hits our shores . The way David Cameron is going is the Poseidon adventure way . It is not easy but it is the only hope for the future and the only hope for the country and I do not myself mind one bit if he chooses to emphasise the conserving side of Conservatism which many real Party members are more attached to than Blog reading might suggest.
Labour's lead over the Tories on the economy has increased, over the last 10 days, from 34% to 38%.
This is also the invariable range of those who tell pollsters that they are not going to vote, always the single largest group, but discounted for headline purposes.
Over a third of the potential vote. Minimum. So, what are we waiting for? What are YOU waiting for?
Britain needs a pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war party of economically social-democratic, morally and socially conservative British and Commonwealth patriots who really care about the North and South of Scotland; about North, Mid and West Wales; about Northern Ireland; about the North of England; about the Midlands; about the West Country; about East Anglia; and about the less chi-chi parts of London, the South East, Central Scotland, and South Wales.
So let's get on with it!
Basically the Conservatives are now two parties, both of which are unelectable.
If every Conservative voter would read about Disraeli in a decent history book you might end upo with a party that could be electable but would have to wait for all the Thatcherites to die before could be became is.
You cannot make excuses for DC. He has had every chance.
Those "bumbling" glibdems havn't done so badly either, special praise should go to Vince Cable who has pronounced upon the Northern Rock affair with gravitas and insight.
No, Dave's problem is that he looks and sounds like one of those nice chaps who sell Bentleys in Berkeley Square, which is, in my opinion, a long way, imagewise, from national statesman.
But its not just image. If it was just image, he could maybe salvage something from the titanic iceberg he is heading towards.
David Cameron's problem is that he is vaccuous; totally dependent upon speechwriters who have gotten it so badly wrong; nice young Bentley salesmen to a man who have never lived in the real world.
It's a cliche, but people are not stupid, they pick up the vibe if not the substance.
What you Tories need is another leader - somebody who knows what it is like not to have their bums wiped from cradle to grave.
The CP needs to lose most of its safe seats.. and most of its Shadow Cabinet it would appear before they will actually be effective.
Ineffective , impractical and self satisfied .. how do you solve that?
If it was a company you's sack them.
I can't sack them but I have a choice as a voter... and I certainly will not vote for wa bunch of tos... sorry losers ..who make the Labour Party look competent.
If the CP came to power, they are so inefficient, they would make DEFRA's handling of F&M look a success...
I have a copy of an article I wrote in 1993 which should give the green tories something to think about.
Looking back, I can barely believe it.
'About 250 companies worldwide are bidding for the £500m contract to set up tolls on Britain's motorways by 1998, Transport Secretary John MacGregor revealed last week.'
MacGregor wanted a variable rate, continental style system.
Yes. Him again. Remember, the Tories were tipped out fine style in 1997. The standard story is 'time for change and sleaze'.
However, we've all forgotton the green panic of the early 1990s. And the Tories were in the forefront of it. Much good it did them.
I also reported on a proposed 'tag and beacon' charging system for Cambridge at the same time. Actually went to the town and interviewed the minister, Robert Key (?).
I have absolutely no doubt that the Labour rise in the polls is post 'parking charges at the supermarkets'. That affects most people. Nothern Rock affected very few - even if the underlying cause is very worring.
The green shift has to be canned asap. I know that the Cameroons think they have Identified the next big thing, but they haven't. Life if tight for most people and recycling and a more economical car is all you'll get from them.
It's worth remembering that Labour tolling schemes have been devolved out, so Livingstone gets the blame in London and Greater Manchester councils will get the blame in the north. Labour remains untainted.
Dave must awaken at night and scream `Grammer schools, Grammer schools` (mistake made).
They are doing it to you again.
TAX CUTS, NHS, LAW AND ORDER.
It does not matter which subject he chooses to speak on the tory party will stiff him before brown has got out of bed.
Get some spine please before the labour party does us all in. I have a pension, some savings and a young family.
I quite rightly look for leadership and party unity.
WW - Agree. Cameron is vacuous. He is also self-regarding. Not in a preening sense, but he simply doesn't understand that his take on life has little connection to that of most of us.
He seems to genuinely believe that people will admire him for having a wind turbine on his roof, and indeed, champagne socialists will do so. They don't vote Tory. He honestly thought that going to Norway and posing in a parka with a couple of Huskies on an ice floe would provide a moment of enlightenment for people. (Well, it did for me, but not the enlightenment he had in mind.) His silly statements on hoodies - had he ever met one, by the way,in order to gift us with his diagnosis of their problems? - and grafitti (posing against a clean wall holding an obviously newly unwrapped paint brush up) turned people off in the tens of thousands.
They wanted to hear about calling a halt to immigration and swilling illegals out; the communist style indoctrination in the schools, which teach nothing else; the parlous state of the NHS that is so bad people needing treatment actually put off going into hospital for fear of MRSA. All those things and an oft-rehearsed thousand more.
He goes to Norway. He is going to save the planet by telling Tesco's and other supermarkets that they must charge customers for use of their legally owned property; he is going to put extra tax on luxury cars - perhaps thinking that "soak the rich" worked for Labour once ... and he is going to charge extra taxes for people flying off on weekend breaks. Because his inane little brain doesn't understand that the "man made global warming" meme is a giant scam by the multi-squillionaire who brought us the hanging chads in Florida.
"As I’ve said already, I have yet to make up my mind about Cameron (which after two years in the job is incredible), but equally I haven’t turned against him. I’m just waiting to be convinced, and the base is the same."
You know why you cannot say yes to Cameron. He is not convincing and you know that this will not change. He doesn't inspire and he looks to tips from his team rather than lead from the front with conviction that only the people have to know what they want and who believe in themselves.
You know, sometimes you just bet on the wrong horse... I used to be a huge fan of Gabriele Pauli, a Bavarian CSU politician, but today she committed political suicide -- she voiced the idea that marriage should be divorced automatically after 7 years.
After voicing this, no matter what else she says, no-one will take her serious, she branded herself a moonbat and there has to come a point at which one has to show flag. Almost all party members are baying for her to resign her regional leadership because she isn't a conservative as we can see now. And there is also the unspoken question of: how did she *ever* manage to deceive us all like that???
Cameron is the same in his ambivalence to conservative values, albeit in a less dramatic and colourful way, which perhaps is even more tragic.
Sorry, you Tories, but it's gone too far. Disaster Dave has said and done too many silly things and given too many hostages to fortune. Leaders can win when they're disliked by their own supporters so long as they're respected by them, Blair being a perfect example of this. You have only to read the comments on websites like this ,though, to realize not only the dislike for Dave but the outright contempt from people who should be his rock support. Having elected a young, callow, inexperienced leader in Hague with predictably disastrous results the Tories then repeat their mistake in spades with Cameron. Advancing youth over wisdom - what a silly party the modern Tory Party is.
In 2 years time, the cry will be "why is food so expensive?" and "why are we not growing more?".
(For anyone who studies commodities, wheat and grain is and will be the next boom. Why? Biofuel and India and China is the answer)..
And if the Conservatives bothered to do any real research .. bu they don't .. they are lazily incompetent recycling others' ideas...
I wish you could come back and set the agenda Iain.
The Bank Run was Gordon Brown's fault.
This is an article in the NuLabour and indeed Old Labour supporting FT.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5812ed6c-66d8-11dc-a218-0000779fd2ac.html
it starts by blaming King but ends up by blaming Gordon.
This is an open goal for the Tories.
Is Cameroon and his cache too thick to understand it?
Have you considered the following possibility: that Cameron is broadly on the right track, while the remainder of the Conservative party is hurtling down an ideological dead end? Just a thought.
Tone Made Me Do It - "Is Cameroon and his cache too thick to understand it?"
Yes. He just doesn't understand.
My dislike for Cameron hardened into implaccable hatred when he, as the Leader of HM Opposition, urged Conservative Members of Parliament to give a standing ovation to the man to had taken an axe to our ancient Constitution and our Bill of Rights, had destroyed our ancient British freedom of speech and had created speech crimes and thought crimes; and destroyed an education system that was once among the world's best; and had sluiced millions of individuals who adhere to a primitive, alien religion into the country, liked about the figures and made it a crime for anyone to complain and whose lifestyle was utterly corrupt.
And the Leader of HM Opposition was giving him a standing ovation - being a jolly good sport, you know.
This was sheer insanity and should have sounded the final warning bell to the establishment on the subject of Cameron. He should have been gone the next day.
Cameron doesn't get it. He is not capable of getting it. Dump him now. Better let the socialists crow now than when they win the next election. David Davis or Ann Widdecomb could each attract a huge, loyal, enthusiastic following.
At the risk of repeating myself, electing a new leader is not going to give the Tories any better press coverage than they already dont receive. Many posters complain about the treatment the Tories get in the media then use what they see and hear in the media to crucify them. For christs sake try to be consistent.
Ming more popular than Cameron! Pull the other one Guardianistas, did ICM only interview Guardian readers?
The Guardian produces a very timely poll to give Gordon a big boost before the Labour conference and to give the BBC even more excuse to tell everyone how gorgeous Mcavity is, and of course puts Cameron even more on the backfoot so the BBC can report on idiots from the fringe meetings who want Grammar Schools and to say how unpopular he is.
This is another example of the Guardian-Labour-BBC axis at work. They are creating good news for Labour and bad news for the Conservatives, at an important time.
Bang on the Button, Boycie !!!
Boanerges says "At the risk of repeating myself ...". It's OK, Bo. No one's heard of you so we don't know what you opined in the past.
Your post was hostile and full of malice and you are a person with problems.
Greer
The sooner Iain returns and gives you the elbow, the better.
Your posts could be, and probably are, lifted from ConHome, the retirement home for 'angry old men'.
You also (predictably) gave the kiss of life to the ghastly Verity. You're her kind of guy.
Get lost greer.
Well said, Verity! I agree fully.
However I read that 82% of the "Heir to Blair's Conservatives" support Dave, so they apparently prefer to be decimated before they see sense.
This fake MMGW evidence is getting more silly by the day! This from the BBC this AM, Global warming is now proved because of the increase in, wait for it.. BEDBUGS! Yes you heard right! apparantly some idiot on the BBC says that the increase in bedbugs is because of MMGW! Warmer winters and wetter summers Etc Etc! Er, the thing is that bedbugs live INDOORS and inside matresses Etc, so the outside temperature does not affect what goes on indoors! The phrase cluthing at straws comes to mind BUT why would the BBC give airtime to such misleading and stupid lies?
Bedbugs thrive because bedding is not being cleaned often enough NOT because of man made global warming for Gods sake!
Dave Cameron is bleeding votes because of his faith in the MMGW scam and I say faith because the evidence is overwhelming now that climate change is natural! The centre left would rather stick pins in their eyes than vote Tory! so why does Cameron persist in trying to appeal to these voters? His sacred "focus groups" keep telling him that voters care about the enviroment and he must adjust Tory policy to appeal to this group BUT they are WRONG WRONG WRONG! What people want is a true blue and I mean TRUE BLUE party that sticks to its core values and does not try to jump on any trendy bandwaggon that comes along! You have to ask yourself WHY does Cameron keep wanting to introduce more and more "green taxes"? is it for the extra revenue? Is it to appease the leftist BBC?
The voter wants a Tory party to LOWER TAXES! BE PRO INDUSTRY! BE STRONG ON DEFENCE! TOUGH ON CRIME! TOUGH ON FAKE ASYLUM/ECONOMIC MIGRANTS! STRONG DEFENDER OF THE NATIVE POPULATION AND ITS WAY OF LIFE! STOP THE EU SUBJUGATION OF THE UK!
PUT BRITISH CULTURE FIRST AND STOP THE ISLAMIC COLONISATION OF THE UK!
But most importantly the very first thing a Tory government must do is start a public enquiry on political sleaze and criminal behaviour that is now rampant in Westminster! Only a FULL "truth & reconciliation" enquiry will restore trust in the political process! Fraud and patronage and outright theft of public money is so rife now that only a thorough cleansing of the body politic will do! Even IF it means losing the next election the Tories MUST stick to its core values and wait for the voters to come to them NOT the other way round! Only then will people start to trust the Tories again!
PS, Mr Cameron STOP chasing votes like some 2nd hand car shark! You are NOT selling some crap soap powder here! People can see through that rubbish and they do not like it AND they will not vote for it!
When people are calling John Redwood the common sense option its clear how little there is of it around...
Wrinkled Weasel, your appraisal of Cameron & Co is spot on. Whilst he may be a perfectly nice person, he is, at the same time, born of privilege with absolutely no experience of anything during his cosseted existence. His appearance and expression (which I know he cannot help!) is stiff, unrelaxed and as a consequence does not connect with the electorate and neither does his equally vacuous lieutenants. Except for David Davis, I can’t think of a single Conservative cabinet member who gives the impression of relaxed authority. We need someone experienced that can handle Brown and his company of twisters, not a character from a Whitehall Theatre spoof!
English Democrat said ... "the outside temperature does not affect what goes on indoors."
It most certainly does. Unless you have air conditioning, if the outside temperature in summer is higher then the indoor temperature will also be higher and this will encourage the development of certain insects indoors.
Annon 09.58,
Bedbugs are caused by dirty bedding and a lack of regular de infestation of matresses Etc! This has got NOTHING to do with outside temperatures as even you must realise! Bedbugs feed off human skin and sweat that is shed during the night as people sleep and the cause is not some fake man made global warming rubbish, it is SIMPLE HYGENE!
Let me put this as simply as I can for you, bedbugs thrive INDOORS regardless of outside temperatures in dirty bedding that is not cleaned thoroughly AND regularly! Bedbugs are as common in the Artic as they are in the sahara and to say otherwise is ignorant rubbish! An infested matress can be very cold or very warm and still the bedbugs/eggs will survive for months if the mattress is not cleaned and disinfected, all they do is hybernate untill a human comes along to sleep and then they go to work!
The BBC eco nutters must be very desperate to come up with the "bedbugs are proof of MMGW" piffle!
But dear Annon dont take my word for it go and read about bedbugs on the internet or at the library and stop listening to the ignorant trash being issued by the greenie nutjobs!
Destroy western industrial society to save us from BEDBUGS? Are they INSANE? or just out for any old lie to bring about their perverted vision of a solar powered mud hut paradise! Now I have heard it all from the eco cretins!
Vienna Woods - Well said! But I think another reason David Cameron looks stiff and uncomfortable is, he has never mixed around with ordinary people and isn't sure of how to behave. OE charm only works for a short time - a couple of months - then you have to get down to representing the people, of Cameron is slightly afraid. He doesn't seem to be able to meet people on equal terms. He does the charming OE bit and carefully distances himself. He doesn't engage because he doesn't understand the average person's background or what they are thinking.
For example, a small rise in interst rates might be a minor irritationn to him, but there are huge tranches of the population for whom this news is so worrying it occupies all their waking thoughts.
Look at all his asinine little publicity stunts that were so embarrassing one had to look away. He and his little coterie haven't the faintest idea of how voters think or what drives them. He doesn't get it and he's uncomfortable.
That standing ovation for the vile Blair demonstrated beyond the smallest inkling of doubt one may have had, that Cameron is operating in a different universe. He wants to be a good chap. Sporting. Not a strong, effective leader, but one of the chaps; bloody sporting in defeat.
I agree that,given the chaos of the government and the unpleasant character of the prime minister and his gross personal habits, David Davis could walk away with the next election. Ann Widdecomb would have a harder fight on her hands, but I think she could prevail, as well. Voters sense strength and conviction. They haven't detected any in David Cameron; not even after two years of publicity stunts and totally ineffectual policy statements that he and his little clique put together.
You are quite correct Verity and I do believe that even supporters on the periphery of his entourage can sense the prevailing and uncomfortable atmosphere that surrounds the dear leader. There are so many people making excuses for him and elaborating with unconvincing statements of support, in the pure hope that a miracle might happen and he is transformed into a knight in shining armour. It's not going to happen of course and the embarrassing fawning continues, albeit less enthusiastically of late, with the death throes getting ever weaker, with the damage to the party suffering with every passing day.
Verity
My sincere apolgies. What was meant to be honest frustration came out a little stronger than I had intended.
All grovelling aside I still believe the medias attitude does play an important role in how the Tories are perceived.
Take todays Times headline "Bank Chief Under Fire Over Crisis 'flip-flop'".
Now I know one of my problems may be paranoia but isnt that a back handed swipe at Cameron.
Of course it could be that who ever is being lined up to be the new leader is approved of by the press in which case things may be different.
Any thoughts?
The one thing I cannot swallow is the commitment to match Labour's spending plans for three years after an election victory.
If I want high taxes I can vote Labour. Labour believes in high taxes and can argue for them with conviction. The Tories don't really believe in high taxes. They just think that's what you have to say if you want to get elected.
Why should I vote for people with no convictions?
Voters of my mind should simply write 'Less Tax' on their ballot slip. All spoilt ballots are shown to the candidates, so this may help, in a small way, to drive the message home.
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