So who's had a good week? Are their fortunes on the up or on the wane? My Conventional Wisdom Index seeks to track the fortunes of the major players in British politics. Next installment next Saturday...
Tony Blair ↓
Loans for lordships. Need we say more? Authority continues to ebb away.
David Cameron ↔
Strong budget speech offset by negative publicity on failure to disclose donors
Ming Campbell ↓
Ming who? anonymous week for the new LibDem leader
Gordon Brown ↔
Standstill budget fails to inspire but GB manages to stay out of loans scandal
Labour Party ↓
Headlines dominated by loans scandal. More Labour MPs call for Blair to go
Conservative Party ↔
MPs buoyed by Cameron budget response but ICM poll still puts Tories in mid 30s
Liberal Democrats ↔
Exclipsed by other stories but manage to remain out of the loans story
George W Bush ↔
Finally starts to 'sell' the war on terror round the country but loses battle over Dubai Ports
The Reputation of Politics ↓
'nuf said
Oooh. I see you got those arrows to work after all ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think this was a terrible week for Cameron. He came across as weak on the loans issue, and his Budget performance got mixed reviews.
Personally I didn't like it. He wasn't his usual calm, composed self -Shouting and looking hysterical, especially as he ended his 8 minute tirade biting his lip.
And then to top it all off, he got patted on the shoulder by Osborne who seemed to be saying "Don't worry, it's all over now!"
Watch the clip again on bbc parliament online if you don't believe me!
Cameron, strong budget speech??? Iain, you are a wag. It was truly, truly awful. I don't think he has performed as bad as some of my colleagues say at the despatch box. But, the budget performance, phew! Something else.
ReplyDeletePrincipally you, supported by Guido, have helped to deflect the attempt by Labour and its legion of supporters in the media to "fit up" the Conservatives in the current loans "scandal".
ReplyDeleteAs regards the ICM poll, YouGov indicated a better result. ICM polls always seem to overstate Labour support by about two points, on average.
As regards the performance of David Cameron, the current rule of thumb is that the better his performance, the more he is likely to be rubbished by certain commentators. For my part, his "error" last Wednesday was being a little too animated.
I'm with biodun on Cameron, I thought his budget response was very poor. And so did the Tory waverer I canvassed this morning.....
ReplyDeleteI agree with biodun.
ReplyDeleteCameron came to office promising an end to the 'Punch & Judy politics' and then used his Budget reply platform to slap Gordon around in a viciously personal attack. And yet, it didn't ring true - it seemed too staged and over-prepared. It isn't easy having to reply to the budget speech, but I would have thought that Cameron had the intellectual nous to find something to criticise, rather than just relying on performing a pre-prepared script.
Of course, it was all about the soundbites and the campaign to label the Tories as 'New' compared to Labour. In that, it was reasonably successful, but shouldn't we expect politics to be more about policy?
Even so, Cameron and the Tories had a better week than Labour.
I can only assume from the psychophantic Cameron comments that your Priority List interview is coming up. The trouble will be finding a retirement constituency with the necessary five figure majority.
ReplyDelete