Why can't Cameron close the deal?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Gordon Brown tells Labour party to get set for snap election - Times Online.
It is incredible that there can be any doubt about the outcome of the next election. Labour has brought us, as it always does, to the edge of the economic abyss. So far from being, as Brown claimed, best placed to ride out a global recession, we are the last G20 nation to emerge. Our debts are high and mounting. Labour is playing politics with our children's and grandchildren's future. They should be unelectable not just for next year but for all time. So why do voters hesitate?
Labour are playing the class war card and Cameron is visibly flinching. Boris Johnson swatted Andrew Marr aside this morning by responding to the absurd class war "Are there enough Etonians in the Shadow Cabinet?" question by asking Marr which school he went to. Why can't Cameron come out fighting? For that matter, why can't he laugh off these absurdities as Johnson can? Why, for the love of all that's holy, is he allowing Labour to set the agenda with talk of non-doms?
It's hard not to conclude that he lacks a political killer instinct. He's a well-educated mediocrity. He's just not good enough.
Brown has brought us to the edge of this economic abyss by paying a vast number of people a vast amount of money for doing fairly cushy jobs and by paying a similarly huge number of people a living wage to sit at home.
Cameron's task is to get these people to either stay at home on election day or to vote for him. Make no mistake if the public sector and the 'economically inactive' turn out to protect their lot, Gordon Brown will be in charge until early 2015.
Equally if at any point it became obvious that Cameron had 'closed the deal' the PLP would force Brown from office and the deal would become open again overnight.
These factors combined with the psephological handicap built into the electoral system make Cameron's walking on eggshells approach understandable.
Though I think Boris would be a far better Prime Minister, I doubt he would have taken the pragmatic approach that has led Cameron to a point where he languishes 12 point in front.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/uk-polling-report-average
Posted by: Diogenes | Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 04:12 AM
oh, god, politics is always so complicated.
Posted by: Allen | Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:17 AM
wonderfulforhisage, I think I would probably vote for Brown before anything with Redwood in it.
Boris would be good with Davis and Hague in top posts Home & Foreign maybe?
Posted by: Moggsy | Monday, December 14, 2009 at 07:39 AM
Maybe Cameron is incredibly cunning... Naah. Maybe not.
I figure he is doing as well as he is in the polls because he is the least worse realistic option. Not because anyone has any confidence in him being the right guy.
Posted by: Moggsy | Monday, December 14, 2009 at 07:33 AM
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Gandhi, that explains a lot. Children ran wild and the subcontinent divided between male and female. :)
Posted by: Kinderling | Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 09:27 PM
Exactly, wonderfulforhisage; the Tories are languishing in the polls because people can see they are nothing but Blue Labour; they clearly don't have the balls to sack millions of public sector parasites and are more inclined to ignore the problems we have in Britian rather than offend Guardian leader writers.
Posted by: Brian, follower of Deornoth | Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 06:52 PM
In a way Blair wins again. In 2005 the Tory Party were desperate after a third defeat in a row at the hands of TB. So, they elected the nearest thing they could find to TB - The Heir to Blair. It turns out that they elected Blair Lite (very lite).
Haigh, IDS, and Howard would all be doing better now than Cameron. They are all politicians with principles not PR branding spivs.
I dream of Boris leading with DD shadow Home Sec, Redwood shadow Chancellor, Haigh shadow Foreign Sec. and Gove shadowing at eductation.
The above team would be 25pts ahead.
Posted by: wonderfulforhisage | Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 12:33 PM