Are these the chinks in Cameron’s armour?
August 25th, 2006
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The Tory leader’s strengths and weaknesses - Part 2
Following yesterday’s post on Cameron’s strengths today I look at some of the factors that are going to make David Cameron’s task that much harder.
1. The Shadow of Mrs Thatcher. For Cameron this is a double whammy. On one hand there are large sections of the electorate who might warm to the him but would never vote Tory because of continuing hostility caused by the Thatcher years. On the other hand there are those within the Tory fold who find it hard to support a leader who is not in Maggie’s image. To them the argument is simple - in the 80s the Tories enjoyed huge electoral success by following a particular policy agenda so what Cameron should be doing is to follow what she did and the voters will return.
Because unlike Labour, when the “glory days” were in the 1940s, the Thatcherite Tory view is very much in the living memory of Cameron’s critics within his party. It’s for this reason that changing the Tories is a bigger challenge than NuLab had. If Cameron pushes his party too far then there is the danger of public splits.
With NuLab, as well, there was always the belief that “Blair is just doing this to get elected and it will all be different once we are in power”. Cameron does not have that luxury.
2. ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie. The site, run by Iain Duncan Smith’s former aide, has developed into a vehicle for internal opposition to the leadership. Non-Tory visitors are constantly amused by the delight that appears when things go wrong for Cameron. Mongomerie is rapidly taking the role that Arthur Scargill adopted in the early days of NuLab. Thus you could feel for him on Tuesday when that ICM 9% Tory lead had to be reported. If this had been any other party there would have been jubilation- instead Montgomerie’s headline was about the Lib Dem surge. Eh?
3. The lack of media backing. It’s hard to recall a Tory leader who has had so little media support even from what would be seen as natural friends. The Mirror, Guardian and Indy are, of course, solidly against while it’s hard to see the Murdoch press coming on side. Even worse the presence of the joyless but powerful figure of Simon Heffer at the Daily Telegraph has made the party’s “house journal” almost hostile. This could have serious consequences.
4. Cameron’s excess of confidence. That Etonian self-assuredness and self-belief leads him, I believe, to make up policy in real time without fully thinking through the implications. What was the purpose of the Chocolate Orange attack on WH Smith’s or the one against BHS? They got coverage but it all sounded a bit trivial for a party leader.
5. He’s quick to lose his temper. As we saw in the very first leadership debate with David Davis Cameron finds it hard to deal with a hostile response and he appears to get riled easily. He will be provoked again and again and he has to find a way of handling it.
What does all this add up to? I don’t have a conclusion except to state that oppositions don’t usually win elections - Governments lose them. The polls show reasonable Tory progress but Labour still seems hungry for power and the big question is how they will evolve in the post-Blair era. My guess is that Labour without Blair will lose a political edge and if that happens then Cameron’s Conservatives will be well placed provided he has managed Thatcher’s legacy.
Going on holiday. This is my last post until September 10th. I’m off to Nice where my son Robert is marrying Lucille next Friday. It’s Robert who handles the technical aspect of the site and was the person who persuaded me to launch Politicalbetting. He’s been a great inspiration. Lucille did the design.
Book Value (Philip Grant) is now in the hot seat.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
“The polls show reasonable Tory progress but Labour still seems hungry for power and the big question is how they will evolve in the post-Blair era.”
Labour may well be hungry for power but come the next election I do not believe they will find an electorate hungering for another Labour government.
Have a great trip, Mike!
It is clear to me that Labour only want power for power’s sake. The chinks in our great leader’s armour are more like tiny sratches than chinks.
Cam the Man will lead and will win!!!
” Mongomerie is rapidly taking the role that Arthur Scargill ”
What a load of tosh. Tim’s comments are moderate - let members keep a vote on leader ( which we won ) and let members keep a say in candidate selection ( which hopefully we will win ). Leading members of the party contribute to the site including Cameron & Maude. You need a holiday, Mike !
” instead Montgomerie’s headline was about the Lib Dem surge. Eh? ”
The headline was, ” LibDem surge lifts 40% Tories to election-winning lead ” Poor spin Mike. Tories to win election was the headline.
The poll was 1% up for the tory party, 5% up for the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem move was the story, unless you write your posts with bias ? The article finished, “The Conservatives now enjoy a 6% lead in ConservativeHome’s poll of polls. ”
I am not saying some posters on the site are not towards the edges of party views. Maybe Mike, when you get back from holiday ( which I hope you enjoy ) you can launch LibDemHome. You can get the Orange Bookers and the Sandal Wearers together, it will be a lively debate.
And all the best to Robert & Lucille. Have a great day !
Mike, an interesting article, if a little overhyped from yesterday. On balance I still think David Cameron more appealing with the floating voter than Gordon Brown. But as a Tory I would say that wouldn’t I.
Will David win the next General Election? Maybe. And that’s a long way from where I was in November. Whilst we may be much more popular than we were, we are still an awful long way behind in terms of seats, we will have a very long target list and a long hard slog.
The other potential problem is the poor state of the party in the country. In many seats that we need to gain it just isn’t up to it. There are many seats with very few active members and no qualified agent. We desperately need more qualified agents to ensure a properly run campaign in ALL seats.
That said, I don’t think Gordon will revitalise the Labour government enough to win a fifth term, so even if he wins the next GE, he won’t win the one after that - unless we sack Cameron again!
I think Mike is being rather unfair to Tim Montgomerie as well. I am on record saying that I wish Tim would exercise editorial discretion a bit more often than he does (particularly with some of his more outspoken contributors), but he is personally quite measured and thoughtful. Comparing him with Arthur Scargill is most uncharitable and rather wide of the mark.
I’m not sure Simon Heffer is much of a force in the Conservative Party any longer (if ever he was one), particularly now that he has publicly thrown his toys out of the pram and flounced off to UKIP. Good riddance, I say.
I suppose the ’shadow of Mrs Thatcher’ could prove to be just the sort of double-edged sword Mike describes, but I find it difficult to believe that after (by the time of the next election) 13 or 14 years of the present Labour government that many are going to be interested in rehashing the ancient political history of the 1980s. If Labour think they have a weapon in this then they will be in quite desperate shape indeed.
It is probably true to say that there has been a distinct cooling of support for the Conservative Party from some of our traditional allies in the press, but coverage of Cameron and the Party in general has also been much less hostile in some quarters than has previously been the case - the BBC especially. One would think that as the election approaches, most of the papers will take up their traditional lines. If Murdoch thinks the Conservatives are on course to win, his papers will row in behind Cameron as well.
Over-confidence can certainly lead to petty, avoidable mistakes being made but I should think it is better to have more rather than less confidence, particularly for a senior politician at this level. You can’t expect anyone else to to believe in you if you don’t yourself.
Mike, best wishes for the holiday and wedding.
I have to say this is the most wrong-headed post I’ve seen on PB.com.
Tim Montgomerie is solidly behind Cameron. Disagreement centers around candidates and taxes, but his site is pro the reforms. Posters there may not be, editorially they are. The surveys on the site show a huge level of internal support, wasn’t the lsat approval ratig almost eighty percent?
Secondly, I believe the Guardian has offered the Cameron camp a significant amount of support and its admiration has helped swing floating voters.
Thirdly, I am a little surprised to see you of all people who has so often remarked on the Cameron appeal to women miss the point of the sexualised children’s clothing speech. It was a big winner. Chocolate oranges was a winner as well, in the end. Even the sneering had an element of ‘why do the Tories care’ and backed up the idea of ‘general well being’ which in its turn leads to bumps with women.
Cameron’s weakness is the boundaries in England and Wales. Nuts and bolts politics.
The phrase I used in the article about Tim was about his ROLE. “Mongomerie is rapidly taking the role that Arthur Scargill adopted in the early days of NuLab.” In the 94-96 period Scargill was the one the media usually went to for comments on the abolition of clause 4 etc.
I’ve met Tim and found him civilised, far more anti-libertarian than I would like and right wing. He runs a great site and I do think that the way he reported the ICM poll on Tuesday reflects his views on the leadership.
“Mongomerie is rapidly taking the role that Arthur Scargill adopted in the early days of NuLab.” In the 94-96 period Scargill was the one the media usually went to for comments on the abolition of clause 4 etc.
Ah, so you meant to put Conservativehome in the article on Cameron’s strengths!
Mike, in general I disagree, but I will concede that it was unfortunate the first ICM poll showing the Tories at the magic 40% was reported in that way on the leading Tory site.
As I posted at the time I also thought the way the best tory poll for ages was headlined was strange. Conhome does have some interesting factual info on candidate selection but generally the posters seem against the first leader to have sustained significant poll leads and want a return to policies which have already lost them two elections while in opposition.
For me the Montgomerie site is all irrelevant fluff - does anyone read it?
I think the Lady Thatcher point is the key one, though. Not so much because of the great lady herself, but more in terms of what she represents.
Many of us are Conservatives not because of the ancient traditions of the party (in fact I find all that rather stuffy) but more in admiration of the strength, courage and common sense Margaret Thatcher brought at this country’s time of greatest need.
After all these years of Blair the country is once again close to its knees and it needs a Conservative government. But that needs to be a genuinely *Conservative* government if it is to turn things around - there is no point in electing Tony Blair Mk II.
In fact if Cameron in Downing St turns out to be “Blair-lite” then I think that will set back the real Conservative cause still further, longer term, and we’d be better off waiting a little longer till we have the genuine article.
It’s all very well Cameron sounding off on so-called ‘green taxes’, ‘hug a hoodie’ (and I know he didn’t *say* that but he did spin it) and even chocolate oranges - if that’s all a tactic to ensure the party is elected, that’s fine. What I worry is that Cameron might actually *believe* some of this nonsense.
Sorry to interrupt this predominantly Tory “love-in” (note 60s sandal wearing tendency!). Surely, Eleanor, the reason that Thatcher was finally booted out was that those Mike refers to in his piece as “those who would never vote Tory because of hostility to Thatcher” (ie the TBW factor - “that b……y woman”) I agree with Mike that there is no simple answer to the way this will break for the Tories, but I suppose as years go by the Thatcher factor on both sides, pro and anti, will lose its edge. It already has, actually.
13. Yes lots of people read it. Mostly Lib Dems.
13..But by the sound of it you’d be completely at home on Conhome!!
Have a good trip Mike. La Mere Germaine in Villefranche is a restaurant well worth a visit.
14. But that’s not borne out by the facts. Less than 18 months after she was deposed, the Conservatives won more votes at an election than any party before or since, ever. Thatcher was booted out (in no particular order): (a) because she was an electoral liability, (b) because she refused to countenance repealing the Poll Tax - a policy which was doing terrible damage to the Conservative vote base - as well as being thoroughly unjust, (c) because her leadership style had gone into the bunker and refused to listen to legitimate concerns, especially from members of the cabinet. Electing John Major sorted all these problems - though it brought others, which fortunately didn’t hit for two years.
Even so, the point is that if ‘the Thatcher problem’ didn’t matter in 1992 (or at least wasn’t decisive), then it will take a tremendous amount of Labour spin for it to count in 2009/10. The people who won’t ever vote Tory because of TBW didn’t vote for her in the 80s, but that didn’t stop her winning. Cameron’s problem is to find the voters we’ve lost since 1992. Fact: the Conservatives haven’t won a general election since WWII with fewer than 12.9 million votes. That’s a lot to find.
O/T Result from Walton Central by-election (Elmbridge Borough Council, Surrey) was: Residents 656, Cons 482, LibDem 115, Lab 59.
Residents hold the seat but around a 4% swing to the Tories since May. But we had hoped to do better
Enjoy your break, Mike, and best wishes to the happy couple. What a great place to have a wedding. Everybody seems to agree that Nice is…well, nice.
Btw, thanks for introducing me to ConHome. It’s a hoot. Anybody know of an equivalent Lab site?
(Can Roger assist?)
19 John O. Well if you don’t ask for my help, let alone Andrea what do you expect John !!
………………………..
Bon voyage Mike and much happiness to the lucky couple.
19 - But I want you both all for myself. I’m not some old tart, you know
22 John O.
Have a great holiday, and a great day and honeymoon, Robert and Lucille.
In reply to eleanor, as I said yesterday, Cameron is not disliked by most Labour MPs for the same reason that you’re wary. My personal view remains that he has few strong personal convictions of the kind to make him say “I’m gonna do this even if everyone hates it”, and approaches politics as a marketing problem. “What aspects of the Tory product are popular and need emphasising?” “What aspects are unpopular and should be scrapped?”
This means that it’s hard to be sure what a Cameron Government would actually be like, but I’d think he will try to make it reflect whatever product was evolved by him in the previous years - why not? It’d be odd to expect anything else, and if he does actually win he’ll have the authority in the party to do it. Like left-wingers when TB’s intentions became clear, I think you probably need to accept this or be prepared for substantial disappointment.
That Yougov poll we were expecting seems elusive, but should give the Tories further encouragement, I suspect.
19. Looks like a score draw on the byelections this week - Lib Dems win in Harrow from Tories with 9% swing, Tories win in Stratford from Lib Dems with 18% swing.
19 Agree the Conservatives should have done better here as the deceased Walton’s councillor was very popular and the new councillor does not live in Walton .
Last night’s results were rather mixed , a good Conservative win in Alcester , a bad loss in Harrow to the LibDems and the Elmbridge result . Labour did badly in all the contests but from a low base .
Nominations for the Oxford Lye Valley Byelection next month closed yesterdsay . This is a very marginal Lab/LibDem seat . There are candidates from the 3 major parties in Oxford Lab/LibDem and Green . The only minor party candidate this time is a Conservative . They did not fight the seat in May .
Sorry Mike. I don’t agree with the Tim part of the story the rest is in my opinion, correct as usual. Tim as been very positive on the Cameron leadership and his reforms. His reporting is sound in that yes I want to see Labour stuffed but I also want to see the liberals deafeted to. So any large rise in their support should be a cause of concern to a general on the field.
DC himself is doing very well, especially with the re-branding project.
But his party remains a shambles. Look at the last few bye-elections, and the next few. Who’s running them? Nobody…
He looks lightweight, because he has to do everything himself, even those things he shouldn’t be doing.
Can he build a strong and able team around him? One in which the ‘dirty’ side of politics are handled by some, others sort out the hard slog on the streets, and different people deal with ideas, philosophy and execution? Possibly. But there is no evidence for it.
26 Mark. “…. The only minor party candidate this time is a Conservative.”
28. Maybe he recruit Peter Mandelson…..
24 - there is no voting intention poll today, just a poll about air security and also “the Muslim Connection”.
I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
29- On holiday this week Jack so demob happy .
David Herdson @ 18: surely the biggest problem John Major brought was that he convinced New Labour to scrap cabinet government.
Peter the punter - there is a LabourHome as well. http://www.labourhome.org/ It’s newer so hasn’t developed as much as Tim’s yet, and personally I find the structure of it a bit confusing, but there goes.
I know Tim Montgomerie well - he is indeed supportive of Cameron’s leadership, but does have his own policy agenda to push.
4 - The ConHome lead articles are anything but moderate, constantly pandering to the rightist fringe which seems to have made ConHome *their* home as a result.
As Mike suggests, the problem is that you don’t see them as immoderate. As I posted before, Cameron should follow one principle, if ConHome likes it he should do the opposite to increase his support among voters!
19.
John O. Walton Central result in line with my prediction of a narrowish Residents win, but agree it might have been closer for the Tories. I would be unsure of you getting it next May (but richer pickings in other Walton/Hersham wards may earn you Council control or a bigger minority) Still your vote share held up better than the Residents on the lower turnout, there was no LibDem surge, and Labour’s vote was derisory.
26. My understanding is that the new Residents councillor, like the deceased one, lives in the ward at the Walton end of Oatlands Drive, all of which happens to have a Weybridge postal address. The Tory candidate was in fact less ‘local’ living at the other end of town (near Hersham station / Esher rugby ground for those that know it).
36 - Just to add to Mike’s later comment, it appears clear that the anti-libertarian stance Montgomerie takes is the reason why I find him to be objectionable in his writings. The stuff around Lebanon was particularly horrific in its obeisance to the US/Israel world view.
My humble tuppen’orth…
ConHome - a great site for articles and news, editorially guarded but not outright unfriendly, but the posters can be bewilderingly hostile
Heffer - can no longer speak for Conservatives having publicly ditched them, so now an increasingly irrelevant caricature of himself
Mrs T - erm, yes. Even as a huge fan of the good lady I can see this could cause problems. However, I think (hope) Dave can come up with a convincing “we appreciate all she did, but different challenges need different solutions” type of line that’ll keep everyone happy. Perhaps.
36. In the Walton leaflet, the deceased concillor’s widow refers to the new candidate as “neighbour”
ConHome- best site around regarding infos about candidates/shortlists/selections.
Not being a Tory, I just mainly go there to read the “seats and candidates” section.
24. I have a feeling the Yougov poll is going to tell a different story to the ICM one. My straws in the wind tell me that in the wider world Cameron is not wildly popular. Most seem indifferent to him. “What is there to like?” This was not the case with young Blair
….talking of the Devil I read in Yeaterday’s Times that he’s not welcome in Lebanon. He certainly knows how to back a loser. I’m hoping the coup will happen at this years conference. A stabbing through the arras………
36, Fred - Agree entirely with your analysis and you’re correct about the new Councillor actually living in the ward despite the Weybridge address.
Have a good hoilday Mike and congrats to Lucille and Robert - thanks to you all. Difficult to go wrong in the fish restaurants by the market in Nice. The Bastide-St-Antoine (2 michelin stars)in Grasse would be suitable place to blow the advance on your book.
Surely the major problem for Cameron is to produce attractive policies that look and sound distinctive enough to give the voters a reason to elect him. By tying himself to a no reduction in taxes and an increase in tuition fees he is in serious danger of alienating the Thatcher wing of his own party without attracting any new, young, voters or floaters. No wonder the ICM polls are showing turnout at less than 50%.
18 - “The people who won’t ever vote Tory because of TBW didn’t vote for her in the 80s, but that didn’t stop her winning. Cameron’s problem is to find the voters we’ve lost since 1992.”
Fair point, but it ignores the fact that what made much of the difference in the 1980s was the extent to which many voters weren’t voting for the Conservatives but to keep out Labour. Even in 1992, ultimately enough voters still thought of Labour as the party of Arthur Scargill / Tony Benn / Derek Hatton to ensure a Conservative victory (though I agree, having dropped Margaret Thatcher probably didn’t do any harm either – her die hard supporters weren’t going to vote anything but Tory, albeit with a lot less enthusiasm). For better or worse, Tony Blair’s great achievement was to persuade enough electors that the Labour Party was now “safe”. Whatever people may think of the current government, no-one thinks that voting Labour risks the danger of finding yourself governed by a bunch of Marxist revolutionaries. Cameron’s problem is that a fair proportion of the votes lost since 1992 were from people who were never all that keen on the Conservatives in the first place.
41 - You said that last time Roger, you’ve got to be right sooner or later if you keep repeating it!
On Lebanon, it appears that hearts and minds in South Lebanon have been well and truly won. I asked earlier who was going to pay for reconstruction because this was important for the future, if somehow Israel had done so we could have been on a better road. As it is Hezbollah (backed by Iran? Syria?) are rebuilding and giving substantial compensation to those who have suffered. Yet again, an own goal by those who profess to want to help Lebanon.
On the subject of tory foreign policy and why conhome is out of touch, a quick read of Ancram’s article in yesterday’s Indy is useful.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1221272.ece
A propos of Baroness Thatcher, as I say, it’s not the lady herself that’s the issue. Rather it’s that no-nonsense approach - standing up to the Leftists (even when they’re in our own party). Being prepared to make unpopular decisions in the greater good. Taking on unfashionable causes. Being respected rather than loved.
My worry is that Cameron is the opposite: very keen to be loved but not showing much of the real Tory backbone that’s deserving of respect.
Roger @ 41: “I have a feeling the Yougov poll is going to tell a different story to the ICM one. My straws in the wind tell me that in the wider world Cameron is not wildly popular.”
Do you indeed Roger? Ah, well, we shall see
(Before anyone starts trying to read anything into that, you can take it as a hint that Roger is either (a) correct or (b) wrong, (c) somewhere inbetween or (d) other.)
Jeremy S above writes “Cameron’s problem is that a fair proportion of the votes lost since 1992 were from people who were never all that keen on the Conservatives in the first place”
I think in some ways that hits the nail on the head. Mrs T was able to win over support from very untraditional Conservative voters (especially in key battlegound areas such as the “C2″ parts of Essex, Kent and the Midlands). That was because of her tough, no nonsense approach. And that was also grounded in policy: tax cuts, right to buy, privatisation, taking on the unions etc.
How are we going to appeal to these kinds of voters if our message is about being nice to yobs (or at least that is how it is being spun in the media - apparently with the tacit agreement of Cameron’s people)?
47. Anthony, well, I would take it as a hint he’s wrong.
It sounds the behaviour when someone said something wrong, the other knew it and try to challenge him just to “embarass” him even more when he reveals the truth.
Is that it Mike?
Cameron’s weaknesses are
a)ConHome
a place where a few liberal tories get swamped by the invective from UKIP trolls and other strange indviduals (e.g. JackW) but which has on the whole done a good job of getting Conservative policies discussed. Tim’s agenda is not always to my taste but he’s done a great job and is in no sense an Arthur Scargill figure.
b) Lady T - oh purleeeze, this really is not an issue
c) Heffer - he might be destroying the Telegraph with his miserable and misanthropic worldview but will not affect the party’s success or failure.
This is not one of the better articles; if these are the biggest weaknesses you can think of then Cameron might actualy win the next election.
Wedding day - best day of your life, enjoy!
47. I wasn’t claiming some inside knowledge with Yougov Anthony!! It was just my badly written sentence!
My thinking was that 1. ICM allow for shy Tories which I don’t reckon exist anymore. Yougov don’t. 2. The Lib Dems always score lower on Yougov. 3. I was with some people yesterday who were seriously underwhelmed with Cameron (my ’straw in the wind’). And finally 4. the Telegraph have obviously got the poll but have chosen not to use it on a Friday when it would make a splash. It looks like they want to save it for Saturday. A perfect day ‘to bury bad news’
Now you have my complete methodpology!!!
“4. the Telegraph have obviously got the poll but have chosen not to use it on a Friday when it would make a splash. It looks like they want to save it for Saturday. A perfect day ‘to bury bad news’”
Bad news for whom? Cameron or his Conservative bashers? Besides didn’t the Guardian do EXACTLY the same thing some weeks ago? I don’t remember you say they were trying to bury bad news….
Re the Guardian and Cameron, I’m with ‘commentator’ on this one. By and large the Guardian has been supportive of Cameron, certainly his reforms. The Guardian should be supportive, certainly on social affairs he’s singing from their songbook, the economics we don’t know about, but then neither does he. I don’t think Cameron will differ from the present government on economics or its attitude to the EU or any thing else. Interesting article from Polly Toynbee in the Guardian this morning on the situation in Sweden, it seems the Social Democrats are about to lose power, despite an enviable economic situation,due to the boredom factor. The opposition’s ploy is, we won’t change anything, only we’ll do it better: sounds familiar! Read the Conservative manifesto on ‘Womens issues’ at the next GE, bet MS Toynbee will be the author. The only real opposition to Cameron comes from the Heffer/Hitchens axis, if they don’t like TB they hate DC.
Surely if it was bad for Cameron then the Telegraph would be running it today, tomorrow and as many other days as they could squeeze out of it.
51. I’d have thought the Telegraph would view a bad poll for Cameron as good news these days.
Have a great trip, Mike. The rumours of Andrea trekking over the Alps to find you are completely unfounded.
54. Great minds
44 - Jeremy - agree entirely. The Consevative Party’s success in the eighties was down to the fact that the Labour Party appeared to despise most of the electorate. I disagree with Roger that Blair was ever liked, but the important thing was that people were prepared not to dislike him - and by extension, the party.
[46] Eleanor, who clearly agrees with the late Quintin Hogg that “the Left was never right”, sees the role of the Tories as to be respected rather than loved - I’m curious as to why she thinks there’s a conflict between the two. Love - as opposed to the projection of fantasies - implies respect, after all. She couldn’t be confusing respect with fear, could she?
55. Julian, if you have to spread a rumour, please, come up with something more “exotic”!
Stonecold - I damn well hope a Cameron-led government would be different to this government on European issues! I’ve just remembered that Blair gave up the rebate in return for nothing, and Britain’s going to have to find an extra 4 billion a year to fund the whole sorry exercise, and I’m feeling cross again now. On most issues I’m so pale blue I’m practically orange, but if Cameron’s going to be as much of a pushover as Blair he won’t get my vote a second time.
Roger - ICM don’t have shy Tories anymore, they have Bashful Blairites! Their formula doesn’t automatically favour the Tories, it can favour Labour as well and normally has done for the last couple of years. Their unadjusted figures this month were Con 40%, Lab 30% - the “Shy Tories” calculation pushed it up to Con 40%, Lab 31%.
Popular mythology is sometimes just that. It was not Tony Blair who convinced voters that Labour was safe. Labour was ahead under John Smith and even (except on the one Thursday that mattered) under Neil Kinnock.
Enjoy your holiday, and I’m pleased your son is getting married.
Like most here, I don’t agree with your comment on ConservativeHome. The Editorials are mostly supportive of Cameron, but critical on some issues. The comments are, of course, another matter.
I’m not convinced that some kind words from the Guardian do the Tories any favours. If the Guardian welcomes something, it’s generally fair to say the Conservatives ought to oppose it. GMW voters have also proved extremely resistant to Cameron’s appeal (a fact I’ll touch on in my next article).
I don’t think Cameron will lose much sleep over Heffer’s opposition. He ought to be more concerned about the lack of support from people like Jeff Randall, Anatole Kaletsky, Janet Daley, and the more thoughtful centre-right columnists.
I don’t think that Cameron is as sure-footed in PR terms, as some people think. Things like the chocolate oranges, the huskies, and the Bentley taking his papers to work made him look silly IMHO.
58 Our motto should be “Oderint dum metuant”
63. I think if the assorted ragbag of nutters, obsessives, windup merchants and trolls who haunt the comment threads of ConservativeHome are to be considered one of Cameron’s ‘weaknesses’ then the Tories are doing pretty well.
Sean - do you really think Kaletsky is a ‘centre-right’ columnist? He has always struck me as a bit of a maverick, and not very sure footed away from economics issues.
62. Yes. People liked John Smith very much. Hardly anyone disliked him. It was the opposite for Kinnock.
[64] That nutshells why I am a gut anti-Tory. I suspect Cameron would agree that the role of the Conservative Party is to be at least slightly different from that of al-Qaeda…
I’m not that convinced about the point of a Cameron-hostile media. Yes, we have the booming voices of Heffer and Hitch Minor in the Mail on Sunday (though the later, of course, has been hostile to the Tories for years). Brute Anderson is loyal (though isn’t he Cameron’s uncle or something or is that Ferdinand Mount?). Meanwhile in The Times, Matthew Parris, Daniel Finklestein, William Rees-Mogg and Mary Ann Bighead all seem very supportive; Anatole Kaletsky and Peter Riddell are neutral; it’s just left to New Labour’s Little and Large, David Aaronovitch and Tim Hames, to be openly cynical.
A good article from Mike and the ConHome stuff is correct about the poll results headline.
There are two major weaknesses not mentioned which is
1. The fact that the Conservative by election campaign machinery is inadequate compared to the Lib Dems and if this turns into a long parliament then Tories may not look like winners by the time of the GE.
2. The lack of a rigorous “joined up” approach to policy co-ordination, one example being the Ken Clarke/human rights matter etc. Oliver Letwin maybe nice but he just does not seem to have full control on how policy is being developed and what is communicated.
61 “ICM don’t have shy Tories anymore, they have Bashful Blairites! Their formula doesn’t automatically favour the Tories, it can favour Labour as well and normally has done for the last couple of years. Their unadjusted figures this month were Con 40%, Lab 30% - the “Shy Tories” calculation pushed it up to Con 40%, Lab 31%. by Anthony
The next poll from YouGov could show a larger gap. Anyone know when the results will come out?
Hum. Snowflake, I think you’re confusing ‘like very much’ with ‘not actively have anything specific personal against, but…’ There are hardly any politicians that people actually like (Boris? Mo Mowlam?) - the best they can normally hope for is not to be detested. But then you were saying yesterday that you thought Gordon Brown had a pleanatly paternal demeanour which people liked, so maybe you just happen to like gloomy Scottish centre-left chancellors.
I think Kinnock’s unpopularity was a little unfortunate, really. Though he was way to the left of anywhere I find reasonable, in retrospect, he was a massive positive for the party and the country in dragging the party back from the extremes. It just happened to be his misfortune that he led such an impossible party, the image of which rubbed off on him.
I think a possible weakness is that with regard to ‘modernising’ Cameron may be isolated within his party.
This was not the case with Blair who since the mid eighties was firmly entrenched in the modernising faction within Labour.
Come Leadership he was able to Draw on a powerfull network of fellow travellers with a strong vision that Blair shared (Gould, Mandelson, Campbell, Brown, Kinnock ,Hewit).
Cameron seemed to come out of nowhere with little Baggage or enemies, the negative side of this is that he therefore may have few ‘brothers in arms’ to rely on when the heat turns up.
Though initially in a minority Thatcher’s ideological position did give fellow conservatives a reason to rally to her and provide a way of purging rivals and rewarding allies.
Cameron’s fuzziness may provide him with neither strong enemies nor allies but ‘fairweather friends’
So Dave’s weaknesses are:
He sometimes loses his temper: good, it shows passion. And which great leader do you know that this was not true of?
Mrs T: well in 2009 it will be 30 years since she was first PM. So it is a little like waving the odious Harold Wilson at Tony Blair in 1997. All a bit ancient unless you are so ancient to have lived it and, an even smaller subset, hated it. Dave will not be daft enough to use her or her name and if Labour do they will simply be seen as well out of touch and desperate.
ConHome: they already have ideas above their real importance, writing in the ‘we demand real conservatism’ tone. Like the barmy posters that infest the site, they will overplay their hand even with the relatively small audience they have. In this the Tory dinosaurs will Mirror the Scargill tendency with Blair. Mrs T suffered the same. Such opposition is
a necessary part of moving on from the past.
Lack of media backing: you mean the Telegraph and the Mail? Well it is equivocating often but then that is what the modernisers need to show things are changing and the Mail will certainly come into line when its necessary. And the Sun? Who cares? ‘It was the Sun wot won it’ is a myth they created and then seem to have swallowed at News International. They will back the winner if they can to show how important they are.
But most importantly the news is no longer a few TV channels and some newspapers. Its email and blogs and electronic news, including easy access to news and wire services, SMS alerts and Blackberrys, and local radio that is so prolific as to be anarchic. A very different scene from 1992.
Hefferlump is the Trojan horse of the modernisers? I am beginning to wonder if he is not wound up by them on purpose. The Telegraph’s circulation is crumbling ( the new owners have a track record in this, don’t they?) and the trumpeting Hefferlump is helping that along handsomely.
And lastly Cameron’s confidence: are you saying he is overconfident? No real evidence of that? Or that he should not be self-confident? Well he wouldn’t get far if he were not, would he?
And your evidence about policy being made up on the hoof. Not a chance, this is a professional to his finger nails. Everything is thought out in advance. Everything.
Chocolate Oranges and kids clothes : we worry about kids health and safety and we do not pander to big business. And it worked because it is, for him, true. And we know it worked by looking at the internals of the recent polls.
If these are his weaknesses then get out of the way because he is coming through.
73. Blue2win, is there any point that can be seen as weakness about DC in your opinion? Or do you think he’s a close to perfection politician?
Out of interest, is there any polling on how Cameron comes across in different socio-economic groups?
I would suspect that he does well with As & Bs but less well with those C2s we all used to talk about in the early 90s. But that’s just a hunch - I’d be interested to see if there is any data.
My other hunch is that David Davis would have polled better amongst those groups, if perhaps less well amongst the broadsheet-readers.
71. Kinnock did achieve a tremendous amount for the Labour party. There’s the famous speech he made chasing a shaken Derek Hatton from the party conference. He chased out the anarchic elements, improved the organisation, spotted the potential in the young Blair and Brown and gave them a chance to develop, accepted the idea that presentation was important. The New Labour project, which begun under him, was a brave and original idea, in that it marked a break from ideological politics for the first time (something no British party had attempted). He had tremendous managerial skills. But the public just didn’t warm to him. They liked John Smith though (I don’t expect you to understand this, as you said yesterday that you didn’t understand why people liked Blair in 1997!).
The problem with the conservatives is that they are trying to go straight to the Blair stage without having gone through the Kinnock stage. Has Cameron chased out the swivel-eyed euro-sceptic element of the Tory party (your equivalent of militant tendency)? No, because just a year earlier he was part of that group. He tried to buy their votes with the whole EPP thing. He doesn’t understand the importance of Europe to Britain, and didn’t even grasp the difficulties of moving out of the EPP. ConHome is a symptom of how this element has not been defeated. By the time Blair became leader, the argument against militant and the Bennites had been comprehensively won. The bulk of the far left group had undergone a psychological change and had shifted to ordinary left, which is why they were still able to vote New Labour, who were centrists - the whole organisation had been moved twards the centre to varying degrees. Cameron hasn’t similarly shifted the far-right of your party. So the chances are he will move to the centre without them, as you saw in Bromley.
75. Eleonor, the last ICM poll has (as usual) the breakdown of party voting intentions by social class, but the results are unweighted
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2006/Guardian%20-%20August/august%20bpc1.2.pdf
74 Andrea Dave may have personal weaknesses that have not become apparent yet. But I would be surprised as Dave has been around for quite a while in political jobs in and out of government and if he has personal weaknesses they would have been exposed by now. The Labour party had a team of diggers at work as did certain newspapers, and they would not have kept quiet if there was anything of significance.
His main weakness is that of anyone aspiring to ‘get promotion’, that enduring conundrum that to get the job you need the experience that you can only get by doing it. All PMs are in this position, and nothing before, not cabinet jobs even, really prepare you for the role ( or so say other PMs). So he will always be open to attack as an unknown quantity. And Labour have been at that since last October: and the Tories did the same with Blair and Callaghan did with Thatcher.
When people say that Dave is light weight it is because of this toughening and honing that doing the job brings and the aura that it imposes. Look at video of Blair in in 95 and 96 and then again at his peak in 2002 to see what I mean. Does Blair look light weight early on. Oh, so very much so.But appearances do deceive. They did with him and they do with Dave.
What is unproven about Dave is whether he can develop and run a tough and targeted team which is what Blair has done. Its not a weakness as such because creating a machine is not a quick fix, but if he is to be successful he must do that. There are some promising signs: the rudiments of a Leader’s office with real talent and expertise, better discipline in the Shadow Cabinet and Hague praising the way Dave has made them all feel valued.
The main weaknesses are in the party and its organisation as others have noted. By election machinery is pathetic, discipline in some local parties is lax, a proper strategic control centre with real power to command for a national campaign is non-existent.
But again these take time and there is so much to do after years of neglect and complacency. My worry is not that Dave will fall apart in a GE but that the party organisation will do so. After all Kinnock put a lot of the Labour machinery in place that Blair built on so overall they had five or six years to get it right. We have three or four.
Its a race against time but the vast majority of the membership are not the dinosaurs on ConHome, The vast majority are Tories that want to work with Dave to put the party back into power. And that is his major strength as was Blair’s and Thatcher’s
76 - Snowflake - I could see the (relative) appeal of Tony Blair in 1997 - he was a lot less weird than most of the political class seemed - but a lot about him (exemplified by that Diana speech) grated with me personally. I still wouldn’t say he was ‘popular’ - but this is all relative, and yes, relative to the political class as a whole he was stratospherically popular. And similarly, few I knew ‘liked’ John Smith, they were just less instinctively hostile to him than they had been to Kinnock. But I was at Sheffield uni 93-96, and it was only after Blair took over that people I knew started to admit to supporting Labour.
There’s also the danger here of confusing the opinions of the columnists with those of the population as a whole. Columnists seem to change their minds much more quickly, and become starry-eyed about the next thing much more easily than the population in general.
Please don’t lump Euroscepticism in with the swivel eyed hate-everything tendency. I agree that pretty much all of the latter are Eurosceptic, but there are many Eurosceptics (such as myself) who don’t see themselves as part of the latter group. And I think there is a good section of the centre-left for whom Europhilia is just as much a totem. The issue really sits outside party lines, and apart from those who take sides on the issue out of party loyalty, I’ve found relatively little correlation between attitude to Europe and left/right on other matters. My girlfriend - a Labour Party member - is just as Eurosceptic as I am - though you have to press slightly different buttons to get her to foam at the mouth on the issue (anything to do with Jacques Chirac usually does it).
I agree with your point that by the time Blair took over the argument against the Bennites had been won, and I think where Cameron is now in regard to the Edward Leigh tendency is analagous to where Kinnock was about 1989. Hopefully he is moving in the right direction. That doesn’t mean that the next election will be 1992 all over again - history doesn’t work quite that neatly - but it does mean that Cameron has a lot more work to do no than Blair had in 1994. Much more groundowrk had been done for Blair.
Quite so, Cookie. If Labourites want to dismiss euroscepticism as the preserve of the ’swivel eyed loonies’ - well then they are dismissing the majority of the British people, and the majority of the electorate, as being lunatic and deranged.
Feel free to diss all your voters, Snowflake! They are welcome in the Tory party, where we don’t sneer at the common man’s concerns.
If anything, it is the europhiles who are now the peripheral weirdoes, the ones who show a touching faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster that is the EU. They have a religion and its shrine is in Brussels.
O/T, curious story about Blair’s son being hospitalised. One hopes the lad is OK.
Conservativehome just reminds me of Iain Duncan Smith. An irrelevence.
I see 3% of the YouGov sample think the Government *organised* the alleged conspiracy to blow up airlines. John Reid, Al Quaeda sleeper extraordinaire, eh?
78. Thanks for the reply, Blue2win.
what do you mean “discipline in some local parties”? Do you mean how those local associations behave regarding the leadership and CCHQ? Or their internal discipline (internal infightings,…)?
Re “better discipline in the Shadow Cabinet”…does it mean Dinky won’t be allowed to talk even again for fear he’ll say something bizarre?!
Cameron, looks like a winner to me.
Nevertheless when in conversation with people and he is mentioned, many comment they do`nt buy it yet,can`t quite believe it.If he has changed, what about the rest.
They are waiting to be convinced, this will be the next stage on the grid, I presume.
Yes John Smith was liked, and his unfortunate death reafirmed , that.
But the media and opposition were just starting to knock him in 94, I remember many programmes regarding what was happening in his constituency at the time.
Kinnock did a long time in opposition, he was considered an asset in 87, as the, party political broadcast showed.
However by 92, he was in many eyes a problem.
Cameron if in oppostion until 2014, would have a similar situation, so needs to win in 2009.
79. But Cameron isn’t making any attempt to take on the swivel-eyed group is he? He either ignores them (like Heffer) or tries to appease them (ComHome - by trying to placate them with scoops and cajoling articles). He doesn’t seem to have the nerve to come out and confront them and say flatly, I disagree with you and this is why.
Therefore no one is quite sure of his views - does he agree with Heffer but is maintaining a strategic silence so that he can change tack in govt and no one can say “but you said you disagreed with this”? Does he even realise he has a problem with the extreme right wing in his party? Is it that he doesn’t have the stomach for the fight? Or is it that he doesn’t really believe in anything and is therefore reluctant to publically say no to something in case it becomes expedient to say yes to it?
79. Cookie - it’s very gentlemanly of you, but why do you bother trying to have a civilised discourse with someone who obviously doesn’t want to have one with you?
‘The Mirror, Guardian and Indy are, of course, solidly against while it’s hard to see the Murdoch press coming on side. Even worse the presence of the joyless but powerful figure of Simon Heffer at the Daily Telegraph has made the party’s “house journal” almost hostile. This could have serious consequences.’
Mirror,Guardian no surprises there,whether it be Wilson,Callaghan,Foot or Blair their unstinting support is guaranteed.In terms of the so called Independent (an excellent example of misleading branding) ,whenever has it done what is says on the tin….be independent?
The hostilty in the Telegraph is almost exclusively from Simon Heffer,why would a UKIP supporter not be hostile to political opponents?
80. LOL. Europhiles are only peripheral in the Tory party. No govt had been elected on a Europhobic platform since the 70’s.
I particularly point you to the 2001 election when William Hague went round intoning “Two more weeks to save the pound”, “One more week to save the pound” - and the voting public showed him two fingers to him and his campaign about the pound. Euroscepticism ensures you defeat everytime, in Labour history as well as Tory. We are never going to leave the EU and the Tories won’t come to power till they accept this fact.
85 - Snowfalke the problem with your argument is their is not a group within the Conservative Party that is remotely equivalent to the Militant Tendency. No matter how much you wish their was.
Their are dissenting voices but they are more like the campaign group than Derek Hatton and his lot.
Interesting report at
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/publications/bp/state-of-britain-2006.pdf
89. So Max, they’re like the Bennites, but IMO weaker and less troublemaker than them in the early 80’s (you won’t see deselections all around the country or similar things that were happening in Labour’s 80’s)
Nick @ 82: Shhhh! Keep it down, we’ll have “truthseeker” here any second with his links from prisonplanet.
90. It seems that the effects of government’s policies in various fields tended to pick in correspondence of May 2005 GE.
why should people know the state of various issues (education/crime/etch) in foreign countries?
93 - Andrea I think they asked people living in those countries the same question and it’s a comparison with tha.
82 - That is unbelievable. You just have to hope that some people answering the surveys aren’t taking it entirely seriously!
The difference between the Left of the Labour Party, and the Right of the Conservative Party(whether economic Right, or social Right) is that the former were proved wrong by events. If Thatcher’s economic reforms had failed, then the Left would have retained their credibility, and been able to mount a convincing argument in favour of things like renationalisation. However unwillingly, the Left had to acknowledge that Thatcherite economics had reversed years of relative economic decline.
But there is almost no-one on the Right of the Conservative Party who thinks that either free market eocnomics has failed, or that eurosceptics or social conservatives have been proved wrong by events.
WRT the EU, I’d say the last two EU elections have shown what the public think about the EU. If a British government were to organise a referendum on withdrawal, there’s a good chance the electorate would vote in favour.
94. ops!
I thought they asked British people how is education in Italy!
I think I looked very silly and unintelligent!
76-Snowflakes
‘Has Cameron chased out the swivel-eyed euro-sceptic element of the Tory party (your equivalent of militant tendency)?’
With poll after poll showing the electorate against joining the Euro and the now defunct European constitution, the ’swivel-eyed-euro-sceptic’element would appear to be the majority of the electorate.
Afterall,as New Labour’s Guru proclaimed ‘you are either for something or against it’
96. Sean, Diane Abbott thinks the Left won the argument on social issues in the end. They lost it on economic matters though.
Not sure that ” the Left had to acknowledge that Thatcherite economics had reversed years of relative economic decline”, if you mean the Left of Labour Party, I think they don’t believe it yet. Here’s a piece by Kelvin Hopkins (MP for Luton North) where he actually criticizes Thatcher’s economic record.
http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/articles/0311/page2b.htm
98 - Speaking of swivel-eyed euro-sceptics - perhaps someone can remind me who came out with these gems:
Above all, the European Economic Community takes away Britain’s freedom to follow the sort of economic policies we need.’
‘We’ll negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs.’
‘On the day we remember the legend that St. George slayed a dragon to protect England, some would argue that there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe.’
96. In your opinion the right in your party isn’t wrong about anything? Perchance you are in this group? And it’s just a matter of the public seeing things the way you do?
That was what the far-left of Labour were saying. It’s easy to see the problem when it’s the opposition, but always harder to spot the same problem on your own side. Which is why New Labour were so exceptional.
If you don’t see the reason to change anything fundamental, what is the Cameron project really about? Presentation?
85 - I think he is, Snowflake. Simon Heffer could point to numerous examples of things he’s said to wind up the, er, traditional wing of the party. I think your point might be that he’s not taking on the Eurosceptics - which is true, and something that those who equate Euroscepticism with swivel-eyed lunacy want him to do. But I believe that it is possible to distance yourself from Edward leigh and Anne Winterton while maintaining a healthy scepticism over whether Europe can ever work.
To your subsequent point about the electoral appeal of Euroscepticism - yes, William Hague banged on ceaselessly about Europe - but again, it was a matter of overkill on one subject. Basing a whole campaign around one issue looks at best a little odd, and it was this oddness (exemplified by other things too) that did for them.
And yes, Eurosceptic parties have always lost - but up until relatively recently, the British public were Europhile. And then during the Major era, they had a choice of three Europhile parties or a few fringe ones. That’s changed now.
Max @ 95: It isn’t quite clear from the Telegraph, but the question who did it went to all respondents, not just those who thought there really was a plot. Hence those figures include the 6% of people who think there wasn’t a plot in the first place - unsurprisingly, those people disproportionately say if there was a plot it was by Blair or the US/Israeli governments.
Presumably these are people who think the whole thing was faked by the government, rather than people who think John Reid would go around blowing up planes. That said, there are some people with very strange ideas.
Snowflake. Yes, indeedy, the British public is solidly Europhile and happy to follow your slavish devotion to all things Bruxellois.
That’s why, of course, your leader Tony called those two referendums on the euro and the EU Constitution, secure in the knowledge that the pro-EU electorate would see him to victory and… er… uhm…
Whoops. No. That was in a parallel universe otherwise known as Loony Toons Snowflakeland.
Silly boy.
Nick, according to that Mori report:
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/publications/bp/state-of-britain-2006.pdf
A third of Labour supporters apparently dont want the Labour Government to be returned at the next election!!!!!
Does anyone have the Samaritain’s number for Nick?
98. john, if that’s the case, I dare you to fight the next election on a Withdrawal from Europe - if you are so sure everyone agrees with you, it’s no big risk, no?
85 Snowflake, what do you call forcing through reforms on candidate selection and insisting we will spend on public services and offer stability before tax cuts? What do you call the refusal to start new grammar schools (Personally I am a proponent of grammar schools). The posters on ConHome were clearly against the A list from day one but it did not stop Cameron doing what he felt to be right.
He simply makes policy whilst not deliberately alienating those who disagree.
63 - a Bentley was it Sean? Are you sure? Nice negative spin, almost worthy of ConservativeHome.
Snowflake5 — largely agree but I’m not sure the swivel-eyed europhobes are a larger problem for the Conservatives than the equally swivel-eyed europhiles. Surely Clarke and Hestletine were more influential than Taylor and Cash in preventing Major putting Europe to bed, and it was the blindly pro-Europe faction which led to us entering the ERM at the wrong rate (coincidentally almost destroying their party).
At least Bill Cash had actually read the Maastricht Treaty.
x06 - Snowflake - the UK cannot “withdraw from Europe”! It could however sensibly withdraw from the EU bureaucracy.
105: The graph from the MORI presentation comes from a question asking in this MORI poll (http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2006/mpm060612.shtml) in June.
99 Diane Abbott is partly correct. She’s right on issues of sexual freedom, wrong on issues like crime and immigration - where public opinion is moving rightward.
101 Obviously, no one is right about everything.
110. Well, why arn’t you fighting the election on withdrawing from the EU then, if you think it’s such a vote-winner? Why leave that territory to UKIP? Either you believe in what you are saying (in which case you’d fight the election on that basis), or you don’t.
112. yup, I think she hasn’t included crime and immigration. She was mainly talking about Labour Party and she wrote that the Left won arguments on “social issue; notably on race, women and gay rights”, but she conceded that they “comprehensively lost the arguments on economic policy” in the party.
Cameron’s weaknesses may be the same as Blair’s, ironically.
Neither seems particularly able to think on his feet (one reason Hague was so effective at PMQs) and both have a tendency to make policy on the hoof (or with a small coterie of West Wing-style policy wonks) leading to inattention to detail — whether to hug a hoodie or frogmarch them to the nearest cashpoint; EPP withdrawal or an unintended ban on making GP appointments more than two days in advance.
86 - Thank you Wag - But I’m sure Snowflake is interested in having a civilised debate. Any brusqueness in her manner I put down to the fact that she is attempting to have civilized discourses with at least three people at once here.
99. Diane herself has moved a long way towards the centre. That’s what I meant about the whole party shifting (even while players within the party maintained the relative gaps between them). Will the whole Tory party shift towards the centre, or will just one part make the move leaving the other part exactly where it is?
17 - Diane Abbot has moved towards the centre? Famously consensual, Diane Abbot is.
Completely O/T:
I was just reading this letter on Chase Me Ladies and I wondered whether our own Rik W (as Rob Wilson’s bag-carrier) ever got round to replying to this:
http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2006/01/berkshire-gateway-to-wiltshire.html
“Open letter to Rob Wilson MP, Member of Parliament for Reading East:
Dear Sir,
I was in your constituency last week and it was a right dump. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Only a poltroon would represent such a place.
My friend Kevin says that Reading was on our side during the war*. This is a preposterous argument. The war ended more than a hundred years ago. You can’t keep blaming the Germans every time something goes wrong. The world has moved on. Wake up!
And who is that retard with the stick who’s always banging on bins and howling in the shopping precinct? Is he a relation of yours? Why can’t you do something about him? He’s a flaming idiot. So is everyone else in your festering town, come to think of it. What a dog hole.
Yours faithfully,
H.J.Hutton (tax-payer)
* “Berkshire is strategically important,” he ranted. “It is the gateway to Wiltshire.” What absolute hogwash.”
18. She’s moved massively from where she was. Look back to the early Diane of the 80’s and compare with now. If she hadn’t been able to move, she wouldn’t have stayed on.
18,
She should move on educational policy, but bet she doesnt, typical politician, do as I say, not as I do.
Diane in the 80’s:
http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/3139172.jpg?v=1&c=MS_GINS&k=2&d=BEDFE2929D4DA765EC378A9A11A7861A
Diane in 2005:
http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/57368813.jpg?v=1&c=MS_GINS&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19390335F8FA9CA92A6B86B849396DFC9C2C7631F868A8C7D54
She should move more, because she has gained weight!
106-Snowflakes
‘john, if that’s the case, I dare you to fight the next election on a Withdrawal from Europe - if you are so sure everyone agrees with you, it’s no big risk, no?’
I would have hoped that at least you could have grasped the point that Euro-sceptic does not automatically = Withdrwal from Europe.
But with your black and white generalisations, presumably GB is a Euro-sceptic due to his rejection of the Euro?
Whats the minimum Cameron has to achieve in 2010.
Would been the largest party be enough.
A close defeat?
I know Heath and Kinnock were kept on after losing, but fear Cameron wouldn`t get the same slack.
123. The swivel-eyed eurosceptics in your party do want to leave the EU. And you were arguing against confronting them. If as you now say, you disagre with them, why won’t you tackle them and state categorically that Britain will never leave the EU?