While Fraser Nelson says that Boris is doing the right thing and James Forsyth is pleased with the progress of the Davis campaign, public and media popularity seems to be moving away from David Cameron. To be frank, one full year after Gordon Brown ascended unchallenged to No 10, you’d have thought he’d have more to say to us. At his monthly press conference today, Cameron had little of interest to shout from the rafters, and seemed to be doing an unfortunate impression of a duck, diving behind his podium for water every minute or so.
Janet Daley’s article in the Telegraph today goes so far as to suggest that the Tory turn-around has little to do David Cameron:
So now for the second myth of the past year: that the success of the Cameron Conservatives is attributable to the great modernising project in which they “detoxified the Conservative brand” and “reinvented the party’s image”. (Or is it “reinvented the brand” and “detoxified the image”? Whatever.) Let’s get one historical fact absolutely straight. What transformed the party’s standing and turned the opinion polls on their heads was George Osborne’s announcement at the last party conference that the next Conservative government would cut inheritance tax.
While I’m not so sure that 6 months of sustained growth in popularity can be attributed solely to a single policy statement, Daley’s remarks reflect a growing media narrative. The sustained media interest in Cameron’s Conservatives over the last year seemed to be paying off relatively well, and with that kind of popular momentum, you would think David Cameron now has an unprecedented opportunity to seize the talking ground and give us positive reasons to Go Blue. Alas, we have seen no such thing as yet – and the chinks in the armour are starting to show.
In a direct comparison with David Davis and his ‘principled stand’ on one side, and Boris Johnson with his affirmative action on the other, David Cameron is gradually beginning to look a poor cat in an adage as he struggles to fend off those who wish to ‘stick the knife in’ to Brown.
Janet Daley needs to get her ‘historical facts’ straight. If Brown had called for an election after the conference it is widely accepted that Labour would have won, perhaps with a reduced majority. The best the Conservatives could have hoped for at the time was a hung parliament.
The whole point of the Tory conference, more specifically the key speeches from Osborne and Cameron, was to exploit Brown’s weakness for dithering. At the time, the last thing Cameron wanted was an election and the Inheritance Tax proposal was a well-played gimmick for one purpose only.
Brown duly obliged them on the election, and forced Darling to burn rubber on Inheritance Tax. Then the polls started turning towards both Cameron and the Tories.
The Eton Toff/Bullingdon Club mantras did create a question in people’s minds as to whether Cameron was capable of understanding us, the common voter. The Crewe and Nantwich voters gave one answer – Cameron’s background is not as important as getting Brown out. Boris’s victory had more to do with targeting the areas where people wanted Ken out.
I don’t believe the doubts over Cameron and Boris have been dashed entirely. To some extent, Cameron’s future may depend on David Davis and Boris and how ‘us’ and the media perceive the duo’s future conduct.
Tizzy
June 25, 2008 at 4:51 pm