One of the worst aspects of modern day political leadership must surely be the need to go and be ritually humiliated by television debate audiences. You have to give a wan little smile at the voluble English Literature student who spends ages asking her incoherent and roundabout question, only to finish her inestimable waffle with an accusation that you are the terrible waffler. You have to listen to the grumpy man who wants to know why you need trade agreements when you've got amazon and ebay. People who have read a couple of Express front pages suddenly become the interlocutary experts you have to politely respond to. Lose your rag and you become vilified forever. Stand there and respond with reason, to often unreasoned questions, and you just look like a wimp and everyone can proclaim that the wonderfully well informed audience sorted you out. It's an unwelcome gig, but it's a cost of democratic leadership.
David Cameron is, as one commentator has put it this morning, an old trouper in this regard and he kept his cool while under fire from the audience at last night's Sky News debate, responding passionately yet reasonably, and staying on what was a relatively clear message throughout. Whatever you say about Cameron's aloofness, his rarefied upbringing or his isolation from the lifestyles of most ordinary people, you have to respect the fact that he does these amongst the people things well. He engages, I don't think he patronises, and he really does try and explain his stances. Most of us would lose it early on, if we even had the patience to go through with such a process.
Where Cameron was genuinely on the ropes, however, was at the beginning, at the hands of an experienced political observer and interviewer, Sky's Faisal Islam. Still relatively new to his position as Sky's political editor, there seems to be a general agreement that he emerged with his reputation enhanced. Tenacious, appropriately aggressive and with a nice ability to use humour to puncture his subject, he looks as if he might be able to fill a Paxman-esque void in political interviewing (though still behind the current past master, Andrew Neill).
It was Islam's question about immigration, and specifically Cameron's oft-quoted pledge on limiting immigration, that gave the Prime Minister the most trouble. Not surprisingly either. It's a pledge he hasn't met, and can't meet. Whatever other points I might want to disregard from the shrill and constantly whinging Leave campaign, the one about his pledge undermining trust in politicians hits home.
Pledge breaking is the worst thing a politician can do, which is why it is concerning that they seem so free with making them. Cameron's old coalition buddy Nick Clegg fell the same way with his broken pledge on tuition fees. I'm surprised Cameron got caught by this. Feeling pressurised from the right, worried about the inroads made by immigration-hating UKIP, he allowed himself to appease their cries with an impossible pledge. Now he's paying the price, and it's a pity because in many ways Cameron is a reasonable man, a pragmatic political leader and a man who can give politics a sheen of authoritative respectability. An ill thought out pledge, a short-term response to a difficult and intractable problem, has undone him.
David Cameron tried to present an honest case about continuing membership of the EU to his studio audience last night. The easy accusation of a non-listening young audience member that he was "waffling" wasn't actually true. The pity of it was that he hasn't been as honest about the EU and about wider problems - notably immigration - before. Truly, politicians who frame their dialogue in the transient window of 24 hour news and social media find that ignoring the long view can have dire consequences.
Category Archives: David Cameron
Lessons for Cameron from Denis Healey’s "Greatness"
David Cameron could be forgiven if he enters the Tory Conference week thinking about his place in history. This, after all, is a man who doesn’t have to win another election, since he’s given himself a final term firewall against any future electoral catastrophes. Not only that, but he’s been able to witness Big Bad Jezza Corbyn’s utter catastrophe of a party conference over the past week, with possibly only a few hours off to mull over the deteriorating quality of western foreign policy (currently sub-contracted out to the country formerly known as the Soviet Union).Corbyn is a delight in many ways. He’s not quite as different as a party leader as some hopefuls are suggesting, admittedly. George Lansbury and Michael Foot were also bizarre lefty true-believers with a lofty disdain for practical politics, and both proved electorally disastrous for the Labour party, albeit from a better intellectual vantage point than the fuzzy minded Corbyn. But Corbyn is the first of that mould to appear in the age of constant media, and his disdain for the “media commentariat”, coupled with his notoriously badly structured, dull black holes of speeches have all gone to contribute to the carefully spun image of a man who is “authentic”.
Corbyn’s conference was a sheer joy for David Cameron. The Labour leader’s select-a-policy style, and his refusal – or inability – to have his shadow cabinet speaking from anything like a single song-sheet, must all be making the current leasee of No. 10 Downing Street giddy with the prospects of his future greatness. And Cameron has to think about his future greatness as he has no more general elections to win.
What he does have, though, is a referendum to win and if he is to finally rest on the front bench of Great Tory Leaders (Andrew Roberts examines the competition in this piece for the Spectator this week) he will need to ensure that he persuades the country – and much of his own party – to stay in Europe. Whatever the Euro-sceptics say, Cameron doesn’t see leaving Europe as much of a triumph for his avowedly internationalist approach.
Musing on possible future greatness might have led Cameron to read more carefully the obituaries of Denis Healey this weekend. Whether great or not – there is plenty of scope for debate – Healey was one of the best known politicians of his era. He was an early example of the “celebrity” politician who could probably be recognised by the average don’t-care-about-politics-they’re-all-liars voter in the street. Bushy eyebrows may have helped, and the fact that he was thus easily caricatured by the greatest performing impressionist of his day, Mike Yarwood, but Healey was also well known because he was trenchant. He rarely expressed modest views and wasn’t shy about condemning his opponents. His reference to Geoffrey Howe having all the savagery of a dead sheep in his parliamentary attacks has been well recorded. Less often noted, and more scathing, was his outraged condemnation of Margaret Thatcher as a prime minister who “gloried in slaughter” during the Falklands War.
The problem for Denis Healey – who has received universally positive obituaries – is that his greatest achievement was born out of disaster. As Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer during the awful 70s he had to advise a recalcitrant party that the days of ambitious spending were over. He began – in the teeth of massive Labour opposition – a sharp programme of austerity. It was forced upon him by the fact that he was the first – and to date the only – Chancellor to ask for a loan from the IMF to tide the tanking British economy over.
I doubt that, when he entered politics after a heroic military career during World War II, Healey envisaged his claim to greatness resting on such a terrible reversal of fortunes. He spent the rest of his active political career trying to persuade the Labour lefties of the need for responsible policies and a need to appeal to centrist voters. He failed in this.
A One Nation PM and his Thatcherite Cabinet
Take the early appointments. Michael Gove at Justice, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Defence's Michael Fallon - all have articulated routinely Thatcherite positions. Hammond, who favours leaving the EU, is probably the most euro-sceptic of modern Tory foreign secretaries. Gove is a Thatcherite radical par excellence, delighting in challenging and doing battle with public sector institutions and relishing confrontation over emollience. Michael Fallon cut his teeth as a Thatcherite junior minister in earlier administrations. Iain Duncan Smith has been a radical and right-wing reformer of welfare for the past five years, and won the Conservative leadership as a definably Thatcherite candidate who had led backbench rebellions over Europe.
Then we have Chris Grayling. He may not be running a department any more, but his post as Leader of the Commons owes much to his right-wing credentials and the belief that he is well placed to act as a conduit between the all important right-wing and activist backbench MPs and the government.
Theresa May was once the party chairman who described the Tories as "the nasty party" (or at any rate accurately saw that that was the widely held perception), but she has also been a vigorous Home Secretary taking on the vested interests of the police and pursuing an approach that would have set well in Thatcher's governments - better than the late PMs own largely centrist Home Secretaries.
And then consider the newcomers. John Whittingdale, whose only previous government role has been as private secretary to Mrs Thatcher herself, and who can be counted the most "BBC sceptic" Culture Secretary to hold the post. Right-wingers who believe in the virtues of free market foreign ownership - especially Rupert Murdoch's - over home-funded media will be delighting in Mr. Whittingdale's appointment. Sajid Javid at Business and Priti Patel, who attends cabinet, are also among the more Thatcherite of the Tory Party's MPs, hence their frequent trumpeting by conservative commentators. (And able as they are, I do wish we could stop hearing about their parents' struggles as if somehow they were the experience of the children).
In contrast, there are no cheerleaders for One Nation Conservatism in the cabinet. Moderate ministers such as Nicky Morgan and Amber Rudd mark a more emollient conservatism than most of their cabinet colleagues, but that in itself hardly stands as a vigorous and articulate proposition for One Nation Conservatism.
Finally, where stands the most important member of the cabinet after Cameron himself? George Osborne is a strategist of skill, and has been a largely canny Chancellor in his pursuit of austerity, but just enough. His actual political view is difficult to define. He's no One Nationer, but he is also no clearly fixed Thatcherite either. Like his friend the Prime Minister, he is an arch pragmatist, seeking office for a party which prides competence over ideology - a very traditional Conservative approach.
So how seriously should we take Mr. Cameron's One Nation protestations? To some extent, his Thatcherite cabinet has a degree of inevitability about it. His new appointments have been made with competence and effectiveness as much in mind as any desire to appeal to a noisy right-wing backbench dominance. Javid and Patel not only represent a welcome diversity, but more importantly have reached their posts on the basis of their obvious ability and - particularly in Ms Patel's case - appeal as people who can speak human. Whittingdale has more experience of dealing with and inspecting issues relating to culture, media and sport than any other MP. To bring his experience into cabinet was a fine move. Fallon and Hammond are intelligent men who have only been in their offices for a year or so and have been making clear marks in running them - keeping them in place was redolent of Cameron's praise-worthy desire for government to have continuity of ability and experience.
Mr. Cameron's Thatcherite cabinet thus reflects the reality of modern Tory politics. The Lady's legacy was a whole generation of activists who shared her ideology and who have now matured into the upper ranks of government. It's not so much that David Cameron wouldn't want to appoint One Nation ministers. It's just that Ken Clarke's departure marked the end of that particular beast. If the Prime Minister really is a One Nation Conservative, then we will see the consequences of that in another decade or two. Just as Thatcher governed with plenty of Tory lefties but still imposed her signature on it, so Mr. Cameron may be able to do so in reverse, whilst still utilising the abilities of a pretty first-rank cabinet. The Tories, though they don't know it yet, may be in for another gradual transition.
Cameron – not as good a phony as Blair?
David Cameron has discovered passion, ten days before the election. It does, admittedly, come a day after a couple of big-time Tory donors criticised the Prime Minister for being lacklustre and uninspired. As such, Mr. Cameron's passion has been treated rather cynically by the hacks, as this run-down of tweets indicates. One of the Tory donors in question has now rather degradingly withdrawn all of his criticism and described himself as a "nobody" but Cameron's attempt to inject passion still seems redolent of what Spectator columnist Isabel Hardman calls his "essay crisis" style of leadership.
The problem is that Mr. Cameron is no great actor, and his pumped-up performance, containing such gems as the revelation that he feels "bloody lively" about the election, really doesn't convince. He has managed to enter Ed Miliband's equally cringe-worthy "Hell, yes" territory and in straying away from his actual persona he risks the same level of ridicule. Perhaps in such a close election, with no-one being able to identify the election grail, we should be a little forgiving of politicians under pressure, and that would include Mr. Cameron's football "brain fade" as well.
Cameron recently implied he was a West Ham fan (perhaps a little influenced by the fact that his small business ambassador and letter-writing supporter, Karren Brady, is currently vice-chairman of the club). This is at odds with his earlier stated support for Aston Villa, which itself was at odds with his one-time expression of utter disinterest in football at all. The fact is, rather like his "bloody lively" attitude, Cameron's football fan pitch doesn't really convince. In this, as in much else, he appears to be following the lead of that other public-school educated fan of the working man's game, Tony Blair. Blair, though, was a far more accomplished phony, as this illuminating and rather contemptuous article from the Economist suggests.
Perhaps we should be pleased that Cameron is not a very good phony, but it would be even better if he just felt comfortable showing us the real him. He's not too difficult to discover, and his interview in this week's Economist gets rather closer to understanding his essentially pragmatic approach to governing than his pumped-up stump speech.
The problem is that Mr. Cameron is no great actor, and his pumped-up performance, containing such gems as the revelation that he feels "bloody lively" about the election, really doesn't convince. He has managed to enter Ed Miliband's equally cringe-worthy "Hell, yes" territory and in straying away from his actual persona he risks the same level of ridicule. Perhaps in such a close election, with no-one being able to identify the election grail, we should be a little forgiving of politicians under pressure, and that would include Mr. Cameron's football "brain fade" as well.
Cameron recently implied he was a West Ham fan (perhaps a little influenced by the fact that his small business ambassador and letter-writing supporter, Karren Brady, is currently vice-chairman of the club). This is at odds with his earlier stated support for Aston Villa, which itself was at odds with his one-time expression of utter disinterest in football at all. The fact is, rather like his "bloody lively" attitude, Cameron's football fan pitch doesn't really convince. In this, as in much else, he appears to be following the lead of that other public-school educated fan of the working man's game, Tony Blair. Blair, though, was a far more accomplished phony, as this illuminating and rather contemptuous article from the Economist suggests.
Perhaps we should be pleased that Cameron is not a very good phony, but it would be even better if he just felt comfortable showing us the real him. He's not too difficult to discover, and his interview in this week's Economist gets rather closer to understanding his essentially pragmatic approach to governing than his pumped-up stump speech.
When Toryism moves right….
Lynton Crosby's general campaign advice for the right-wing politicians he expensively manages generally seems to be to tack right, and then right again, until you've out-manouevred anyone else who might be coming from that direction. It seemed to work in Australia for John Howard. It didn't work for Michael Howard in Britain in 2005. And the jury is obviously out on its impact on David Cameron's campaign in 2015.
Mind you, there used to be a time when the Conservative Party didn't see tacking right as a useful or honourable tactic. This was a party that held a variety of centre-right views together - including, yes, some of the 'ultras' - but believed firmly in its national position as a "One Nation" party, needing to look beyond its own borders for support and affirmation. It was a party that understood the welfare state, tapped in to the aspirations of lower income earners whilst maintaining their safety net, and vigorously challenged any onset of incipient racism that might come up, especially under the guise of "immigration reform". To his credit, one of Michael Howard's finest blasts came in his searing attack on the BNP. It was always a great shame that this fundamentally decent man allowed his campaign to be defined by posters of the inflammatory nature as the "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" kind. If you want an inkling of what this Tory Party used to sound like, give Michael Heseltine's piece in today's Mail a read. It is a full and wholesome put-down of Nigel Farage's race-meddling and brooks no thought of dealing with such a man, likening him to a less intelligent version of Enoch Powell, another politician at ease with the far right.
The vigour of the Heseltine attack on Mr Farage is all the more satisfying for the weak-minded, feeble appraoch shown by the Conservative Party's actual leader, David Cameron. He seems to have embraced the Crosby mantra of not annoying UKIP supporters, and as such has successfully conveyed - yet again - an image of flaccid, unprincipled, short-termist leadership.
If you want a sharp and unforgiving assessment of the Cameron mode of leadership, read Nick Cohen in the Observer. I know Cohen is no conservative, but he is a clear-headed commentator on politics who gives no quarter in his honest assessments of both right and left. His condemnations of Cameron are given greater force because they ring so true. He compares his approach to that of Angela Merkel, who denounced the anti-Muslim protestors in Dresden in no uncertain terms as having "prejudice, hatred and coldness in their hearts". Try listening for anything even remotely similar from Cameron about UKIP and you'll end up getting your ears tested.
Cohen also - rightly - mocks the Tory choice of candidate to challenge Nigel Farage in South Thanet as an attempt to simply provide Faragism without Farage. Might as well have thrown in their lot with Farage from the word go.
If the modern Tory Party really can't attack a man who openly plays with racist ideas, no matter how cunningly phrased, then it does need to start asking why it is even in business. Time used to be that we knew what broad-mindedness differentiated the Tory Party from fringe right-wing groups. It looks as if that time is no more, and the UK is the loser.
Mind you, there used to be a time when the Conservative Party didn't see tacking right as a useful or honourable tactic. This was a party that held a variety of centre-right views together - including, yes, some of the 'ultras' - but believed firmly in its national position as a "One Nation" party, needing to look beyond its own borders for support and affirmation. It was a party that understood the welfare state, tapped in to the aspirations of lower income earners whilst maintaining their safety net, and vigorously challenged any onset of incipient racism that might come up, especially under the guise of "immigration reform". To his credit, one of Michael Howard's finest blasts came in his searing attack on the BNP. It was always a great shame that this fundamentally decent man allowed his campaign to be defined by posters of the inflammatory nature as the "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" kind. If you want an inkling of what this Tory Party used to sound like, give Michael Heseltine's piece in today's Mail a read. It is a full and wholesome put-down of Nigel Farage's race-meddling and brooks no thought of dealing with such a man, likening him to a less intelligent version of Enoch Powell, another politician at ease with the far right.
The vigour of the Heseltine attack on Mr Farage is all the more satisfying for the weak-minded, feeble appraoch shown by the Conservative Party's actual leader, David Cameron. He seems to have embraced the Crosby mantra of not annoying UKIP supporters, and as such has successfully conveyed - yet again - an image of flaccid, unprincipled, short-termist leadership.
If you want a sharp and unforgiving assessment of the Cameron mode of leadership, read Nick Cohen in the Observer. I know Cohen is no conservative, but he is a clear-headed commentator on politics who gives no quarter in his honest assessments of both right and left. His condemnations of Cameron are given greater force because they ring so true. He compares his approach to that of Angela Merkel, who denounced the anti-Muslim protestors in Dresden in no uncertain terms as having "prejudice, hatred and coldness in their hearts". Try listening for anything even remotely similar from Cameron about UKIP and you'll end up getting your ears tested.
Cohen also - rightly - mocks the Tory choice of candidate to challenge Nigel Farage in South Thanet as an attempt to simply provide Faragism without Farage. Might as well have thrown in their lot with Farage from the word go.
If the modern Tory Party really can't attack a man who openly plays with racist ideas, no matter how cunningly phrased, then it does need to start asking why it is even in business. Time used to be that we knew what broad-mindedness differentiated the Tory Party from fringe right-wing groups. It looks as if that time is no more, and the UK is the loser.