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Expose this phoney nowRoy Hattersley (for The
Guardian) October 9, 2006
If
Labour continues to pussyfoot around the Tory leader, it will live to
regret it at election time
The Labour leadership has not, as boxing commentators would put it, laid a glove on David Cameron. There is no doubt why. They have not struck a blow in his direction. If, to change the sporting metaphor, the government had decided that the leader of the opposition should be given a year to play himself in, the behaviour of ministers would not have been much different. Cameron is clearly hypnotised by Tony Blair. But Blair and his closest confidantes seem to be mesmerised by Cameron. Gordon Brown, who received his biggest conference cheer when he spoke about relishing the fight ahead, cannot lead the party into battle. That would look as if he took the succession for granted. The chancellor has to act humble for the next six months. Meanwhile, Cameron dispenses sunshine without anybody pointing out that he is selling snake oil. This is, after all, the same David Cameron who masterminded the Tory's 2005 manifesto - a particularly unpleasant prospectus for government on which Michael Howard based a campaign with clear racist overtones and the obvious purpose of exploiting the politics of resentment, envy and fear. If Cameron was only the nominal author of that document and allowed illiberal ideas with which he did not agree to be peddled in his name, he is too weak to be prime minister. If he actually believed in the Conservative appeal to the lowest common denominator of the British character, his claim to occupy the middle ground of politics is simply hypocritical. Somebody towards the top of Labour's high command needs to ask him which reputation he prefers. Cameron might answer the question with the claim that he has changed his entire political philosophy during the past 18 months. Nobody would believe him. On the evidence, he has not even changed his policies. The rhetoric has been altered out of all recognition. But his faithful troops in the constituencies are being reassured that when the natural order of things is restored, and the Tories are back in power, all the hugging of "hoodies", endorsing same-sex unions and increasing support for lone parents will be put aside. Tax cuts will take precedence over social investment. The paradox of Cameron's position is that while the Conservative party does not take his speeches at face value, the Labour party does. The result is politically ridiculous. Polls suggest that a majority of voters, when asked to choose between Tory and Labour health policy prefer the Conservative alternative - even though the opposition has made clear that it has no policy and does not intend to produce one until much nearer the election. All that Cameron has to offer is the bedside manner of a Harley Street plastic surgeon. He can make everything more beautiful. Put your life in his hands. Why does no politician of importance say that the bill will be in the post when the operation is over? Labour will remain a semi-paralysed force until a new leader is in place. But that is only part of the problem. There is a real feeling in the higher echelons of the party that while Cameron goes on being conspicuously nice, Labour cannot be overtly nasty. No one seems to have noticed that he has contracted out the dirty work by encouraging his followers to make sustained personal attacks on the chancellor. Personal unpleasantness would certainly be a mistake. Nobody, for example, should emulate George Osborne by calling a member of the shadow cabinet autistic. But that does not mean the government should shy away from subjecting the record and conduct of the leader of the opposition to the most rigorous scrutiny. If Labour does not soon go on to the attack, Tory strategy will have worked. The government cannot assume that its record will, alone, be enough to guarantee re-election. It has done much of which it can be proud. Cameron has been forced to pay lip service to support for a universal health service, high levels of public expenditure and non-selective secondary education. In these particulars, Labour has changed the political weather. But electors become bored, and the attractions of the superficial and the meretricious should not be underrated. Labour needs to look new and fresh. But it also needs to expose Cameron as a phoney - a convert to whatever postures provide him with the best chance of winning in 2009. David Cameron is “very bright” but the Conservative leader ‘lacks life experience’ and is essentially a ‘PR guy,’ Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul has declared. According to two press reports, Mr Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, revealed the intimate relations he enjoys not only with Cameron, but also Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Upon visiting Downing Street, he expressed his frustration at having to always fix separate meetings with the current Prime Minister and his most likely successor, the current chancellor. Without doing so, Mr Murdoch said suspicions would arise that he was plotting with one behind the other’s back, though with the media tycoon’s schedule this is ‘sometimes very inconvenient.’ The revelations will officially surface later today, with the UK publication of John Cassidy’s interview with Mr Murdoch for New Yorker magazine. The interview is expected to reveal that Tony Blair has become a “lame duck” since declaring he would not serve a full third term, while Brown may be to much of a “micro-manager” to be PM. Meanwhile, despite the Tory effort to court Mr Murdoch, the owner of The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, the party’s front-man is branded a PR obsessive. “He's charming, he's very bright and he behaves as if he doesn't believe in anything other than trying to construct what he believes will be the right public image,' Mr Murdoch said. He adds that the former communications chief for Carlton is essentially a ‘PR guy’ who has no real experience of life outside politics, other than working in TV. Of Messrs Blair and Brown, Mr Murdoch is expected to have said: “When you're invited by the Prime Minister to have a cup of tea, you have a cup of tea. It's sometimes very inconvenient - if you're only there two days and you have a month's work to do. And you have to be careful to have a cup of tea with them both, or they are very suspicious that you are lining up with the other one.” See also The PM the mogul and the secret agenda Was David Cameron guilty of male rape? 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