The example that Obama sets for Cameron

David Lindsay

Whatever you think of community organisers, being a community organiser is a long way from being a Bullingdon Boy.

This is still no time for a novice.

Andy Leeds

Yes a good analysis. Brown is an arrogant man and I think he will ride into the swamp on his own account. The press needs to start and hammer home the point. Brown has messed up the economy in an alarming way. He has messed up the States finances to such an extent that it will take a generation to sort it out. The people need to be reminded of this fact day in and day out.

I still do not think that Brown can survive. The hate and loathing one hears when you mention Brown and New Labour is every bit as strong as that you heard in 1997 for the Conservatives.

jon dee

Your piece clearly spells out the need and strategy for exposing Browns disastrous financial management.
Browns grandstanding is receiving an undeserved legitimacy outside the UK and it is time his failures were nailed convincingly.
It is bad enough to suffer because of his incompetence but it is infuriating to see him brag about it.

Tiberius

You may well be right, Fraser, that the Obama template could propel the Tories to greater success, but, like some other commentators, you don't take into account the differences between the constituencies.

While the desire for economic well-being is common to both American and British voters, their respective culture and psychology are quite different. All Tory leaders since 1992 have been fighting the electorate rather than the Labour Party, a problem which neither McCain nor Obama have faced.

expat

Sir, an excellent article, and having been in business for many years, I always adopted the attitude of "if in doubt do nowt", watch your enemy let them think they have the upper hand and lull them into a false sense of security and then strike!!! I come from a long line of Tories and have just returned to my home town, which was bequeathed to my family in the 1200's. My forefathers were torie MPs and Mayors, and did many things for the good of this town, I cannot believe what has happened as this town is now regarded as a "working class success". This City, as it once was is Salford, yes, Ms Blears is moron that represents this City. Well, let me tell you I am on her case, I know where the bodies are buried, and I intend to make her life a living hell, and if I could rely on the press in this Country I could also shame this Government! If the people of this Country actually knew about all the deals that Blair struck during his time in office, they would certainly then begin to realise that all Government bodies do not run this Country. Sorry, just had to get a few things of mmy chest, but, I do intend in the near future to go rogue. But, who to turn to, that is the question?!!!!

oldtimer

I thought that the polling evidence reveals that most of the British public does hold the government responsible for the economic mess. Are you suggesting that if there was a general election that Brown would win? I don`t think so.

There is no easy or painless route out of the present economic crisis nor, I believe, is there one that can be forced by government. It is a cold turkey situation as debt is run down. Politicians who pretend there is an easy way out are charlatans.

Puncheon

The main difference is that Obama was much nearer an election that Cameron is. But nevertheless, the Conservatives have been a poor opposition. They always are, in my experience - they can't stick it up 'em Sir. They should be hammering at Brown one word "debt". They should keep on shouting - not something the well bred Tories are good at - that Brown has conned the British public into believing that they were wealthy when they weren't, and that the bills have started to come in and that you can't pay off debt with more debt. Brown is like a drunk in a bar waving a dud credit card, shouting "the drinks are on me". Practically everyone in the country knows this except Brown, it seems. So Cameron should point to the right path - lower taxes, particularly for the lower paid, and higher interest rates. He should ignore the ritual whining from the usual interest groups, eg the CBI and TUC for lower interest rates, and point out that dearer money will not only discourage dodgy indebtedness but also squeeze out lousy investment projects and badly run companies. That is the way to benefit from a recession, whereas the Government's approach will do just the opposite.

Short the UK

This is the best piece of real opposition to Gordon Brown - on YouTube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgwR1pA1k0&feature=related

The Tories are just pathetic. Do they still have Kirsty from Location, Location, Location, advising them on the property bubble?

Brook Whelan

Gordon Brown's 'no time for a novice' argument has been blown out of the water by the Obama victory.

It should also be pointed out that the plan to re-capitalise the banking system last month was not Gordon Brown's idea.

Rumour has it that Gordon Brown was not convinced about the re-capitalisation plan, and was only persuaded at the last minute by one of his Downing Street advisers to go along with it.

There is no way Gordon Brown should be taking credit for the re-capitalisation plan.

Fraser Nelson

Tiberius, I agree with you. The US drama is so addictive there is a temptation to exaggerate the potential for transferrable lessons. There are a few fundamental martial principles that hold good, tho.

oldtimer, Brown would lose - but the task isnt just to beat him. He doesnt matter on a personal basis. The real mission is to defeat the disastrous policies that he championed, and to start to repair the damage he has done particularly in his legacy of welfare ghettoes. The Tories must realise and start shouting about the scale of Brown's error.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, you say that as opposition politicians "The Tories have failed abjectly." and unarguably so.

Then you say,, "He (Cameron) and Osborne have been dismal in the last month and I suspect they are level headed enough to know it. The questions asked today show they are finally sniffing out the right issues."

Finally, Fraser, FINALLY sniffing out the right issues. Just how long have your precious pair been sniffing? Is it 3 days? 3 weeks? 3 months? or is it indeed 3 years that these two who you so consistently peddle as political geniuses have been sniffing to find the right opposition formula.

What's even worse though, Fraser, is that neither you nor we can be sure they would stick to the right line even if they found it.

All it would need would be a focus group from Metropolitan Man, a cough by Polly or an harumph by Humphrys and they'd be scurrying back to their Blue Labour comfort home quicker than you could say Max Clifford.

What we've all got to hope for is that the US Republicans don't emulate the the British Tories by over-reacting to their defeat and become yet another social democrat party.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius - "All Tory leaders since 1992 have been fighting the electorate rather than the Labour Party ....."

A typically Tiberian piece of sohistry if you don't mind my saying so.

Much of the debate on this website is as you well know centred on the Tory performance as an opposition and inevitably this invites comprison with Labour's performance as an opposition post 1992.

It is an essential part of being an opposition to provide a prism through which voters view the opposing party and this Labour did brilliantly especially after the Blair/Brown/Mandelson/Campbell takeover.

Even on becoming the government in 1997 New Labour continued to be intent on pursuing their course of defining the Tories in a manner which made them unelectable. In short they continued to not only to treat the Tories as an enemy of the Labour Party but to represent them too as an enemy of the British people themselves. Loathe them as we all may do, it was brilliant politics.

That the Tory party has been seen as fighting the electorate is due largely to the genius of the Labour Leadership (with the complicity of a goodly chunk of the media) in their representation of the Tory "enemy."

The failure of successive Tory Leaderships, but especially this one when Labour have so dismally failed in office, has been not only to counter the Labour portrayal but their seeming inability to respond by fully alerting the British public to just what a bunch of rotten, corrupt, incompetent, lying shysters this Labour Government really is.

Tiberius

Now that is a new line, TGF, that the election of Cameron as leader is an overreaction to three successive and very heavy electoral defeats under three different leaders.

Ian C

Most pertinently Fraser you say "Obama had both a critique, and a powerful alternative plan in his “tax cut” message. It became his answer for everything."

But this is precisely the sort of confidence trick that Obama, and politicians of the past 40 years, have wrought on those who voted for them - luckily only a small majority on this occasion. In all other economies where tax cuts have been election-leading strategies, government has still grown bigger by other means. It is merely a device to get elected and that is all it is good for without democracies understanding that 'government is the problem' not tax in isolation.

Obama's "tax cut for 95%" are no more nor less than Gordon Brown's tax credits. If, as we know, GB is very much part of the cause of the mistakes of the past decade or more, then Obama is simply signing up to more of those mistakes as the Democratic Party of the past 15 years has done. If he is allowed to work this con into reality he will have begun to knowingly kill incentive in the American economy - something that will be utterly disastrous for the world economy, let alone for the American, and will simply accelerate the transfer to the Asian consumer and producer the role of mainstay of world economics. As communists dominate that continent, this is the ultimate irony, especially as Obama claims to want to protect America from a transfer of jobs.

Why Fraser, do you show respect for Obama's achievement without warning, now, about this the real historical significance in the election of 2008? My eternal criticism of politicians and those who comment on them are only interested in the next five minutes – because that is the electoral cycle. It is the death of freedom and democracy and means that you, and they, make a living from tittle-tattle and lightweight sound-biteable issues, not the real hard issues of the world. The democratic cycle and the press and politicians that go with it are killing Democracy and the real importance of Government.

Tiberius

TGF: I don't agree with your interpretation of the politics up to 1997.

Labour joined in with an electorate already at war with the Tories. It did not invite the electorate to join it in its crusade to wipe them out as an electoral force. It didn't need to.

We have the ERM fiasco, David Mellor, Tim Yeo, Aitken, Archer, Hamilton, Teddy Taylor, Teresa Gorman, and Bill Cash to thank for this, as well as John Major's public persona. That the economy improved immensely from 1992 to 1997 was completely ignored.

This suicidal self-indulgence is what has knobbled all the subsequent leaders.

Labour have been lucky lucky, all the more so as just about everything they have done in government since 1997 has been a failure.

Puncheon

Tiberius - I agree with most of your analysis, but you leave out the biggest villain of the piece - Michael Heseltine. He systematically undermined John Major in a way that played right into the hands of Mandelson and Campbell. He was the most self-destructive Tory politician of his age, and had nothing to offer but his own over-weaning desire to be PM.

seb

Why not apportion some of the blame for the mess we're in where it belongs; with an electorate that was happy to indulge in binge-borrowing. Of course, a sycophantic media [i.e. the bought and sold Murdoch papers and broadcasting outlets] helped. I think it was The Spectator that, over a year ago, reported the unofficial Tory view of Brown as being 'we can't touch him'. Brown has been the worst chancellor the UK has ever had, but it's not just the mainstream media that's hidden this fact. It also requires quite a few million voters who neither understand the remotest thing about debt and solvency nor wish to.

Puncheon

Seb - I agree. But it seems the profligate were right, since the political class and the media are conniving at stealing from savers to bail them out.