Moore: Cameron is the best Tory opposition leader since Disraeli

Grumpy Old Man

How many GE's did Dizzy lose?

TGF UKIP

Clearly, James, you have not had a close look at the waffling green apology for a serious Tory energy "policy." Partly because of the EU Emissions Directive but also because so many of the existing coal and nuclear generating plants are on their last legs we are going headlong into a full blown lights out energy crisis. Nowhere do the Tories even mention this let alone begin to address it.

The only plants currently on the stocks are gas fired and presumably Polly Clark intends to continue with the insane "dash for gas" policy. An idiocy which not only puts us more than ever at the mercy of the Russians etc but is guaranteed to make future electricity even more expensive than Swampy Dave's daft green policies will.

As for your beloved Tories heading for "a comfortable election win", well I guess as a fanzine hack you would have to say that. A more objective view might well be, though, that given the Tories Mr Whippy soft poll lead, a change of Labour Leader or a Galvanized Gordon and the Tory lead melts immediately to 5-7% and no majority.

In any case, James, even if by some miracle your hero did win by sleepwalking the electorate to victory he would have no mandate for the reasons set out by your mate Moore above.

David

They may be right on the NHS. A successful reform of the education system on Swedish lines may, for example, help comfort the electorate that NHS reform along similar lines will not be disastrous to universal healthcare provision.

As an aside, the fact that human rights is in quotation marks is rather poor.

Paul

Those who say the Tories have no policies should remember Tony Blair and "tough on crime...", "24 hours to save the NHS" "Education, education, education" - what meaningless drivel that turned out to be!

FredrikI

He lost the 1868 and 1880 elections....

Jeremy

"Charles Moore pays David Cameron quite a compliment in his Telegraph column today, calling him the most skilful Tory leader of the opposition since Disraeli."

That is high praise indeed, although I don't think that Dave has yet delivered his "row of exhausted volcanoes" moment - you know, the one line that sums up the entire government and simultaneously tips it into the dustbin of history. One lives in hope...

But I do think that Dave is basically good and brave. He has also worked like a Trojan and has therebye earned his victory. But I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said (and I wish that I had the quotation to hand, but I do not) that you cannot guarantee success, you can only deserve it. The Tories must ensure that they deserve success. And this is as much about the way they conduct themselves as it is about the substance of what they have to say.

I am prepared to give Dave the benefit of the doubt on the policy front - for the simple reason that whatever firm policies the Tories announce, Labour will jump up fifteen minutes later and say they are going to do the same thing. It's horrible and deceitful but that, it would appear, is how politics is done. So I think that Dave is right to keep 'em guessing for as long as possible about what he will actually do in office.

I also think that in the light of Gary McKinnon's case Mr Moore is right to raise "...our relations with America..." The Act which enables the American government to pluck British citizens from their country at will must be rescinded. I cannot emphasise this point too strongly, because fundamentally it is about our national sovereignty and our national independence. It is also about the duty of the British government to protect the citizens of this country from purloin and molestation by a foreign power.

"The Tory agenda for NHS reform seems depressingly limited..."

I would agree with James in that I don't think the Tory Party - of all parties - should shy away from reforming Sacred Cows where reform is necessary. Wasn't it Tennyson who wrote: "That man's the true conservative who lops the moulder'd branch away..." Again, I don't have the quotation to hand, but you will probably already be familiar with it...

I also wish that you had chosen a better picture of Disraeli. In the National Portrait Gallery there is a really good etching of him in his youth. He cuts a colourful and romantic figure. He must have been a remarkable presence in British politics. And to think that he was leader of the Tory party...*grins*

Steve.W

Looking at the pic of Disraeli I'd not realised how much the Bullingdon Club had 'modernised' its uniform over the years, so I say well done!

Richard Manns

@ TGF UKIP

Don't worry; Dave's toughening up, and most of the incoming Tory PPCs are ardent Thatcherites. We'll be OK and Philip Hammond is looking like Tebbit Mk II.

Simon

Were you even alive in 1979? What pompous drivel.

Giles Smedley

Perhaps it is because Sunny Jim was an honest man, whereas Brown is known to contort such lies about the Tories. I suspect the vagueness is intentional.

Jim

I think it's interesting that Moore doesn't call him a conservative, which he isn't.
As long as Cameron goes along with this global warming garbage our economy will be destroyed, just as if we'd left Gorgon Brown in charge.

Verity

Jim, Cameron will go along with the 'global warming' garbage because it serves his ends: His ticket for the First Class compartment to Brussels. Toot! Toot!

drakes drum

This blog proves that nobody knows just who Cameron is? What he stands for and just what he will do if his party is elected to govern the Country.

OTS I have just read that Brown is considering a referendum, on changes to the electoral system, on the same day as a general election.

I hope the Conservatives will shout to the heavens of the sheer hypocrisy of Brown. No promised referendum on the EU but a referendum nobody asked for!

Typical Brown.

Rhoda Klapp

Disraeli has a place in history. Cameron may turn out to be no more than a flim-flam man, he has done nothing of note in his political life. Come back in twenty years and we'll see, but I reckon Ben's legacy will be rather more than Dave's.

Dominic

Rule one in sales is to persuade your prospective customer to say one word. That word is 'yes'.

The electorate is just starting to say 'yes' to the Conservatives. Take a look at the polls.

Now that we're at that stage, it is safe for them to start 'selling' their policies to us.

And guess what? That's exactly what they're doing. Vide Ken Clarke on taxes, Phil Hammond on cuts.

JONNY

'Cameron may turn out to be no more than a flim-flam man'

Methinks I hear the gurgle of water gulping and the crunch of teeth gnashing as yet another bitter Cameron pill slithers down the throat.

Mike Crowley

Let's all be patient until the Tory party conference in October.
Time then to flesh out policies a bit.

I just wish Dave would win the election this week and by a landside. He just needs to state that since all parties promised a referendum before EU constition was ratified, he will not recognise it until after our referendum, whatever the position re Ireland etc.

Mike Crowley

Verity

Mike Crowley - Cameron "just needs to state ...". And I just need a million pounds. Have you not noted how slyly Cameron is avoiding this, the most important issue to our national sovereignty since WWII? Have you not noted the vigour with which he avoids mention of the R word? How he slithers all around it and refuses to confront it, this the most critical issue to our future as an independent country? Like Blair, Cameron is using Britain as a vehicle for personal advancement in the EUSSR.

Jeremy

Simon:

"Were you even alive in 1979?"

...don't you mean 1879?

Oscar

In his four roller coaster years as leader of the opposition David Cameron has proved the doubters wrong over and over again, yet still they whinge and sneer. This man is going to win the next GE and be one of this country's great PMs. But no doubt this will only provoke Verity and TGF UKIP to more flights of prejudiced put-downs. Strikes me the more successful Cam is they more they attack him. I wonder why?

Jeremy

James,

I wish that contributors to this thread had said more about Disraeli - I was hoping to learn something. But they seem to have spoken about everything except Disraeli.

Re-reading my own post again, I think that one of the points I didn't quite make was this:

I like Dave's delivery at the despatch box. He's very punchy and energetic and is almost always worth watching. But he also speaks - as you would expect - in a contemporary idiom. I have never heard him attain the heights of devastating wit that Disraeli could. But then I don't think that people today appreciate wit. Firstly, most of 'em mistake it for sarcasm, which it ain't. Secondly, it inspires the envy of those who cannot attain it themselves - and this provokes them to anger and abuse. And thirdly, people tend to take it literally, without even realising that a joke has been made. This is a very sad state of affairs. Traditionally, this country's native wit has been second to none. But today, it appears, people are too earnest and too flat-headed to any longer appreciate or understand it. That, I fear, is simply the way things are. So perhaps wit of the Disraelian calibre would no longer be appreciated, understood or even welcome in our political discourse.

It is the nation's loss.

Ian C

Comparing a 21stC leader with a 19thC one is like comparing Donald Bradman and Steve Waugh as batsmen. That they were both great and excellent in their time, is all that can be said without subjective dispute.

Cameron, on balance has done well - especially given the resources he started with. The Labour Party (the Blair/Brown 'relationship and Brown's coronation) have made his job much easier than it looked like it would be in the aftermath of the 2005 election when Cameron emerged. A 66 seat majority put victory within range of a good leader.

It is worth noting what Martin Ivens has said in today's S/Times:

"Rummaging through Gallup’s guide to British political opinion, I see that in 1978, at an equivalent stage of the game before a general election, Labour was ahead of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives both in August and October. It was only Jim Callaghan’s dithering over an election and the strikes of the winter of discontent that gave the Tories a secure lead before a May 1979 polling day."

And she had committed to nothing specific, as has been called for here, ad nauseam, by some, other than outlining a clear direction through her speech in September '78. Even that had not closed the deal as well as as Cameron seems to be close to doing now. But Brown has proved to be a greater disaster than Wilson/Callaghan.

Time for many of you to stop carping on the side lines and write to the Shadow Ministers with what you see as their feeblenesses on policy.

James,
In your selection for future 'players', you could be onto a loser. He is
my target for getting at as he is heading for big trouble if he remotely follows Labour's, Europe's and Obama's stupidity on energy.

Kirsty

Calm down, Moore never compares DC to Disraeli, the only comparison is with Maggie as a opposition leader. I think a more interesting comparison would be DC and Tony Blair as opposition leaders.

Rosie

Jeremy - in your words about wit you seem to have forgotten William Hague, who can be quite brilliantly witty (and not sarcastic) - try listening to his words in the H of C on 'Blair for President of Europe' which is, I think, still available on Guido Fawkes's blog for the 16 of July. It's wonderful!

Jeremy

Rosie:

"Jeremy - in your words about wit you seem to have forgotten William Hague, who can be quite brilliantly witty (and not sarcastic) - try listening to his words in the H of C on 'Blair for President of Europe' which is, I think, still available on Guido Fawkes's blog for the 16 of July. It's wonderful!"

Thanks for that! It raised a smile on what has otherwise been a very grey day...

William Hague does a good job of illustrating just what a nightmare a Blair presidency of Europe would be. The words "self-seeking and self-serving ambition" must both begin and end with that man.

Had we been given the promised vote on the Lisbon treaty, this absurd monster would not be in the process of being created at all. And that, of course, is why we were not given a vote on it...

Jeremy

Kirsty:

"Calm down, Moore never compares DC to Disraeli, the only comparison is with Maggie as a opposition leader."

Kirsty, you very nearly threw me off-balance with that remark, so I went back and read Charles Moore's piece for myself. This is the relevant paragraph:

"Being Leader of the Opposition is notoriously the most difficult job in British politics. David Cameron has done it for nearly four years with a parliamentary party 30 per cent smaller than that which Margaret Thatcher led from 1975 to 1979. Judging strictly in terms of political management, I would say that he has so far been more successful than she. In fact, he must be the most skilful Tory opposition leader since Disraeli."

So James did not misrepresent what Mr Moore has written.

Verity

Jeremy writes: "James, I wish that contributors to this thread had said more about Disraeli - I was hoping to learn something. But they seem to have spoken about everything except Disraeli."

TOP HINT: Look Disraeli up on the internet.

Verity

Oscar writes: Strikes me the more successful Cam is they more they attack him. I wonder why?

Perhaps because your definition of "success" is "loser"?

And as to the newly ubiquitous Jeremy, as a troll you are too obvious. Too vivid, darling. In our faces. Every minute. Busy.

Nice to see David Cameron's camp is getting exercised though, darling.

And why does Rosie say that William Hague is not sarcastic? Why the hell shouldn't he be sarcastic?

Is wit a NuLabour crime? Given that no one on their benches can produce it? "Margaret Beckett wittily responded ..."... Hmmm doesn't work. Ed Balls wittily responded "SO WHAT?" Hmmmmm ....

The Conservatives are not better under the plodding-witted Dave. He can't respond. He can only do set pieces.

Jeremy

I think the operative term in what Charles Moore has written is "skilful" - it is going to require a skilful leader to get us out of our current predicaments. I hope that Dave is that man, but I'm not altogether convinced of it...