Tensions in the Cameron circle over election strategy

Tanuki

The idea of casting Cameron as a kind-of Obama deeply horrifies me.
Obama's a charismatic-but-superficial 'leader' - all rhetoric and no nukes.

Rather than such flim-flammery, the UK needs someone who doesn't mess about with grandstanding speeches and 'strutting the world-stage' nonsense - rather, we need someone who knows how to wield a chainsaw without worrying about the screams of the public-sector zombies he's cutting into.

Alas, I really don't think Cameron is the Conservatives' Reagan or Thatcher in this respect.

Ken

"Then James was mentioned in a Tara Hamilton-Miller piece in the Telegraph later that month about ‘How cool are David Cameron’s Conservatives?’ which led to a certain amount of snipping"

Should that have been sniping???

wrinkled weasel

Fascinating as this is, it all sounds like an argument over product placing. This is not McCann Erickson, this is UKPLC we are talking about, a Nation, a Heritage, a once very influential power.

I am not naive. Obviously this sort of thing works, but if Cameron had a few big ideas, a sense of passion, some kind of philosophical underpinning that was as obvious as, for example, "Thatcherism", you might not need to spend squillions on ex-patriot PR Men.

Lola

Oh gawd. I am really fed up with this. (a) you are reporting this 'spat', which is a pain in itself. If it is a spat, then I am totally fed up with such behaviour by governments and politicals. By all means have constructive disagreement, but other wise just bloody well grow up.

TGF UKIP

Well James, at least you're not afraid of actually mentioning The Mekon as the Dear Editor and your colleagues appear to be. What is frankly mystifying though is why you and your brother hacks accord him such regard and respect.

If he truly was the political and marketing genius he clearly wishes to be considered to be, the Cameron Tories would not now be struggling to achieve a miserable and inadequate 10% poll lead against Britain's worst ever government.

To underline the extent of his failure and his inadequacy for the role granted to him by his close mate Dave, I would just ask you to imagine the lead the Tories would have now if it had been Mandelson who had been playing his cards.

The ridiculous fact of the matter is that in December 2005 the poor old Tory Party was conned into handing over its future to three callow, shallow, politically inexperienced thirty somethings and it will pay the electoral price for its collective stupidity in a few months time.

jon dee

" While Osborne thinks that the Tories need to have more of a retail offer, things to sell on the doorstep."

This is what many are waiting for, leave the heady rhetoric on Obama's autocues. By all means be visionary, its change we need, but please lets be told what you are going to do, in refreshingly frank language.

Labours lies and spin have sickened so many, so nows the time for honesty, remembering that the PM's brown-nosing of Obama has been an embarassing failure.

Minnie Ovens

Show me yet another style "visionary" instead of a person with specific and substantial objectives and I will show you someone from whom I, and many others, will run screaming.
Not when we are in a heavily leaking and directionless boat with the water up to the nostrils.
How dumb can you get or is it that Notting Hill has not yet seen or felt what is happening; oblivious to the sounds of ordinary people (core Tories) getting very, very, pissed off indeed.

Woody

I hope Osborne wins this one because I think he is much underated. He may not be the best television performer but if you look back at his speeches he has pretty much called it right.
We don't need a second 'Obama lightweight' talking about all this vision tosh. What people want to hear on the doorsteps is how we are going to get this country back on track i.e. youth unemployment, immigration etc.

strapworld

I have said time and again Cameron is no leader and this proves it!

How many 'advisers' did Maggie have? I think at the last count it was, none!

Cameron IS Blair. An empty barrel who has to be told which way to face and what to say. How did the Tory party pick this false prophet?

He should decide that if he cannot do the job on his own and with his cabinet, he should get out now before the job finishes both him and the Tory party.

Isn't it all so childish? I agree totally with wrinkled weasel

Naomi Muse

Shame if that's what's going on. Thought the discussion between John Major and Shirley Williams would be a very good tack for the opposition parties.

Excellent handling of the issues on Iraq, voting bias and MP's expenses etc., and a good bit of common sense that would be best for both Lib Dem and Tory candidates to ape.

After all, they have been there before, and not only spoke sense but have seen much of this before.

After the election there should be a purge of advisors, especially those who issue 'puff'. It won't happen before as Gordo relies on it for his daily red herring sound bites.

old fogey

Change, change,yet more change..what an unimaginative and shallow slogan. Haven't we had enough change over the last twenty or thirty years or so; this is frankly not the country I was born into, and I feel that a period of conservation would be better than change. Of course a change of government is an absolute priority, but if the best that Cameron can do, in the face of an out of control government that picks our pocket with one hand and with the other keeps thumping us in the privates, is to run up the banner for change, then we will mostly be putting our crosses down for UKIP or BNP.

Snowman

Obama may be all those things Tanuki says he is, but the guy’s smart. His weighing up Cameron as lightweight fits.

The Conservative strategy before the election should be charmingly simple: Say as little as possible, but make the right noises about cuts and belt tightening so as not to frighten those on the state payroll. He needs them. Come up with resonant policies in areas that unite the country, burghers in both the private as well as public domains: on global warming (let’s have a look at the science once more, and let’s go for adapting to rather than fighting it, if it’s coming); on crime (all power to the householders, punishment that inflicts pain rather than the pap of redo this or that); on immigration (let’s stop it for a couple of years, and sort out what we have here); and on Europe (enough’s enough).

If he were to pick all four in the spirit of the suggestions he would be a shoe-in, I reckon.

Verity

I am astonished that anyone can believe, against all the evidence, that there is any hunger for Cameron in the country.

Correspondence columns in the political blogs in The Telegraph, for example, demonstrate that Cameron is actively disliked and is chasing voters into the arms of UKIP (which I think is no bad thing) and the BNP, which I also think is no bad thing because it signals to Tory high command (if the high command bothers to decipher the signals) that the voters don't like and don't trust Cameron.

In fact, they should have picked up on this message a year ago and appointed someone more likely to lead them to victory, rather than continuously trying to hammer the square of the Cameron peg into a round hole.

Mr Hilton and Mr Pickles: You may like David Cameron. But the voters don't, and they are looking around for a Tory facsimile to vote for. He should have been given the shove two years ago.

Many, like me, hated him from the git-go when he ordered a warm round of applause for Blair in the HoC. Ordering a round of applause in the HoC was outrageous, and in the service of praising a mountebank and destructive little rat like Blair, positively arcane.

He then endorsed his misreading of the devastating harm Blair had done to the country, and of public mood by declaring himself "the heir to Blair".

Good grief!

PAUL GILBOY

I have just watched Ben Bradshaw’s response to David Cameron’s speech stating that labour have helped the country through the worse recession since the 1930’s. This is a bit rich considering that labours policies have left the U.K in the biggest down turn since the 1930’s; whilst every other major country not run by labour have got out of their down turn.

No doubt Mr Brown will produce reams and reams of statistics to show that we are sailing ahead under labour whilst David Cameron will steers us to the rocks. That would be entertaining if we were not already on them.

What ever Mr Brown and the labour apparatchiks say the rest of us can see reality and their own heroic achievements are all confined to their own minds.

THX1138

Well Fraser obviously didn't get an invite Sam & Dave's intimate New Years Eve dinner party in Oxfordshire.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/659526/David-Camerons-speech-yesterday-was-vapid-nonsense-says-Fraser-Nelson.html?

I wonder if old Dave mate Matt D took time off from writing his film script to attend?

B. Day

It is startling that a few months before a General Election we have a Tory party unable to agree on where it stands and what it will present to the British public as a robust and tangible alternative to Labour, with backroom urchins running the 'brand' machine.

Am I alone in seeing the Tories throw away this election? I don't believe the British public yet supports David Cameron in the way they swung behind Blair in 1997 and it this kind of vapid nonsense, coupled with his awful speech today that only confirms my belief that the man is not up nor ever has been, beyond the spin.

General Zod

"The ridiculous fact of the matter is that in December 2005 the poor old Tory Party was conned into handing over its future to three callow, shallow, politically inexperienced thirty somethings and it will pay the electoral price for its collective stupidity in a few months time."

Ha!

What is ridiculous is that after three election losses, the latter two as a result of pandering to the core vote, people like you cling to the belief that continuing with that strategy would have resulted in victory this time.

To do so would result in what would otherwise be impossible - a Brown election victory.

THX1138

You lot are out of touch "Twitter" loved it

http://search.tweetminster.co.uk/?q=cameron

Frank P

Apparently Cameron intends to invite the 'leaders of the opposition parties' to sit on the War Cabinet should he win the election.

Hmm. I was rather hoping that if, by default, the 'Tories' win the next election, there would be no effective opposition for a very long time, just as we have experienced for the past 12 years - but with the boot on the other foot.

Can't we just line-up the outgoing cabal of treasonous conspirators (if indeed the welfare dependant electorate chooses to 'outgo' them - by no means certain, imho) against the wall of the Citadel on the day of the Queen's Birthday Parade and have a contingent from the Brigade of Guards shoot the the whole feckin'lot of 'em, as the Band of The Royal Marines plays Colonel Bogey, followed by Beyond Dull Care as their rancid carcasses are removed in a City of Westminster shit-cart. Pour encourager les autres - bien sūr.

I would advise against calling for volunteers for the firing squad though, as HM might get injured in the stampede of Squaddies eager to fulfil their patriotic duty - and it would frighten the horses, too.

Get a grip Dave, FFS! You're not another hopey-changey-reachy-outey twat, are you, using the Alinsky Rules for Revolution as a guide? Haven't you been watching what's been happening o'er t' pond? The games up over there. Fuggedabadit!

Amadeus Plonquer

So Cameron is no longer Heir to Blair. Now he's Obama Mark 2. He's replaced one empty suit, used car salesman with another. That's progress?

Britain doesn't need 'change'. In fact, after 13 years of Gordon Brown that's all we have. Change. Small change.

Where's all the money gone?

Diane C - London

Once again Cameron lost a golden opportunity to express his rage at the damage Brown and his incompetent cohorts have done to this country. And at the unmitigated mess he expects to uncover once he reaches Downing Street? Why is he so measured and "plastic" all the time? Where is the outrage and the fury the rest of us feel when considering the past 12 (almost 13) years?

Old fogey2

Yep. When I hear the word "vote for change" or "modern" or "progress" or any of the other vacuous slogans I reach for my beer can. I really despise politicians who think they can gain my unquestioning support with patronising "non" ideas. The architects of the current Conservative campaign strategy are beneath contempt.

Geoff Miller

The tension is over how the Tories can win power from Labour without having to address the issues that REALLY concern the British people - mass immigration, Islamic jihad, NHS/Educational failings, the corrupting Human Rights legislation, EU interference and loss of democratic representation, personal/national debt, job losses, the collapse of manufacturing, crime, food/energy/national security, multiculturalism, community breakdown and so on.

If just one Party stood up for the British people and their concerns they would do very well.

Unfortunately it looks like only the BNP is willing to do so.

Tiberius

Of course one would not expect members of the Tory High Command to hold differing opinions on direction.

Such a failing should only be expected in board meetings, marriages, and new mothers' coffee mornings. Oh and New Labour post Granita.

jason

Over at conservative home it is being reported by a trusted source that this whole story is total rubbish. Brown will stay in power in a hung parliament and he and lib dems will change the voting system. Brown it has been reported will be passing legislation to ensure changing the voting system within 18 months.

It is well past time for conservatives to stop aiming their fire at Cameron and aim it at Brown. Enough is enough already. Perfection has become the enemy of good. If Cameron doesn't get a majority lib dems and labour will join together to change the voting system. That should be motivation enough to defeat Brown.

The shadow home secretary wants to do away with this immigration fake college scam. Good conservative policies are proposed all the time but these purists only focus on the bad. Conservatives will be making a historic mistake by allowing labour and lib dems to join forces in a hung parliament and change the voting system.

Harry T.

"I am astonished that anyone can believe, against all the evidence, that there is any hunger for Cameron in the country."

There doesn't appear to be any great enthusiasm for Dave outside of his inner circle or his socially exclusive monstrous regiment of prospective wannabes. His incumbent backbenchers are keen to retain their own seats, salary and privileges but are somewhat lukewarm about the prospect of an outright Tory victory.

Fraser is going to have a tough job trying to stir up some election fever.

THX1138

Introducing the Steve Hilton Award for Progressive Gobbledegook

http://www.nextleft.org/2010/01/introducing-steve-hilton-award-for.html

Strange bed fellows CH commentors & Sunder Katwala from Fabian Society. Oh isn't the GE going to be fun.

Vulture

Politicians have always had backroom boys to whisper wise words into their shellikes. Examples include Col. House to Woody Wilson; Harry Hopkins to FDR; Prof. Lindemann to Churchill. Even Thatcher had them - eg. Alan Walters.

The difference with today is that these people were experienced, self-effacing, and they were used and discarded by the politicians at will. Today the advisers have become the puppeteers pulling the strings of clueless nitwits like Bliar and his heir Dave.

And the tragedy is that - at least in Hilton's case - the man is a) not a Tory
b) not experienced in anything except PR
and b) communicates his half-arsed 'ideas'in garbled Californian
bollox-speak. The only thing going for him is that he has the idiotic Dave in his pocket.

The Camerloons on this site are going to be in for an almighty shock if by a miracle the Tories scrape in on a tidal wave of vomit by voters disgusted with Liebour and their man manages to become Prime Minister.

He doesn't know how to govern and he's going to make an almighty f**k up. We can all see it coming. Relying on the crazed Hilton will make it far, far worse. At least Ali Campbell knew how the Media worked. Hilton doesn't even know that.

lawrence greek

Cameron can SHOW us he is the change we need by TELLING US WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO. Obama - for crying out loud, what a load of nonsense. I want the Tories to win but this kind of crap is really testing my patience.

JONNY

Sorry Vulture but
the most recent Ipsos-Mori showed satisfaction with Cameron among Tory Supporters at a record 78%
If you smoked a pipe sir, I'd advise you go stick that up it.

JONNY

Seems to be a psychological problem here.
So many of the more dinosaur posters seem to still harbour a masochistic need to be handbagged by La Thatcher (however ancient she be).
Hence their loathing of Cameron (not shared however by 78% of Tory supporters).
Some of us prefer the lighter touch of a Cameron to that truly ghastly domineering woman.

Minnie Ovens

It might be best if, instead of continuously talking about the success of Mr Hilton's new image for Mr Cameron, that we concentrate upon why the Labour part seem to sit immoveably on 30% and the Conservatives only seem to move between 8% and 16% when Brown opens his mouth.
There seems, therefore, to be a reasonable assumption to be made that Mr Cameron's image has less to do with tinkering by "style" gurus and more to the fact that many people are sick and tired of what Blair and Brown have done to this country and which Brown, in his sociopathic manner, seems intent on continuing.
If we are going to see the publishing of a Conservative Manifesto on Monday, it will be interesting to see how the how much style we have over substance in it and its effect on ongoing polls.
From a personal point of view I have held the same opinion of Mr Cameron since he became leader.
"Where's the beef?"

Nicholas

Tory tensions, blah blah. Cameron lightweight blah blah. Politics as puerile soap opera. Politics as puerile relationship ishoos between party and party, party and media, blah blah.

Find another record to play. Perhaps even do some proper investigative journalism into why another 5 years of New Labour would be a disastrous end game for the Britain we once knew.

But no, much easier to gossip and speculate or whinge about Cameron's shortcomings whilst the national socialists rub their hands in glee behind the smokescreen.

JONNY

Exactly Nicholas.
And it remains a fair point exactly what motivated the Gadarene Swine?
Because I detect the same suicidal gravitational forces that wrecked Major 1995-7 now at work again.
Using quite often foul-mouthed epithets of adolescent abuse, to badmouth Cameron and give us 5 more years of Labour.
Did I say 5?
After a Brown PR deal with the Lib-Dems the Tories will never see the light of day again.
Such stupid stupid blindness.

John Richardson

Jonny.

Are you saying that you honestly belive that, '78% of Tory supporters' figure ?

Perhaps it is inaccurate, or more likly shows just how many ex-Tories there are, thanks mostly to Dave.
Preparing to not vote Tory for the first time in their lives.

Ghengis

Andrew Marr had Brown spluttering and stammering this morning simply by mentioning a few facts, perhaps our Dave is relying upon the same during live TV debate. Though I would prefer Dave to represent the anger of the electorate a little more obviously.

Lucy Jones

Ok, so some of you might not like Cameron.
Face facts:
1. There is no way he is going to be replaced between now and the next General Election. It's just not gonna happen.
2. Ukip/BNP are not going to win the next election.
3. If you don't vote for Cameron, then you may as well vote for Brown.
A fourth term of New Labour... is that what you really want?
Is Cameron really that bad?

JONNY

Check back a few days on PB and read it for yourself John Richardson.
Learn to get out of the narrow shell of your own bias.

Irene

Looks like Mandy is stirring again.

John Richardson

'Jonny'

I cast no aspersions, I just wondered if you actually accepted the 78% figure.
Seems a tad high.
However, you chose not to respond but to insult me [...narrow shell of...bias]. Honest, I don't mind but it seems unmanly to anonymously throw insults around in cyberspace.
What's the point ?
You know the sort of thing : neanderthal; reactionary; narrow minder; racist; Euro-phobe; homo-phobe;
Hardly meaningful.
I think DC is a traitor to both GB and the party he took over. I could obviously explain & expand and I do not regard that as an insult rather an assessment based upon his pronouncements.

So, do you personally accept that 'a record 78% of Conservatives' honestly are happy with Dave ?

John Richardson

Lucy Jones.

Your first two points are unarguable.
However, I would suggest we are in new (post war) territory regarding the two party duopoly of power.
Do Lab. really want Brown to squeeze into power ?
I detect some Con.and Lab. party elements would not mind losing the next Gen. Elec.
What's to be gained from being seen to impose cuts that will take at least ten years to bear fruit re investment and production ?
The British debt crisis is potentially terminal and no party wants to be associated with the pain it will cause in time (repossessions for example).
I doubt either Lab/Con will go more than a few months (12-18) before another Gen. Elect. is called.
No 10 could be a poisoned chalice for a while.

Do you want the Con.s to be tasked with clearing up Lab.'s mess ?
Can you imagine how the BBC would love to report on 'More Deep Painful Tory Cuts Announced; A Panorama Special'.

John Richardson

Lucy Jones.

Your first two points are unarguable.
However, I would suggest we are in new (post war) territory regarding the two party duopoly of power.
Do Lab. really want Brown to squeeze into power ?
I detect some Con.and Lab. party elements would not mind losing the next Gen. Elec.
What's to be gained from being seen to impose cuts that will take at least ten years to bear fruit re investment and production ?
The British debt crisis is potentially terminal and no party wants to be associated with the pain it will cause in time (repossessions for example).
I doubt either Lab/Con will go more than a few months (12-18) before another Gen. Elect. is called.
No 10 could be a poisoned chalice for a while.

Do you want the Con.s to be tasked with clearing up Lab.'s mess ?
Can you imagine how the BBC would love to report on 'More Deep Painful Tory Cuts Announced; A Panorama Special'.

Ex-Tory voter

Vision, PR, style, lack of substance, presentation ... all reasons why I won't be voting Conservative. I distrusted Blair because of all those things (and how right I was!) no matter how poor the last Conservative administration became, so while I've still got my marbles there is no way I'm buying that sort of spin! I've endured 12 years of Labour's record on that dross, so the last thing I want is more of the same!

Dorothy Wilson

Lucy Jones: Well said. You are absolutely right.

Nicholas

Ex-Tory voter: " I've endured 12 years of Labour's record on that dross, so the last thing I want is more of the same!"

And that's exactly what you'll get by not voting Tory. A vote for any party other than Tory will effectively be a vote for Labour.

In any case you clearly need to read Cameron's speeches with a bit more care. Forget Cameron, the Tories are our only hope for liberation.