Don't take the voters for fools, Mr Cameron

Frank P

FMG! Fraser; you seem to have at last assimilated some of the vitriol your commentariat has been pumping at you since you took over as Editor. Osmosis is a foine t'ing, Sor!

Did you spend the 'festive' period having a pair transplanted;, or is it that your newly extended family has woken you up to the fact that we need a leader to stop the rampant rot of the last 12 years and restore the nation's pride, its sovereignty and its financial stability so that your children can look forward to a future where Britain's once proud heritage in celebrated rather than derided?

As DC is now apparently using O'Barmy as a paradigm I suggest you click over to American Digest and read our friend James Lewis's wonderfully sardonic piece today to summarise the first year of Hopey-Changey's rap sheet. It might inspire you to offer some more advice to Dave about the dangers of following the beat of Chicagoan political thuggery, finely honed corruption and the Long March.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/history_is_knocking_for_obama.html

So little time, so much to do ... beware the Ides of March!

Publius

Good post, Mr Nelson. But when so many even of the Speccie journos seem to be locked into the lefty rhetorical trap, how can you expect the voters to think clearly? There is no truth being spoken (or, in lefty-speak, no "alternative narrative") -- as you rightly identify.

Bravo for listening carefully. I'm afraid my blather alert warned me early on that Cameron was talking pap, and I just tuned out thereafter.

As for details, I'm not sure. When I put myself into the hands of a surgeon, I don't want to hear which scapel goes where, or which tube gets inserted into which hole. I want to get the feeling that I am in the good, competent hands of someone who understands the problem and knows how best to sort it out.

Frank P

Btw; just in case DC needs some pointers on keeping our nation safe from terrorism, Mark Steyn has some advice on what to avoid in this wonderful piece:

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/president-226640-states-system.html

DavidDP

Herein lies the difference between journalists and politicians. One needs to get elected, the other doesn't.

Prodicus

Dave should heed this.

Brown has heeded Mandy (for now... possibly) and changed his mantra to 'aspire' - daylight theft of a Tory slogan. (He never lacked chutzpah.)

Converging theme-convergence is a voter-confuser. It can become a vote killer (which is why Dave needs to worry about articles like this one as battle commences). Brown will use it as easily as he used dividing lines. Anything - anything - to stay in power.

The Budget will be the biggie. If it happens. If there is no sudden 'emergency' to prevent it. (Anything - anything - to stay in power.) If we get a Brown Budget it will be a brazenly dishonest, interim, Healey-esque pip-squeaker to whip up enough energy for the charge into the Valley of Death. Apart from that, Brown will try to make the Tories look as vanilla as possible to capture the Oh-What's-The-Bloody-Point? vote.

Never underestimate your enemy's cunning. Or Brown's ruthless unscrupulousness.

Anything - anything - to stay in power. HMQ may yet have to prise Brown's cold, dead fingers off her Seals with her nail file.

Alfred T Mahan

Cameron and his clique seem to be utterly incapable of independent thinking outside the box. It really is very depressing - they have been behind public opinion at every stage of his leadership, on every important policy area except schools. Climate change, the NHS, the economy, you name it - they have followed conventional centrist wisdom (so-called!).

The irony is that it's only Gove's education reforms, where they have had the courage to adopt fresh thinking, that have captured the public imagination. There's a lesson there, but Cameron hasn't learnt it. It's very depressing and doesn't give any indication at all that he has the inner intellectual self-confidence required to lead through difficult times.

JONNY

Time you came clean Frank P and tell us who your wonder leader is going to be.
Then boyo Frankie Boy we'll h

strapworld

This is the Nelson we want! Someone with the guts to tell Cameron what an empty vessel he is.

The sad truth is that following the general election this country may well be saddled with a Cameron Government. A Government with a man at the helm who has no idea of leadership, who is controlled by Hilton and others, who listens to Maude and Letwin etc. A man without any moral purpose whatsoever.
I believe Cameron's political epitaph will be:-
"They told him it was a job that couldn't be done, But he took the job that couldn't be done. He rolled up his sleeves and found....he couldn't do it"

The Tory Party will have an entry in Wikipedia to show that it was wound up in 2012!

Mr Nelson. Please keep this up, Direct your staff to show their writing venom at this empty, PR dominated man Cameron. The Country cannot afford to have another BlairBrown mix!

JohnW

But voters are fools. Every single Labour government has ended in economic disaster and they voted them in again in '97. You'd have think they'd learn but the don't

They choice this time around is tired old labour socialism or a slightly bluer version.

At a time we need a Thatcher, we get Blair-lite.

Short the UK

Maybe Cammie is not hard enough? What kind of fighter is he? Brown is a dirty fighter! Is Cammie a bare knuckle fighter, a martial artisit, a samurai, a pacifist?

I personally think he should be a bare knuckle fighter. He should land clean, hard punches. Be orthodox.

He should take up boxing lessons as a fitness regime, he needs to change his mindset. Spin doctors are full of bull***. But he is the heir to Blair - I spit on his name!!!

JONNY

Quite evidently quite a few Tory fossiled dinosaurs on show here
are relishing the prospect of 5 more years of Gord.

Dorothy Wilson

The message the conservative should be putting over is actually quite simple. If you want economic Realism you should vote Conservative. If you want economic Delusion you should vote Labour. Unfortunately, if you make the second choice the Realism is going to hit pretty quickly and will be even harder.

Vulture

I've always thought that Fraser is one of the more clued-up members of the commentariat ( unlike his unlamented predecessor).

Now the penny is dropping. Fraser's ten point critique can be summarised thus:
Dave is an empty bag of fart gas with zilch experience; no ideas; no principles; and no willpower. Had he been elected in 1997 like his idol Bliar he might have coasted for a while without being rumbled. But harder times have exposed him for what he is: an out-of-touch smoothie who doesn't know what to do.

We are up sxxt creek with a vengeance and we need a competent ferryman to paddle us out again. Not a nitwit whose only nautical accomplishment is whistling the Eton Boating Song.

teledu

Well said Fraser.
I can't speak for the MSM, but the average guy I meet in the pub is bloody angry with Brown and his party; they want that anger reflected by a potential new PM. Cameron needs to sharpen his claws, attack Brown with venom and mock his lies and statistical disingenuity. Instead he comes across as another Blair-like snake-oil salesman. The county's angry DC; reflect that. Show some balls.

oldtimer

He won`t win with waffle.

He will need simple words and short sentences. The words they know down at the pub. Or at those pubs still sround. It will need to be clear and to the point.

This is just the first shot. So I will wait and see what else he has to say. I like the idea of publishing the manifesto one shapter at a time. The last, 2005, manifesto had some good ideas in it. But no one had a clue what they were. If, as he says, it is time for change, he needs to spell out the changes in words of one syllable.

If the Sun is really on his side, they can show him how it is done.

Victor Southern

Don't take your readers for fools, Mr. Nelson. You may win the adoration of such as Vulture when you adopt this Heffer-ish line but a majority in this country know that Labour must go.

You ought by now to have learned that any incoming government must be wary not to make itself a hostage to promises that cannot be fulfilled. Ideas that looked good only two years back like cutting taxes and IHT are no longer feasible because of the maladroit handling of out finances by Brown.

In September 2007 Cameron pledged Lisbon Treaty. At that moment he anticipated an autumn General Election. Two years down the line and the treaty has been ratified. He is still pilloried even by such as Denis MacShane as well as Mandelson, Campbell, Brown - the very group he hurtled us into Lisbon. That cry is taken up by the Right of the Right - common cause between opposites!

You know full well, Mr. Nelson, that politics is the art of the possible yet you seem to say that all is achieved by waving a wand - it shall then be so.

wrinkled weasel

Rod Liddle has undergone something of a Damascene conversion too. What happened? Did an Angel of Light visit the Spectator office over Christmas?

You are finally saying what a lot of us have been saying for the past Twelve Months.

Watching Cameron is like watching your kid bomb in the School Panto. You really want him to do well, but deep in your heart you know he'll never be Michael Gambon.

Well, we need a someone to lead this country, someone with Churchillian credibility and above all, someone with direction. If the tired old idea of signposts and weathervanes could be beat, I would use another one, but it will do:

Cameron is a weathervane, which is about to come off its decaying pivot. Not really what we need right now.

Norman Dee

I think it's worrying that DC must read blogs like this, and while it's ok to write them off as the past trying to run the future, he must be aware that it is a fact that he is not enjoying the kind of momentum that he really should have achieved by now. Is he being fed the wrong advise, or can he truly not see whats going on ?. We could still end up with the hung parliament we dread and see a leadership struggle in the conservative party within 12 months which is going to be completely the wrong way to go when progress is essential. Also if he doesn't get more aggressive with Europe then he will lose the "common ground" to UKIP in some sreas and BNP in others.

Noa Zrk

Good article Fraser.
I hate to admit it but I think Brown actually has the measure of Cameron and is winning the pre-election battle of attrition. Cameron appears remote and patronising. He totally fails to strike any significant chords of empathy with a British public that is completely antagonistic to and fighting furious with the Labour persons, policies and philosophies which have created widespread personal and public financial and political bankruptcy.
We want to see real fire. passion and personal anger,a sense of commitment to right the manifest wrongs and lunacies of an immoral and corrupt government. But what are we offered? Blah instead of Blair, clown instead of Brown.
On any measure of current performance and public empathy Cameron and the 'New Tories' don't rate a pass and my vote will be going will be going to UKIP or the BNP. A hung Parliament? Yes, so what?
ii

M. Rowley

I stopped voting Conservative when it became apparent that Cameron and his Notting Hill cabal were essentially no different to the Islington bunch. His leadership over the past four years has done nothing to convince me that I was mistaken in this assessment and the latest speech is just more of the same old guff.

Tiberius

As Belle said to Scrooge, Fraser, "may you be happy in the path you have chosen".

Michael Booth

What a p-ss poor state of affairs: conservatives who cannot bring themselves to put faith in Cameron and Crew (for good reason) and are faced with the alternatives of either swallowing hard and voting for them or seeing the Gorgon returned to Number 10. What the hell do we do?

General Zod

I agree with some points, Fraser, but these are minor things. We are still some way from a campaign and he is rightly wary of scaring off the middle classes who voted Labour in 1997 and 2001 (and in much reduced numbers in 2005).

The one who truly takes voters for fools is Brown. Marr gave him quite an easy ride this morning, but he was still utterly dreadful.

Publius

To those who proclaim that politics is the art of the possible, well yes, of course it is. But this phrase is in danger of becoming a hackneyed excuse for mediocrity.

What is possible is not determined in advance of DOING. It works the other way round. We know what is possible because we make it real by our acts -- by going out there and DOING it.

Woody

Fraser

This is the last time I will contribute to the Spectator after another of your anti-Cameron rants. This is way over the top, there was not one positive comment of a speech that is only the first day of a long campaign for god's sake. Carry on and you will get another five years of Labour but of course that won't be anything to do with you or the fools that hang onto your every word.
JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Moraymint

Good blog Mr Nelson.

Reinforces my view (as the proverbial lifelong Tory voter) that voting Tory will be a pointless exercise. Better to vote Labour, let Brown and his gangsters drown in their own socio-economic sewage and await Churchill's (or Thatcher's) second coming.

The Conservative Party is a joke. At least the Labour Party states clearly how it intends to complete its ruination of the country. From the Tories, we just get a steady stream of inconsistent, unworkable, vacuous bu*****t.

We're heading for a national catastrophe at this rate.

Tiberius

Woody: to borrow two other lines, firstly from Harry Casey, "please don't go"; and secondly from David Soul,"don't give up on us, I know we can still come through".

Fraser is acting under editorial if not proprietorial orders, of course, and as time goes on the departure of Matt becomes all the more understandable and lamentable.

Holly ......

And finally Fraser does what he intended.
Turned this blog to a lefty rag.

Edmund Jerk

Has anyone told Cameron that he might actually stand a chance of winning - with a large majority - if only he could appeal to voters outside of the left-'liberal' consensus? If those precious voters have a choice between Progressive-Cameronism and Progressive-Cleggism then they're obviously going to chose the real thing!

Percy

Listening to Broon on Marr this morning life's going to get pretty good, it seems that we're all going to be working in virtual reality carbon neutral art galeries or somesuch nonsense; for heavans sake even I could beat this fool in a general election, Dave'll walk it.

Nicholas

The best is always the enemy of the good. Don't let your determination to list why DC is not the best blind you to the worst - which would be another 5 years of Brown.

And to those oh-so-naive souls who think that a Labour win would actually spell the end for Brown and cause the rise of a new "Churchill" (FFS) - be careful what you wish for. If Brown gets in it will be East Germany and Romania rolled into one with absolutely no hope of liberation - ever. They will re-write the rules to complete the transformation of this country into a mid-1960's cod-communist hell hole. They won't care about economic meltdown because whilst you and I queue up outside empty shops and watch the Stasi armoured cars prowling the streets the political elite and party members will be safe and secure in their deluded world. Think that couldn't happen, fools? q.v. Mugabe - still going strong, still presiding over a nation's misery.

What irks me is that journalists like Fraser obsess about Cameron's eye splinters and ignore the ferkin great timbers clogging the Dear Leaders pissholes in the snow, those lifeless black currents of despair in that grey monolith cliff-face of hopelessness, envy and spite. No sense of proportion, no nose for the truly evil and despotic, no sense of destiny for the British.

Voting Tory pointless? Utter codswallop. It was never more important.

Gawain

This current government is so dire and Brown is such a dreadful prime minister that I have taken a New Year resolution to speak no ill about the Conservatives before the election. Deconstructing any political speech is easy and 90 % of what any politician says is waffle. It is the 10 % that is important. At least the Conservatives are admitting their is a budget deficit problem and admitting it will need to be cut. Compare Cameron speaking in front of his constituents with Brown smirking, gurning and lying in front of Marr this morning. De construct what Brown says and life becomes very, very disturbing indeed. If Labour win the next election, this country is toast !

Irene

I started having doubts about coffee house when labourlist suddenly appeared on the blog roll - turned my stomach!

HK

"8. “Since I started speaking today, more than half a million pounds has been added to our national debt.” I have to hand it to Cameron, I do like that line. He should use that more often."

Yes, a good line, but still it doesn't quite relate. Surely this could be made much easier to appreciate if he related, for example, what the deficit is per minute to how many people's tax that represents.

E.g. if the deficit is £180bn per year, that means over £55k every ten seconds. How many average wage earners' tax payments does that represent? If average income tax is £5k, that means that it's about one per second.

If he's talking to a room of 60 average earners, in one minute the national debt will have increased by the amount of their entire collective tax contributions.

david

wake up being so right to the core want win elections

Bill (Scotland)

An interesting article and although it makes a few good points negates them all with its negativism. Do you want 5 more years of Labour, Fraser?

I think "Victor Southern" wrote a cogent and balanced critique and whilst I wouldn't join in with "Woody's" more vociferous assessment, basically those two have got it right and almost everyone else (including Fraser) have got it wrong. Politics, as another said, is the art of the possible - and we've had quite enough 'wand-waving' policy announcements from Labour over the past 12 years with little or no follow-up action to want more of the same kind of substance-free routine. Let's see how the draft manifesto looks over coming/days and weeks, which Cameron said yesterday would be released in coming weeks, before jumping to conclusions. Anyone who saw Brown on Marr this morning surely cannot want him to still be our PM post-election?!

maisieW

Fraser have you lost your moral compass? what do you expect from Cameron with 6 months to go until the election. Thank goodness he does`t ask your advice
What was in the mince pie`s

General Zod

At last, some voices of reason making themselves heard in the Coffee House.

Fraser, why are you pandering to the Year Zero loons? You didn't give them their "Neathergate" blog (who apart from those loons and the BNP even mentions the Neather article now?). Is this kind of attack on Camron supposed to compensate the loons?

John Richardson

Edmund Jerk.
"Has anyone told Cameron....."

No-one has told him, he knows.Offering a Referendum on self governance alone would easily win him the election.
Never mind mass immigration or 'Human Rights'.
He does not court these people as he does not share those values. He would rather risk a hung Parliament than represent real Conservative values.
A traitor.

General Zod.

Tony Blair got 24.95% of the popular vote in 1997.
The middle classes never 'swung' to him.
This is a lib. media legend. Instead John Major's ineffective administration obliged millions of Tories not to vote. Hence the FPTP landslide effect.
After that artificial house price inflation sedated middle class voters. We are now beginning to see the consequences.

logdon

Brown seems to think that the international stage will be his saviour. Following the uplift in his fortunes after G11 he is intent on the replication of that success.

Unfortunately (for him) the law of diminishing return seems to be bearing out and each contrived ‘saving the world’ stunt offers less and less reward.

Cameron would do well to observe the debacle, then play on Brown’s eagerness in creating global governance whilst simultaneously establishing his own ‘saving our nation’ meme.

In other words Brown may want to squander our money on meaningless and ultimately fruitless international PR jamboree’s where the only benefactors are African and Middle Eastern kleptocratic despots. Cameron’s in these benighted times should reflect the needs of a nation along the simple basic lines of ‘charity begins at home’.

As for d’Ancona, this from todays Telegraph is spot on.

Brown is using what may have been devastating tragedy to ramp up his own grubby credentials.

This self absorbed ‘altruism’ fools no one apart from the eternally gullible.

For me this is the lodestone Tories should be playing on. The dividing line between a compulsive liar who loves nothing more than squandering our money on failing and corrupt causes and a prudent Tory who puts British interests first and foremost.

Simple.

“Obsession with public opinion is the terrorist's greatest ally
Politicians with one eye on the news cycle can never properly defend us from the deadly, patient threat of Islamist terror”

By Matthew d’Ancona
Published: 4:32PM GMT 02 Jan 2010

There is nothing Gordon Brown relishes more than a chance to claim leadership on the global stage: and so it was all but inevitable that the Prime Minister would find a way of holding an "emergency summit" in London after the Christmas Day airline bomb attack...

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/matthewd_ancona/6924409/Obsession-with-public-opinion-is-the-terrorists-greatest-ally.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6927541

Vulture

Dave is like King Lear:
"I will do such things...what they are, yet I know not...but they will be.. the terror of the world".

Four years he's been leader and we've been waiting for some policies. Now his fans tell us we've just got to hang on a wee bit longer - and all will be revealed. Yeah, right....

Would that be from the same policy factory that brought us the signing up to the full Climate Change agenda... the refusal to revisit the Lisbon Treaty.. the refusal to restore Grammar schools...the admission that Dave's Tories are no different to Liebour and the Glib Dems?? I can't wait to find out.

Dave's Amen Chrous claim that those of us who doubt that ole custard face can walk on water and just want him to be a real Conservative instead of a flabby, guilt-ridden leftie parrotting the latest wheeze dreamed up by his controller little Stevie Hilton in the backroom, are 'Dinosaurs'. Well, I can tell them that there are a hell of a lot of us : perhaps enough to deny him his majority. It's Jurassic Park out there!

David Ossitt

We; the ‘conservatives’ are doomed, we have suffered for almost thirteen years, (longer than The Third Reich) under the yoke of an incompetent, corrupt, anti-English, socialist state.

When we should be celebrating; a return to government of a conservative party, a party willing to bring back the values that made our country Great Britain.

But what do we find we are faced with a leader who sees the promotion of BME’s black and minority ethnic candidates as an aspiration to put high on his agenda.

Who talks of sharing a war cabinet with the other parties, who claims that we conservatives think thoughts and have ideas not far removed from those of New Labour and the other lot.

The absolute idiot; he is not fit to lead our once great party.

onion

@ Nicholas

The tory leadership are doing it to themselves. Don't blame those of us who aren't going to vote for them now. In the past few months, the tory high command has described people like me (ie probable tory voters) as flat earth deniers, fruitcakes and closet racists. Hardly smart electioneering is it?

And they have cemented their actively anti-democratic credentials by their capitulation to the EU and promotion of supranational treaties over which no democratic assent has been sought. In this, they are no better than Labour or the Libdems

Screw them! A hung parliament/ defeat, followed by a split within the conservative party and some sort of pro-democracy movement to emerge from that wreckage would be vastly better that a win for Cameron - there is no significant difference between him and Brown on any issue of real substance.

JONNY

You can be sure of one thing Onion.
If you ever got the sort of Leader you and other of the Tory Neanderthals would want,
you'd drive hundreds of thousands of us (myself included) off to vote Lib-Dem.

MaxSceptic

Cameron is irrelevant.

Luckily for Britain, the country at large is so pissed off with Brown that we'd happily vote for a pig's head on a stick if it ensured that Brown and Nu Labour was ejected from office.

Harry Osbourne

Holly @ 1:52pm

"..And finally Fraser does what he intended. Turned this blog to a lefty rag...".
I rather take the view that it's David Cameron who has turned the Tory Party into a simulacrum indistinguishable from the Labour party.
Don't shoot Fraser on this for identifying unpalatable truths; in this he is only the messenger.

London Calling

An analytical view is much welcome, as it should be with all political representatives leading up to the general election. I personally believe all groups should take the televised platform, we are a Democracy after all and not Ip,Dip,Do…who to choose?
Lab,Lib,Con. UKIP have a voice, as do the Green party, as do the BNP. We should listen to what all have to say and have an independent analytical assement of what each have to offer, fair and just. The criticism should be constructive and not opinionated.

No doubt you will encounter criticism from Tory loyalists Fraser, it is my belief you want more from Cameron, not a weightless Change, but a sincere one with foundation. Don’t we all…whoever can pull the sword from the stone is eligible, line them up, I wait with anticipation…

Peter From Maidstone

JONNY, if you could consider voting for the LibDems then you are not any sort of conservative. And if you think that being conservative is 'Neanderthal' then you are no sort of conservative. The only reason you are comfortable with Cameron is because he is not much of a conservative either.

I wish he were. I wish he were. I would like to be able to vote for him without qualms.

Verity

Onion - Cameron's also bought into the fake global warming/carbon trading scam.

I cannot stand the man.

I think some MPs from UKIP would be a good thing. I also think some MPs from the BNP would be a good thing, because they wouldn't be whipped and would vote independently for what is good for the country; not what's good for the party.

It's time this little Socialist/SocialistLite/LibDem cartel was given a good shaking up.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Yet some more from the Bard (Lear) Nothing will come from nothing....... I truly despair.

JONNY

I'm sick to death of people like you threatening to vote UKIP unless Cameron goes, Peter from Maidstone.
So here's my little ultimatum.
If you mess up Cameron I'm off (along with all the extra support Cameron's won since the low 30 times of Hague and Howard).
I'm not a Tory thank goodness.
But I am a voter. And like over million like-minded maybe-Tory waverers I am not voting Tory Neanderthal.

denverthen

So is Number 8 on your generally very questionable and unnecessarily personal attack list "vapid nonsense" or not? Try not to contradict yourself and restrict your remarks to cool analysis in future, Mr Editor. We aren't News of the Screws readers, after all. And this is meant to be the Spectator, not the bloody New Statesman.

Greychatter

All these Leftie Hacks can afford to support Gorgon Brown maybe all are as Narcissistic as him.
Our children, grandchildren and probably our Great Grandchildren will still be paying for the BBC and Media's selfishness in their support for this walking disaster of a Chancellor/Prime Minister and leader of the most far Left Political party this country is likely to experience.
The majority of the Hacks have not experienced three disasterous Labour governments. A Conservative Government is the only hope that hard working, freedom loving Britains have got.
Obviously not a comment that will be displayed on this site.

TGF UKIP

Frank P and other CHers, should be aware that there are two Never Neathers. There is the dutiful Tory Party house mag editor we get most of the time on this blogsite and then there is the altogether more trenchantly objective Nelson we get each Sunday as the NoW columnist.

Some months back, Fraser, silenced one of my occasional whinges by telling me to get my hand in my pocket and shell out my quid each week for a copy of the Screws to read him in full. Indeed, as other CHers may not be aware the links Fraser occasionally provides here are only to a small portion of his column. Today for instance as well as the linked piece here, Fraser has his usual full page giving his A -Z predictions for 2010 and well worth reading they are.

I would also add that not only do the house mag scales fall from his eyes in his Screws pieces but he also reveals a more humorous and politically gossipy Fraser than we ever get in the Coffee House from our seriously heavyweight number crunching villager, Nelson.

Thanks you, though, Fraser, my NoW quid each week is now one of the best I spend.

teledu

Sadly, I find myself agreeing with Onion's sentiments.
Even so, as in myc constituency it's simplay Labour or Conservative, I'll vote Conservative. But I've no confidence in Cameron. Even so, he's got to better than Brown.

David Ossitt

JONNY

“If you ever got the sort of Leader you and other of the Tory Neanderthals would want, you'd drive hundreds of thousands of us (myself included) off to vote Lib-Dem”

Then go now, as Peter From Maidstone writes, you are not a conservative, being a conservative is a way of life, a belief and a conviction that socialism in all of its forms is deeply wrong.

Being a conservative does not let you flit like some light of weight flotsam and jetsam from party to party; to be persuaded by charlatans like Blair or to take up each new trendy theory thought up by political pigmies.

Peter From Maidstone wrote.

“The only reason you are comfortable with Cameron is because he is not much of a conservative either”

It’s true; but we must vote for him, because for now, he is all we have, once in power, either he will change or he will be changed.

ajs

(Throwaway piece:)I love the way the anti-conservative mob throng this site. I suppose they are on benefits and have the time.
But it really is time Mr Cameron and his team started to get nasty = telling the truth about New Labour and their lies, making clearer what must be done and that the Conservatives will do it.Get on with it!
Whatever Labour may think, Tomorrow does NOT belong to them.

Nicholas

onion: "The tory leadership are doing it to themselves. Don't blame those of us who aren't going to vote for them now. In the past few months,"

No, it is your perceptions that are doing it. You are dissatisfied with Cameron's Tories so you are going to vote in a way that will only benefit Labour. And your prediction of what will happen with a Labour win is pie in the sky.

I'm probably as sceptical and scornful of Cameron as you but I'd rather have him than another 5 years of Brown & gang. End of.

Allan Sharp

I'm surprised that there are so many people who appear to be members of the Conservative Party expressing dismay with David Cameron. This isn't because I think that they are wrong to be dismayed: it's just that I recall that Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party by its membership. Note that, by eliminating the possibility of a realistic alternative to the disastrous policies of Blair/Brown, I consider members of the Conservative party to be no better than traitors to this country.

Marcher Baron

"What will Cameron tell the voters when they will face higher debt, tax and mortgages? It will look as if his economic plan has gone wrong – when, in fact, it is part of the plan. Voters really are mature enough to handle this information, if presented to them honestly." Having visited the Guardian site, I think part of Dave's perceived problem is the howling of the Guardianistas about the '80s - unemployment, high interest rates, etc - under Thatcher (who apparently is to blame for all the ills the current Labour government has inflicted upon us). Dave is desperately trying to reinvent the "nasty party" as nice, touchy-feely liberals. Trouble is, the only option after Brown's incumbency will be nastiness in order to get us back in shape. Dave should tell it like it is and point out that in order to solve the problems, such things as higher taxes and higher interest rates will be inevitable whichever party wins. The died-in-the-wool Left-voting Guardianistas of this world will never vote Tory as a matter of principle so he need not bother trying to woo them. Dave should travel on the Clapham omnibus and listen to what people are saying if he wants a winning strategy. No government got elected (or stayed in power) by being totally out of touch with the electorate.

Beer Moth

onion.

"The tory leadership are doing it to themselves"

Probably. While sucking a satsuma.

Ted Bundy

Incredibly the opinion polls are not indicating a forthcoming Labour massacre no matter how much we would all just love it to happen.
Cameron looks likely to win but by not that big a margin. He also appears to be hedging his bets by cosying up to the Lib Dems in the event of a hung Parliament. This situation given the mess Labour have made is as incredible as it is depressing but is very indicative of Cameron’s poor leadership and lack of public appeal. I think the Conservative party made a very bad decision in choosing Cameron over Davies as their leader. Cameron just looks very lightweight, weak and opportunistic jumping on every politically correct bandwagon that’s going. I think a very large part of his core Conservative vote simply won’t bother or will vote UKIP.

Baldwin

Nicholas talks sense.

The Tory party may look a bit uncertain or not conservative enough, etc, but it is infinitely preferable to more years of Labour.

Bear in mind that Cameron needs to appeal to a wide range of woolly minded marginal voting people, many not at all interested in politics.

The priority for Cameron should be get elected and replace this malignant, immoral and incompetent government.

Herbert Thornton

Some people used to believe that Devil that the would not just avoid all mention of the words "Holy Water", but that he would flee at the very sound of them.

Now it's even clearer that Cameron is terrified at the very sound of two other words -

"Referendum" and

"Immigration".

JohnPage

When we heard that this was to be the year of change, we raised our eyes to heaven and said, that's it then, he's nothing but a vapid PR guy. Why does he even think British voters will buy such tripe?

hidflect

My mate is a reasonably successful financial services salesman. He enlightened my ignorance, particularly with the crux of the "close" (kill?) being aware when the listener is coming on on board and shutting up right there.

djw2009

Mr Nelson, what anti-bureaucratic agenda of Cameron's? I would be quite enthusiastic about the Conservative Party if I believed that Cameron was going to close down hundreds of quangos in his first week in office, but if so, he hasn't said so. Does his anti-bureaucratic agenda extend to abolishing the race relations industry? It seems not (given his preoccupation with BME candidates). So, Stephen Shakespeare is quite ill-informed. Cameron is pro-bureaucratic.

Peter From Maidstone

JONNY, I am not sure how you can be sick to death of people like me threatening to vote UKIP when I have fairly consistently said that I could not imagine myself ever voting UKIP. To be honest I find myself rather disenfrachised - just like at the last election.

John David Barnett

So what's the conclusion to draw?

Vote Brown and keep the devil we know?

That's how articles like this are going to be spun by Labour. It was utterly mischievous and destructive.

There's an election in the next few months, bit you would not think it to read all the rancid stuff that is coming out of supposedly Conservative publications these days.

Cuffleyburgers

As usual, sense from Nicolas.

Seems to be that Cameron is petrified with fer about F**king up the campaign, hence his determination to avoid offendng people etc.

In my view however, this is like nerves before going out to bat - once it is declared, he will raise his game.

We know we can, we've seen it before. I suspect Brown knows this and will keep mum until the last possible minute; he will maintain a drip drip of public spending anouncements (with borrowed money) and occasional class war pronouncements, followed by a short campaign and a March election.

You read it here first!

michael

The Eaton boating song:

Eaton boys Eaton boys, pink nighties and cuddly toys...

onion

"As usual, sense from Nicolas.

Seems to be that Cameron is petrified with fer about F**king up the campaign, hence his determination to avoid offendng people etc."

Hardly.

Anyone who has to end their entry with the chavvy injunction "end of" has already lost the argument! And Cameron has specifically gone out of his way to offend natural conservative voters like me (I was going to vote conservative through gritted teeth right up until Yeo's ignorant 'flat earth' comment). Why should I vote for a leadership team that despises me?

Real Labour supporters voted for Blair who clearly detested what they stood for - that didn't work out too well for them, did it? I have no desire to vote for a now proven anti-democrat like Cameron just because he happens to be 'conservative'. I know from a conversation with a SpAd working for the Cameron team just how unimportant political philosophy is to them. They couldn't care less if their policies are anti-democratic; all that matters is getting votes to gain power.

General Zod

Oh dear. I bet even Brown can spell "Eton".

You really are a no-hoper, michael.

Ghengis

I and my tribe would be more likely to cast votes in favour of politicians displaying some degree of disatisfaction with the ongoing whitewashing of the cesspit in which they presently "practice" their trade with scant regard to their obvious illegimacy

Victor Southern

Imagine this. You see someone else's kitchen for the first time and are asked to plan and cook a meal there. You can see it is filthy and neglected at a glance. You have no idea if the pots and pans all have holed in them. You don't even know whether the gas and electricity are on or have been turned off. You have no idea what is in the cupboard.

There is no meal that you can cook under those circumstances. You need to clean, get new implements, get the services back on and then shop. Those things done you can plan a menu for any number of days ahead.

That is the situation that the Conservatives face. So Fraser upbraiding them when they have no true idea of what they face is purely cynical.

Those of you from the Heffer school who decry anything and everything that Cameron says should be made to eat from that stinking kitchen for another 5 years. That'd larn yer.

Ghengis

of course I meant "illegitimacy" i.e.

JONNY

Nothing personal Peter from Maidstone.
We are all entitled to our doubts.
Personally I think it's too late in the day to fart around.
I live in a Lib-Dem constituency with a narrow majority. I voted Lib-Dem last night. This time I'm voting Tory, largely because of Cameron.
As far as I remember there was a long election battle with Davis, and Cameron won it convincingly.
He's the party's choice. Ergo I back him.

Nicholas

onion: "Anyone who has to end their entry with the chavvy injunction "end of" has already lost the argument!"

Who decided that? A smelly bulb?

And by the way, allium cepa, I did not "have to" end my "entry" with that injunction, I merely chose to.

The problem is, smelly bulb, that my argument is just not to your liking. Whatever injunction I may use does not qualify it in any way - except to an arrogant bigot determined to resort to an ad hominem attack when outwitted. The rest of your post merely reinforces this conclusion about you. You presume to represent all "natural conservative voters"? Arrant nonsense. You are no more a "natural conservative voter" than you are an onion - and I'd lay a bet that you have voted New Labour in the past too, although no doubt you will strenuously deny it. Floating voter with decidely unnatural conservative pretensions, that's more like it. And the SpAD anecdote - really, what a poseur you are. And you ask why you should vote for a "leadership team that despises" you? Aw, diddums! Does diddums want to feel ever so important to the shadow cabinet then? What a self-centered arrogant little twerp you are.

Now go and float yourself in a nice casserole.

TomTom

We have reached one of those tipping points where the legitimacy f the political system and structures is called into question. Government is doing too much that people resent and too little that the public expects.

Noa Zrk

Onion @11.15am.
Quite so.
I'm amazed though at the personalised nature of abuse concerned Conservatives receive in this blog from those who should know better.
The Conservative party may be a broad church but currently its central tenets are barely distinguishable from those of the present corrupt Labour government. If that's not going to change why bother voting Cameron when we're still going to get Brown?
Those who criticise take views, variously that say, its too early to tell, he's not laying all his cards on the table this early, or trust him, it'll be all right on the night.
If we don't then buy that particular line of crap then we're simply described as loons or idiots, infuriatingly, by people who often don't appear to hold a principle or voice an original thought of their own.
Well, not so. We've seen enough cr@p during the last 13 years to recognise the smell and taste when more is being proffered in a candy blue wrapper.
We already have a pig out of its poke, why should we buy another?
I for one will vote for a party that gives consideration and credence to my views, concerns and principles. If I didn't have any I'd just vote for the morally bankrupt rabble currently running the show.

Ghengis

Nicholas and TomTom --- exactly!,three dead centres

onion

It seems somewhat ironic to me (and faintly amusing) for someone to complain about (imaginary) ad hominem attacks, and in the same post describe someone else as a smelly bulb, arrogant bigot, poseur and self-centered arrogant little twerp

Nicholas

Noa Zrk: "The Conservative party may be a broad church but currently its central tenets are barely distinguishable from those of the present corrupt Labour government."

Rubbish! That's just a ridiculous if not grotesque anti-Cameron soundbite that bears no true relationship to either the policy approach laid out by Cameron or the way the Labour government has behaved. Your principles and fine ideals are all well and good, commendable and all that, but quite pointless if they result in another Labour term - and a fourth Labour term would be quite different to the Cameron Tories I have no doubt.

Ghengis

Tom Tom refers “ We have reached one of those tipping points where the legitimacy of the political system and structures is called into question. Government is doing too much that people resent and too little that the public expects”.
However it is necessary to replace the word Government with Parliament --- The number of members of our parliament clearly understanding that expenses may only be claimed when incurred because of necessity in order to fulfil parliamentary duty is but a handful out of a total exceeding six hundred. The breadth of this scene of pure greed and dishonesty spreads across all parties and from the cabinet down to the back benchers. This putrescent streak of dishonesty is being held in place by the participants in order that they shall benefit by re-election or retirement, indeed, a number are even claiming parliamentary privilege when facing criminal investigation.
Yes, gerrymandering is evident, as is interference with citizens affairs and excessive surveillance, but those making comment here seem to be content with a system that is obviously broken under the management of the culprits described above who are proven beyond doubt to act only in their own selfish and dishonest interests.
The operatives have carelessly broken the machine, arguing about which operative to blame or indeed reemploy is total waste of time. First update machine then interview candidates to suit modified machine.

John Richardson

Nicholas,

Echoing what 'Noa Zrk' said, it is often a characteristic of pro-Cameron contributions that they insult, often personally, those they do not agree with.
For example, you use : rubbish ; grotesque; soundbite; pointless. All in a short posting.
This encourages people like me, to imagine you have no ideas or genuine intellectual capital to use.
Why not name one or two actual policies that that 'Conservatives' can believe in and vote for ?
I think it's fair to point out Cameron's Conservatives were planning to 'share the proceeds of wealth' until reality struck.
Thus, they are redistributive. This is a foreign creed to Conservatism. Until now.
Regards.

Noa Zrk

Nicholas
Rubbish you say?
Well, if you don't have 'principles and all that' you tend to end up with history repeating itself and the type of corrupt politician currently in power being the model for the next generation of politicians.
Pragmatism I can fully accept. Duplicity, evasion and saying what the party hacks think is what I want to or should hear is entirely unacceptable.
Worse still, it’s unnecessary.
The worst government in living memory is on the ropes. Passion, principles, honesty and integrity, everything that’s currently entirely lacking would kill it off without trace. Elsewhere someone proposed Marvin Hagler as a role model. Well Mohammed Ali would do for me, but I don’t see Cameron displaying anything of that instinct in the facile speech for which Fraser rightly and trenchantly took him to task.
After a year or two in power I suspect that things will be no different andwe'll be just as badly governed, broke, bullied, over run, taxed, and quangoed as we are now.

Nicholas

onion (again):"It seems somewhat ironic to me (and faintly amusing) for someone to complain about (imaginary) ad hominem attacks, and in the same post describe someone else as a smelly bulb, arrogant bigot, poseur and self-centered arrogant little twerp"

It was indeed ironic - and intentionally so. There was nothing imaginary about your ad hominem attack. You dismissed the argument as being lost on the basis of a "chavvy injunction".

And again, you are cowardly in making your response oblique and to others rather than directly to me. The classic technique of the bully.

Nicholas

John Richardson: "This encourages people like me, to imagine you have no ideas or genuine intellectual capital to use.
Why not name one or two actual policies that that 'Conservatives' can believe in and vote for ?"

Imagine what you like. My characterisations of the anti-Cameron "let's lose the election" brigade are about their ridiculous ideas - not them personally (except onion who started it). And I am not particularly pro-Cameron but rather anti-Brown. The very fact that this division has been created (pro & anti-Cameron) weakens the whole conservative community (small 'c') and strengthens Brown. It is a question of what constitutes the greatest danger. For those wanting more emulation of Churchill it is like Churchill's decision to give Stalin 100% backing against Hitler.

As for naming policies - go and read them for yourself. As a supposed Conservative I'm surprised that you haven't done so already:-

http://www.conservatives.com/Policy.aspx

Just why Cameron is being characterised in this way I have no idea. Is it the lazy expectation of soundbites that will resonate with specific preferences and prejudices?

Tim Almond

Policies? I'll be shocked if the conservative manifesto resembles much more vague than a corporate mission statement.

I quit supporting the Conservatives after Cameron took over and I've never regretted that decision. You want really solid, fiscally responsible policies, support UKIP.

iain

Excellent article. Cameron has lost his way. His speeches are dreadful, he isnt resonating with the punters. The delivery unfortunately, with the squinting down to the page, makes him look shifty.
Get it together Conservative Party. To blow this in the face of the worst Labour Government in history would be almost criminal...but you are well on tehway to doing so unfortunately.

Kennybhoy

Tim Almond wrote:

"...support UKIP"

For a hung parliament or, God forbid, a Brown victory.

Kennybhoy

DavidDP wrote:

"Herein lies the difference between journalists and politicians. One needs to get elected, the other doesn't."

Amen. But you left blog posters off your short list.

George Laird

Dear All

David Cameron is like a used car salesman, he will say and do anything if he can push his brand.

We should remember that he has no real policies just gimmicks.

He has his cuts agenda, that is all.

Cameron fools no one not even the Tories, he is lightweight praying that he will get elected on the Brown hate vote.

The 2010 election will be cuts vs cuts, sprinkled with hate and a bit of BNP and how to control the Scots getting their country free.

Finally, Cameron War Cabinet but no Scottish Government.

Remember Cameron on mutual respect and partnership?

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University