A tonic to dispel doubt
Fraser Nelson 6:53pm
If any CoffeeHousers have been feeling despondent about the Tores, I have the perfect tonic: Cameron’s YouTube video released today. In my News of the World column last week, I listed five messages I thought he should give. And he ticked all of them off - and then some. It was one of those biannual events: where Cameron gives a speech that he obviously wrote himself, and put a lot of energy into it. And the result is always great. Now, this may be a wavelength thing: some CoffeeHousers may see a whole load of cliches. But I see in here an agenda for change – plus some clever debating tactics.
He starts by doing what I’ve longed for the Tories to do: frame the debate. The choice presented to him, he says, was between going back to “the conservative comfort zones” of the right or ‘playing it safe and wait for Labour to screw up and win by default’. He has decided to do neither. But instead be modern and radical: don’t got back to the old ways, or play it safe. For the first time, he paints enemies on the right and the left of his party. And declares himself stuck in the middle with you.
1). “Today we are the party of the NHS” he says. The party of the BMA, more like, but as I said last week the Tories have come thus far with the NHS. Its a humongously expensive pledge, and they may as well get their moneys worth out of it in the campaign.
2).“We’re the party that leads the debate on the environment and poverty”. Correct. Cameron’s green agenda has been far louder than Brown’s (or Ed Miliband’s) and Iain Duncan Smith has led the debate about poverty and how to tackle it. This is not a soundbite: it’s a strong, positive message that will resonate because it’s true.
3).“Britain has been crying out for a modern alternative to this government which has failed so badly. Crying out for a modern conservative party to bring our values, our ideas and our energy to all of the big problems that we face.” He’s right: Conservative values. That is to say: a different take on these problems. Not the continuation of Labour’s take. New Conservative insights: that empowerment is a surer route to social justice than attempts at paternalism. There is a battle of ideas in this election, and Cameron needs to bring it out more.
4).“We need to be bold. We need to be radical... We can’t solve these problems with a little tinker here, and a small change there. There is an urgency to this work..” Amen to that. This marks a distinction from the earlier “minimise the difference with Labour” strategy – a much-needed distinction now that Labour’s government has led to obvious calamity.
5).“We will make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe.” This point needs to be brought out and repeated during the campaign.
6).“We need to act now to cut the deficit, keep interest rates low and get the economy moving again.” A distinct message from Labour’s – so good.
7).“We’ll reform education, with standards and discipline for all” - he’s right not to focus too much on Gove’s free schools, even if they are (as I think) the single best policy. It’s too late to introduce it as a campaigb theme, better to focus on school discipline instead.
8). “We need change in our politics, giving people power and control.” Those two words actually mean something (unlike “post-bureaucratic age” or “social responsibility” and they will work because they’re backed up with real policies: Gove’s free school policy means power and control.
9). Our plans “cannot be timid if we are going to confront these problems.” He’s right there: as I said in my Keith Joseph lecture he will be radical or a failure.
10). “We’ve made our choice. The Conservative party is a modern party, and its a bold radical party. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.” His point here is to reject the idea of a choice between being “modern” and “radical”. There was never a contradiction, but plenty refugees from the Tory wars of 2000-05 had argued otherwise. Cameron is firmly leaving that era, and its hang-ups, behind.
Previous
teledu
February 27th, 2010 7:13pm Report this commentSo he doesn't want “the conservative comfort zones” of the right . Then what the hecks is he doing pretending to be a Conservative?
Who stands up for those who are anti EU? Anti immigration? Aware of the Islamic threat to our way of life? Who don't want state benefits to be a career option? Who want grammar schools? Who want fraudulent, cheating, lying, deceitful money-grabbing MPs and Lords (of whatever persuasion) prosecuted?
It sure isn't Cameron.
Fergus Pickering
February 27th, 2010 7:18pm Report this commentNo, teledu mate. He wants to win.
Simone
February 27th, 2010 7:24pm Report this commentNot impressed by that video at all.
What was so "bold" and "radical"? He opened
by reminding everyone of his positive discrimination policy regarding women and ethnic minority candidates.
Then he made vague references to the NHS and
families, etc. etc.
Nothing that grabs. Nothing for the vast majority who are sick of pc, multiculturalism and immigration. Nothing patriotic. Nothing about security and our troops overseas.
Nothing that makes me believe this man loves my country and is desperate to serve it on the world stage. Nothing that tells me he is going to make us great again.
Now THAT would be bold and radical!
Frankly, it was depressingly ordinary.
Ex-Tory voter
February 27th, 2010 7:32pm Report this commentSorry, there's nothing there for me, a life-long Conservative voter. I want a say on the EU, control of our borders, the illegal/criminal immigrants returned, benefits to be linked to contributions, the end to politicising of the judiciary and police, the end to political correctness (imposed PC shortlists), grammar schools and good technical schools to improve education, the end to multiculturalism with the re-affirmation of a broadly Christian secular society that encourages integration while allowing freedom of worship for others. Some of the first cuts should be in translation services. This speech ticked none of those boxes. Further, as a saver with no children, who doesn't believe in the AGW scam, I'd like a better return on my money to try to keep its value, not low interest rates (with high inflation) and green taxes.
Charles
February 27th, 2010 7:36pm Report this commentTeledu
They were called the Ultras (Ultra-montaine) or the Ditchers ("fight to the last ditch") and we managed to get rid of them in the 1870s. Before that they had kept the Tories out of power for 50 years
JONNY
February 27th, 2010 7:36pm Report this commentHate to say it teledu but hundreds of thousands of us, intending to vote Conservative, don't want the old Tory dinosaur comfort zones either.
If you bring them in, we'll leave the Party.
and you'll be stuck around the 22% mark for bloody ever.
Plato-Says
February 27th, 2010 7:39pm Report this commentThis afternoon's conference was pretty good stuff - no mis-steps and lots of credible door-step stuff.
Glad to see that you are back on side, sometimes I do wonder if you've lost the plot when it comes to *winning* - rather like 80% of the posters on the Telegraph blogs.
SUSAN HILL
February 27th, 2010 7:56pm Report this commentRubbish. 'The environment and poverty.' Oh please. Only to start with that should be the other way round. What in God's name does he mean ? Recycling bottles or believing in the entirely discredited Global Warming message ? Give me strength.
These are not concerns at the forefront of our lives other than those of a few eco-freaks.
As for poverty - if 13 years of handouts to the feckless haven`t sorted it out, nothing will.
TrevorsDen
February 27th, 2010 8:04pm Report this commentHeath is expensive - no matter what, Mr Nelson.
Take a look everywhere and you see soaring health costs and huge problems of paying for it. Just get real.
As the WSJ says,'Germany's century-old universal health-care system, a model cited by reform advocates in the U.S. Congress, is buckling under the weight of a growing deficit that has forced the government to explore an overhaul.'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125849684108252695.html
Germany wants to establish a basic level of coverage for all that could be bolstered by buying additional private insurance. To be honest I thought they did - but can you really imagine any party going into an election with that policy??
Otherwise nice to see you talking sense about the conservative leadership and indeed the basic principle of being 'Conservative' rather than being a right wing nut-job loony tune.
potager
February 27th, 2010 8:21pm Report this commentFraser, I sense a distinct rowing back from your previous stategy of hyper-critical dismantling of every Conservative position or policy.
Is this because you sense finally that you, and other commentators similarly divorced from the reality of everyday life, have been busy smoothing the path for a fourth term for Labour?
Perhaps you will widen your criticism of Brown to areas beyond his economic policy- you seem happy enough to apply your scrutiny to the whole of the Conservative agenda.
Chris Horne
February 27th, 2010 8:34pm Report this commentSorry to pour cold water on your "tonic" but Dave's speech reminds me why I have left the Conservative Party after supporting them all my life. Agree 100% with teledu.
YA
February 27th, 2010 8:41pm Report this commentwhat a depressing twaddle from both
what country urgently needs is
1) turn to elitist, fiercely technocratic education
2) raise of high-tech manufacturing
3) secure food and energy supply
4) cut of Government non-jobs
5) closing mickey-mouse high education studies
6) end of AGW-justified economic sabotage smuggled into green agenda
7) stop and reverse of the low-quality immigration
8) protection of unity of law
9) regulation of funding of religious institutions
10) measures against illegal arms and people traffic to Europe (coordinate with EU)
one can go on and on; but all these are huge mysteries, nobody knows about it.
A.G.
February 27th, 2010 8:50pm Report this commentFraser, please don't worry about the NHS pledge. My man is a hospital doctor and he says that he could provide a better service in his department for half the cost if he could do it his way.
Free the medics and nurses to organise it themselves and standards will rise and the biblical levels of waste will vanish.
Beer Moth
February 27th, 2010 8:51pm Report this commentWell Fraser, I've read it three times now, and I hope that you and Cameron and the rest of the party can fathom out what Conservatives stand for anymore because I can't.
I want them to give my vote a good home and they keep shunning it. Perhaps I'm still wallowing in "'the conservative comfort zones' of the right"; or some other unseemly place which might pander to base instinct; or then again, perhaps to basic survival.
Short the UK
February 27th, 2010 9:01pm Report this commentIf they take the debate to Labour with verve they'll win. They've got to believe. They must bang out constant messages. They must be honest. They should just be proud to be Tories. Just look at how John McCririck spars with Lord Snooty on the Morning Line on C4. Don't be scared of Brown's class war. Be proud of who you are and what you want to do for our country.
Brown is a grave danger to our country, be righteous.
AdamR
February 27th, 2010 9:06pm Report this commentWell said Fergus. Very much to the point.
Jimmimack
February 27th, 2010 9:15pm Report this commentteledu has framed the questions that make the difference, if only some politician would shape up to address them. Cameron, once more, has answered no questions that matter to the disappearing tory voters. This obstinacy is as wearing and off-putting as was the idiotic posturing of Major over Europe and Maastricht. Goodbye, until you come back.
Fraser Nelson, how many blind eyes do you affect to put to the glass? I regret to write that your ship is sinking as fast as Cameron's, soon we shall see no ships.
TGF UKIP
February 27th, 2010 9:15pm Report this commentRah,rah,rah! Dave, Dave Dave! Doing your duty as Speccie Editor, I see Fraser.
All v multiple message and bullshitty and going nowhere. It's bound to be an economic election and Dave daren't go anywhere near an economic argument while Gordon sticks to repetition of a v simple and effective (if wholly dishonest) economic message.
The more diffuse and the more unctuously "caring" Dave tries to look, the more he is playing up to the image Mandy is painting for him as the classic PR spiv.
But rest easy, Fraser, you've done your duty now.
Derek
February 27th, 2010 9:31pm Report this commentHello, Earth to Editor? Hello? Hello?
Obnoxio The Clown
February 27th, 2010 9:38pm Report this commentFraser, what a load of absolute tosh. iDave didn't say ANYTHING, he mouthed a load of banal platitudes that could have been spoken by Blair himself.
Calling the Tories "radical" and "modern" when he's rehashing Blair's 1997 approach is ... well, there's no polite way to describe it.
Ben
February 27th, 2010 9:39pm Report this commentOh well. I suppose I'll be voting Conservative again but with a great deal of apathy this time. I am shocked at the blandness of this message.
Doppelganger
February 27th, 2010 9:44pm Report this commentWell, if that is all Cameron has to offer, he won't be getting my vote. Today's Conservatives are a pethetic self-regarding bunch who have the audacity to think they "get it". God help us. It looks like five more years of Labour and perhaps rightly so with Call Me Dave and his metropolitan acolytes. I just hope the Tories have the sense to get rid of him pronto once he has lost.
Peter Crawford
February 27th, 2010 9:50pm Report this commentWell he isn't winning. He needs to stop pussyfooting and get a grip on the short hairs of an electorate that is gagging for an end to two decades of bollox. Cameron is hopeless. He will never win anything of lasting value. An election, maybe, but big deal, nothing will change. And it needs to change...
Yours despairingly
On the Welsh coast
Pete
Jack R
February 27th, 2010 9:56pm Report this commentI'm unimpressed with Cameron's latest message.
As others have said: nothing about specifics on e.g.: a.) controlling mass immigration;
b.)opposing growing E.U. federalism (and nothing about reversing policy to oppose Turkey's entry).
c.)no scepticism showm on global 'warming' issues.
JohnRS
February 27th, 2010 10:04pm Report this commentTypical vacuous content free dribblings of a social democrat trying to wear the cloths of a conservative.
EU? Immigration? Law and order? Lothian question? Barnett formula? Quangos? Surveillance? Liberty? De-politicising the Police? Defence?....
Dont ask about any of those, CallMeDave has nothing to say.
JONNY
February 27th, 2010 10:07pm Report this commentMy TGF UKIP
you really are a bitter person.
Noa Zrk
February 27th, 2010 10:08pm Report this commentI liked the line about being more the party of the BMA more like.
Preserving the NHS in its current jaw-droppingly expensive form (oh yes, whats happening to the benefits industry Dave?) and keeping the eco-loons going in the education system isn't convincing me that you're really much of a viable alternative to the Cruddasses currently infesting a once great democracy.
Given the candidates my preferences will be:
BNP - representing the increasingly angry and desperate white, middle and working class, threatened, exploited, traduced and treated with contempt as a mere tax unit.
UKIP - A real alternative to the Conservatives, if they could develop infrastructure, some real conservatism and were more than a one politician party. But I suspect Pearson and Cameron like 'em just the way they are.
Lib-Dems - Really, you cannot be serious! At best they're just another notch on Clegg's bed post.
Conservative - I've seen and read enough to be seriously concerned.
Labour - Well, their number two no less, refers to the forces of Hell and I have seen plenty to support the thesis that they are the spawn of the devil, if he existed...
A hung Parliament, (not at Tyburn unfortunately) a fresh election in six months and then a genuinely right government may just be on the cards.
UKIP -
Verity
February 27th, 2010 10:34pm Report this commentAll these posters telling Dave what to do to win (if they're so politically savvy, why aren't they running themselves?)are farting into the wind. Dave does not want the same things the everyday Briton wants. Dave wants to get his polished shoes under the top, top, top table in Brussels. The Premiership of the colony of Britain is but a step on the way. He cannot possibly promise a referendum on the EU because he would be destroying his own imagined future. He cannot promise to stop Third World primitives from flooding in because he has to toe the multi culti EUSSR line on ethnics.
Face it, chaps and chapesses, David Cameron is not going to give you what you want. He is going to try to bludgeon you into giving him what he wants. Your vote to occupy the first stepping stone to the dizzy heights of Brussels as the Pro-Consul of Britain.
2trueblue
February 27th, 2010 10:56pm Report this commentThats all right then chaps, you can have more Brown/Mandy/Balls/the 2 Millies, and another unelected PM. They will ditch him as soon as they can, whether they get in or not.
Postal voting will not be your only worry to interfere with democracy, there will be no democracy. Get a grip. We have had 13yrs of non-delivery and we can have 30 more. We have less liberty than they had in East Germany 30yrs ago. And the way Gordo keeps borrowing we will be living like they did.
Cameron is hardly going to expose his kit bag at this stage of the game, otherwise we know what will happen, Mandy and his merry men will nick it, flesh it out, call it something else and the BBC will feed it up as Liebores. Job done. The media have doe a great job in pointing out all of Camerons weaknesses without mentioning the serious flaws of the shower that have destroyed this country over 13yrs. Weird, eh?
Also interesting that anyone who has tried to expose anything off key about any of our ruling party have had their reputation/lives ruined. Remember David Kelly. Never did get to the bottom of that.
Remember what the focus was when the expenses scandal was revealed in the Telegraph? It was to find and punish the whistleblower, not punish the offenders.
And still the saga has not been sorted.
All eyes on the duck houses and the moats, small beer.
The serial flippers were let off because they were too close to the great leader. It would be too complicated in the time given to investigate that area Brown said.
Any researcher worth their salt could do it very quickly.
Ah well lets not worry about reality, lets go and help Gordo to his new lease at NO 10.
Grumpy Optimist
February 27th, 2010 11:12pm Report this commentI have to agree with most of the commentary. Listening to Cameron and I could understand why his vote is slipping. The word radical scares people, it means something different to everybody and nothing he says will stick. So why not vote labour - at least you know what you will get.
No we don't want radical, we want basic good sense. More of Hague and Osborne and Clark and let Cameron prepare either for government or (if he loses), a life without politics.
TGF UKIP
February 27th, 2010 11:13pm Report this commentThe only way Dave can or will win is by default, so the much bigger tonic is the Mail story and audio tape on Brown's bullying. Always assuming (which must be in great doubt) that the Cameron Tories can actually make use of this gift and that the BBC don't manage to bury it.
TrevorsDen
February 27th, 2010 11:31pm Report this commentThe usual dopes are around I see.
All doing their best to get Brown re-elected.
Are these people cyber images, the creation of some crazed plotter?
Either way their comments are totally disconnected with reality and probably owe more to their psychotic dysfunction than anything. Ironic given what they think of Gordon.
TrevorsDen
February 27th, 2010 11:38pm Report this commentPS - The Mail has a tape proving another of Rawnsley's allegations.
Frank P
February 28th, 2010 12:33am Report this commentWell, Fraser, your jollup doesn't seem to have dispelled the doubts; you merely cheered up the pseudo conservatives who would be happy, apparently, with Blair II just so they could pretend that 'conservatism' had 'won'. They seem either to have been gulled into believing that we can trust him to transmogrify his party into a truly conservative one - once he has tricked those who voted for Blair in 1997 that he is not really a conservative and will implement 'Blair's Third Way' - but more successfully.
Or they are part of the scam and know that he intends to become the heir to Blair and that is okay with them.
Cameron simply does not represent the broad swathe of conservative voters who actually remember what this country was like before the neo-Marxist counter-cultural hegemony's Long March walked into Whitehall - and then right (or rather left) into Downing Street, straight from the Halls of Academe and the Sixties and Seventies destructive demos and the cabals and cookhouses of communism.
Rather than ejecting this inimical bunch of crooked counter-culture warriors from the corridors of power, restoring our sovereignty and giving the people of Britain a say about whether or not to continue the 'European project', he makes noises that indicate to me that he merely wishes to take the baton from Brown and continue the Long March with fresh legs.
This may be to your liking Fraser. But those small c conservatives who form the bulk of the commentariat of these blogs desire the restoration of our nation, not another multiculti make over, or take over; with even more appeasement of Islam and all who ride on the back of that mediaeval, polycephalous and destructive monster.
See: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4319
If he really is trying to pull a scam on disillusioned 1997 NuLab voters, he's a piss poor scamster and it simply isn’t working. But I, for one do not believe that. I'm not even sure he has principles at all. He believes in Frank Luntz's manufactured image of David Cameron because he rather fancies being Prime Minister per se, rather than to reverse the last 20 or so years destruction of our nation, our culture and the deliberate corruption of the teaching of our history to at least two generations. He'll go along with anything that (a) lands him in Downing Street and (b) keeps him there until he tires of it and then cashes in like Blair did - and Brown will.
In closing, I would ask one question: how did Daniel Hannan's project go today? Seems to me we'll have to look to him for the answers to our questions; neither Cameron nor you have answered them in your post.
Roy Smith
February 28th, 2010 12:49am Report this comment"A party for ALL the people". This wasn't my take. Sorry but you are not a party for ALL the people. There are many serious issues you do not even SEE never mind listing them for discussion. There are many issues everybody discusses from time to time, but you haven't even touched on them. If you are as purposefully blind as to miss the obvious then how can you be trusted with the torch to show the way.
denverthen
February 28th, 2010 1:28am Report this commentFrenando Tores? [sic?] I didn't know Nelson was a Liverpool man. Explains a lot, mind.
We real Tories are doing pretty damn well under "beeding heart" Cameron, thanks very much.
The rest of you quasi-kippers posting here, there and elsewhere (like the uber-loudmouth 'Verity') should vote with your feet and suck up to Farage. You know you want to.
Please do, and having done so, leave the serious politics to the Conservatives, led by a true "Liberal" Tory, David Cameron.
The European betrayal - while huge, I agree - is better debated and dealt with by an incumbent Conservative government than by an aspirational, but powerless, Tory opposition. That's realism and that's Cameron.
Or don't you people 'get' that.
Derek
February 28th, 2010 2:53am Report this commentdenverthen
writes: "We real Tories are doing pretty damn well under "beeding [sic] heart" Cameron, thanks very much."
Oh really?
The polls scarcely bear that out, but perhaps you have other means of judging success than by counting the number of people who support you....
Furthermore, if the Daily Mail's online report today of Mr. Cameron's speech can be believed, the MPs don't believe it either and you therefore seem to have lost touch with your own party - perhaps you are the only "real Tory"...:
" [Conservative] MPs were privately scathing about Mr Cameron's performance, with one saying: 'It's appalling. In the depths of the worst recession for decades and with a hugely unpopular Prime Minister, we are struggling to land blows.'
Another complained of a 'lamentable lack of focus'. 'There's a lot of discontent. We've spent too long telling the country how we as a party have changed and not enough on how we need to change the Government.'" (Daily Mail online)
What evidence do you have,denverthen, that Mr. Cameron's approach is such a vote winner? And is it now accepted by the Conservative Party, as you appear to imply, that a duplicitous campaign which wins power by deceiving those who vote for it is "serious politics"?
That is is the road which politicians take when they end up hanging from its lamp posts.
teledu
February 28th, 2010 8:09am Report this commentCriticising David Cameron's "conservatism" is NOT akin to supporting Brown and Labour. Got that?
I really hope that, as some suggest, Cameron will, once elected, pursue policies that will mollify his critics (including me) on here, and that the reason he doesn't mention them now is because Labour would steal them or the BBC/MSM would distort them. But do you honestly, deep-down think he REALLY has such policies?
I'll be voting Conservative at the next election (it's a 2 horse race in my constituency, Labour or Tory).
But I just wish I was giving my vote to a party that was not led by a man of whom the best that can be said is that he's more like Blair than Brown. Oy vey! What a choice!
When you consider the democratic and economic train-wreck that we've endured over the last 13 years, aren't we entitled to expect something more?
I sadly suspect Verity has it right in her profile of Cameron. We want a real, more Conservative, alternative to this government, not New Labour-lite; not too much to ask for is is? And let me repeat, saying that does NOT make us Labour supporters or voters. (I take Fergus Pickering's point made early on too.)
Frank P
February 28th, 2010 10:23am Report this commentWhat teledu said.
Frank P
February 28th, 2010 10:25am Report this commentMoreover, I'm beginning to think that the Cameroons were actually planted by NuLabour to ensure a fourth term against the historical odds.
Frank P
February 28th, 2010 11:26am Report this commentI'd like to think that the overwhelming anti-Cameron comments from conservative punters on these recent threads would give him pause for thought. But the self-righteous arrogance that oozed from his every pore during the speech depicted above makes that an impossibility.
He must watch these video clips before he allows them to be promulgated? Has he no self-awareness at all? I'm beginning to think that he would be Brown II - not Blair II if he he got elected.
Matthew Robinson
February 28th, 2010 1:23pm Report this commentSo after all that, all that about power, and empowerment, and control, and radicalism, and the environment, and povery, and family-friendly, and nixing comfort-zones, and waffle this and waffle that, what's Tory policy - on anything?
Does anyone know? Does Cameron?
I read the papers - just about all of them every day here in my self-imposed Cambodian exile (working four times harder than I ever did in the UK) - and I don't.
hadrian
February 28th, 2010 11:01pm Report this commentCameron's faults may be many and he may continue to disappoint and dish the tradionalists amongst us and mouth a lot of PC junk BUT I still say after so many wearying years of the Socialist hypocrites let's at least give him a chance! ANYTHING just to ditch this miserable crew in power at the moment. If we fail to overcome our quibbling this country is in BIG trouble!!
denverthen
March 1st, 2010 12:37am Report this commentDerek (sic?) Daily Mail reader.
Vote UKIP, then. You know you want to.
And then watch your country vanish under five more years of Brown.
Get a grip.
Florence Nightingale
March 1st, 2010 3:12pm Report this commentI remember a chap called Neil Kinnock who,some years ago, according to the Polls and the MSM was going to sweep into power with a landslide victory. He even held a victory party as I recall, and we all know what happened to him!
That said, I have never been impressed by David Cameron and the Conservative party today has nothing to offer me.If anyone had told me a few years ago tha I would ever consider voting BNP I would have been outraged. However, a Conservative victory in my part of the world will never happen,but the BNP are making inroads so this time around I will not waste my vote and if there is a BNP candidate I will vote for him/her.
JohnPage
March 2nd, 2010 11:32pm Report this commentSusan Hill is spot on. I suppose we will have to put up with The Spectator banging the drum for the Tories, however implausibly, as the election gets near.
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