Bagehot has some sensible advice for David Cameron in The Economist: smile more. He writes that:
Admittedly, there isn’t much to smile about the moment. The economy is tanking and our society is at least fractured. But Cameron should, as Reagan did in 1980 and Obama did this year, offer voters a vision of the future that lies over the hill. This positive, uplifting message would be an effective rebuttal of the ‘do-nothing’ charge.“Labour’s caricature of [Cameron’s] astringent economic approach as “do nothing” is unfair but evocative; it has awakened an almost olfactory memory of Tory responses to past downturns. Meanwhile, Mr Cameron pursues his theme of the “broken society”, his catch-all, exaggerated label for a range of ills such as drug abuse and chaotic families. The “broken society” slogan was invented in a recent but distant era when, so Mr Cameron breezily argued, the economy was essentially sound. Combined with his glumly parsimonious economic message, this social pessimism now makes him seem unappealingly bitter and recriminatory. He has begun to resemble those much-derided, Tebbitean predecessors, only with better hair.”
Comments