A question of motive

Charles Moore’s column in the Telegraph today is one of the best articles you’ll read this year. The nub of his argument is that:

“Mr Cameron finds himself the heir both to Blair and to Thatcher. To Blair, because he has had to take his party away from its preferred territory and pay attention instead to what actual voters worry about. To Thatcher, because he confronts a crisis of the public finances even more severe than the one she faced. He also leads a coalition. So, unlike Mrs Thatcher, he wants to woo and to warn, please and prophesy at the same time. Can it be done, as she implied that it could not? It has to be. Mr Cameron’s only way of holding a majority together in such economic adversity is to convince enough people that he has honourable motives and does not like inflicting pain.”