David Cameron has been bugged in this campaign by the question of whether he’s passionate enough, of whether he really wants it. When Fraser and I asked him about why so many people aren’t sure of whether he has the passion for it a few days back, he replied, ‘I don’t know. There is something about me—I always manage to portray a calm smoothness or something.’ He then went on to explain why as a Conservative he wants to know what the plan is, not just what the passion is. As he quipped, ‘plan plus carrying out a plan equals dream. Dream plus rhetoric equals chaos.’
But in a speech in Yeovil today, Cameron gave his best answer yet to this passion question.
Now, I’ve always thought the idea that Cameron is relaxed about this election is wide of the mark. He’s a hyper-competitive person and I doubt he wants to go down in history as the man who lost to Ed Miliband. As one Cameron confidant put it to me, adapting Voltaire, ‘The idea that if he loses, he’ll just go to his garden is complete and utter c***’.
But in these last 10 days of campaigning, Cameron has to do a better job of showing that he really wants it. Today, he made a real start on doing that.
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