‘What do you think David Cameron stands for?’ a Tory MP asked me recently. Unsure of his point, I burbled something about ‘responsibility’ and couple of other random abstract nouns. The MP shook his head grimly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what David Cameron stands for.’ I leant forward, intrigued. ‘David Cameron stands for being Prime Minister.’
It turns out that this MP isn’t the only one who thinks this way about Cameron’s motives. A survey of ConHome readers, published today, found that 50% believed he was only interested in being Prime Minister and did not have a strong vision for the country. The list of questions the site asked its readers has produced some fascinating results, and it is well worth reading it in full here.
Another one of its striking findings is that 43% of readers disagree that Cameron is a vote winner for the Conservative party, with 36% supporting the assertion. There’s also the 44% of respondents who disagreed that he was good at being Prime Minister, and the 65% who believe he would rather stick with a Coalition government than depend on the votes of MPs on the right of his party.
I suspect this dissatisfaction that party members are expressing in the survey stems partly from the same source that fuelled the conversation I quoted above. There is a grumpiness in the Conservative party that the Prime Minister is pursuing some policies which he feels make him appear more approachable to the general public and antagonises a certain wing of his party. Chief among these policies is his plan to legalise civil marriage for same sex couples. Liam Fox also hinted at his own discomfort over this a few weeks ago. In an interview on Sky News, the former Defence Secretary was asked whether gay marriage should be a priority for the Coalition. He replied:
‘I think the vast majority of the public have a totally different set of priorities from what I would call the metropolitan elite and I think that they’ll be looking for those economic and social issues to be dealt with first.’
It’s worth pointing out, though, that Cameron’s approval ratings among the general public are consistently 10 points ahead of the government, as you can see below:
There was also a ComRes poll in April which suggested Cameron was roughly as popular as his party, with 11% saying they liked Cameron but not the Conservative party, and 10% liking the party but not its leader. Compare this to the drag that Ed Miliband places on his party’s polling, with 5% liking him but not Labour and 29% liking Labour but not Miliband.
But it still matters that the party is not comfortable with its leader. And while 86% of ConHome readers believe Cameron is a better leader than Ed Miliband, that is no longer borne out in the polls themselves, with this graph showing the Labour leader embarking on a lead over the Prime Minister:
Perhaps Ed Miliband gives the impression of being concerned with loftier things than his own glorification. But Conservative MPs aren’t just worried that this is the case with their leader. One MP is quoted in The Times today as saying: ‘People want us to sort out the effing banks, not worry about what Ed Balls might have said four years ago.’ That MP was referring to George Osborne’s performance in the Commons yesterday and his interview with James in which he attacked Balls. By going on the offensive to pin blame on Balls and preserve his own reputation, Osborne risks giving the impression that he’s only interested in being Chancellor and lacking a strong vision for the country, or specifically the banking system. It would be interesting to see what ConHome readers said about that.
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