Status Anxiety: The unmovable and the irresistible

Until now, I thought David Cameron’s best week in politics was the one that began with the inconclusive result of the general election and ended with him standing beside Nick Clegg in the Downing Street rose garden. The skill with which he outmanoeuvred Gordon Brown reminded me of a comment made by Oliver van Oss, a former beak at Eton, about the Wall Game in Andrew Gimson’s biography of Boris Johnson. ‘It provides the perfect training for later work on boards, committees, royal commissions and governing bodies,’ he said. ‘The unmovable and the irresistible are poised in perfect balance. Nothing is happening and it seems unlikely that anything ever will. Then, for two seconds or so, the situation becomes fluid. If one can take one’s chance — and there may not be another — the day is won. If one miskicks or mistimes or is timid or was not attending, all may be irretrievably lost.’

But the week following last Friday’s royal wedding may turn out to be an even better one for the Old Etonian smoothie. At the time of writing, no opinion polls have been published since the wedding, but it seems likely that the Conservatives will receive at least a minor boost.

Then there was the news about Osama bin Laden. Cameron can’t claim any credit for that, but it is bound to prolong the celebratory public mood.

More important, though, will be the AV referendum and the local election results. A decisive victory for the ‘No’ campaign will be seen as a win for Cameron and a loss for Ed Miliband. It should put a stop to the rumblings of discontent on the Conservative back benches and go some way to repairing the damage caused by Cameron’s failure to win the last election.