David Cameron’s rebalancing speech is getting strong reviews from Conservative Home, The Telegraph and Iain Dale. The speech is certainly more conciliatory towards his party than much of what Cameron has said recently. There’s no ‘swallow your medicine’ passage in it while the emphasis on marriage will be music to the grassroots’ ears. But I still think there’s trouble ahead for the Tories.
Throughout the speech, Cameron emphasises that the policy groups will report soon: this is when the problems will start. As the whole row over the Tax Commission showed, it is nigh-on-impossible in this 24/7 news environment for a policy to come out from a party approved group without the party being forced to almost immediately accept it, reject it or at least kick into the long grass.
If Labour are prepared, as they surely will be, the Tories will be pelted with questions about whether they accept this idea or that one. If they don’t explicitly rule these policies out, Labour and the press will successfully tar Cameron with them: just look at how quickly the Cameroons had to back away from the politically tone deaf idea of ending free entry to museums.
Tony Blair’s speech on the media understandably received a raspberry from the press. But one thing that is true, is that the media do force politicians to be in constant campaign mode. There is no time for a gentle batting about of ideas.
Comments