Michael Wolff’s portrait of David Cameron in the latest issue of Vanity Fair is well worth reading, even it it’s a weird kind of a beast. Wolff concludes – at the start of the piece, as it happens – that he’s “impressed” by the Tory leader. But then spends the best part of 2,000 words spraying out quotes and observations which will harden the attitudes of Cameron’s detractors, on both the left and the right. Cameron is a “toff”; Boris doubts his “intellectual bona fides”; the Tories have “anti-riffraff” policy on marriage, and so on. Wolff even quotes one Fraser Nelson, saying that he doesn’t “believe for a minute [Cameron] believes protecting the N.H.S. is a good idea”.
The quote which really jumped out though – particularly after his SamCam slip-up for the Rawnsley documentary last night – is this from Ed Vaizey:
Ok, so plenty of CoffeeHousers may find that reassuring. But I doubt the Tory leadership will be too pleased at Vaizey suggesting that Cameron is different from how he presents himself – particularly as Labour are always so keen to launch “behind the mask”-style attacks. It’s probably reaching the point where the Camerons are considering a gagging order on their friend Ed.“[Cameron] is, I believe, much more conservative by nature than he acts, or than he is forced to be by political exigency.”
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