Politics

Fraser’s piece is already making waves. The reason for this is that it poses the question that all Tories are thinking about but dare not voice – not least because they do not know the answer to the question: “If not Dave, then who?” To lose a fourth successive general election, as the polls suggest the Conservatives are on course to do, would be a savage blow to any party. The years 1992-94 (post-Kinnock, pre-Blair) have been airbrushed out of Labour Party history, but they should act as a terrible warning to those Tories who think that a bit of creative disunity now is what the party needs. As David

Gordon Brown’s new book, Britain’s Everyday Heroes (Mainstream, £10.99), is yet another important clue to the Prime Minister’s political trajectory. In inspiration, it is part Cobbett’s Rural Rides, part Eliot’s homage to “unhistoric acts”. In his portraits of 33 individuals engaged in various forms of service and community work, Gordon identifies those he regards as the “true celebrities” of our times, and hails “an age of engagement: with our culture and communities energised and improved by the choices and actions of individuals – people power.” In such enterprise, he says, we can see – you guessed it – the “greatness of Britain” as well as the “timeless values of the

Amidst all the hullabaloo about David Cameron heading to Rwanda while parts of his constituency remain flooded, it is worth noting that the report he is unveiling over there has some pretty sound ideas in it. Writing in the Telegraph this morning, Peter Lilley, the group’s chair, argues that trade is essential and that rich countries must do five things: “open their markets unilaterally to the products of all low-income countries; liberalise the “rules of origin” that result in 40 per cent of imports that should enter Europe tariff-free paying duties; give incentives to reduce the high tariff barriers between developing countries; abolish export subsidies that damage Third World agriculture;

In The Sun this morning Trevor Kavanagh dismisses the Tories chances of winning the next election, writing: “Gordon Brown is going to win—and win big. In the process he will likely set Labour up for a fifth term and 20 unbroken years of socialism.Why? Not because he has necessarily delivered a better Britain over the past ten years – though he has been fiendishly clever. But because the Tories are still soft, arrogant and – some say – idle.”   Kavanagh goes on to contrast Brown’s workaholic determination with the Tories more relaxed approach. Indeed, it is one of the many ironies of the past few week that Alastair Campbell’s diaries

As Middle England sinks further underwater today, David Cameron is off to Rwanda to inspect the gap year-style project overseen by Andrew Mitchell. The timing couldn’t be worse: today, for the first time in decades, there are towns in Britain without clean water. Temporary residents’ centres are opening for the displaced in Oxford. If I were Gordon Brown, I’d visit as many of these places as I could while Cameron is abroad, and be pictured comforting Middle England as Cameron poses with Rwandans And if I were Mr Cameron, I’d avoid the cameras today for precisely these reasons. Fate has made this the worst possible time for him to go.