On Monday, I went to Kennington to hear David Cameron (again) talk (again) about why voting Conservative is so important (again). Beforehand I was chatting to some journalists, and pointed out that during the leadership campaign in 2005, David Cameron had, in most people’s eyes, lost the Question Time debate against David Davis.
Not because he didn’t speak about the same things he did in the rest of the campaign. And not because he was floored by any one question. But because he was over-prepared, and over-cautious, and far too self-conscious.
The following week, there was another debate between the two of them – can’t remember which one, I’m afraid – at which David Cameron absolutely shone. Because he had ignored much of the advice he’d had, because he was prepared on the issues, but most importantly because he let rip as himself.
As Andrew Neil asked about ten minutes after we’d discussed this, when will Cameron be Cameron during these debates?
Tonight during the debate, as we’ve seen all this week, Gordon Brown will probably lay into the Lib Dems like never before (yes, despite all his ‘I agree with Nick’ last week, and Peter Mandelson’s love-bombing today). David Cameron should not get involved. He needs to rise above the two parties squabbling for second place in the polls tomorrow (I’m not being complacent assuming the Tories will be top – I’m being realistic and going by almost every poll over the last two years, though of course there has been a shift this past week).
He needs to be himself and not get stymied by all the conflicting advice he has no doubt received. His instincts are right: people want change – Conservatives have been proving that we can deliver change over the last four years. People want action to get our economy growing again – Conservatives know that the private sector is what generates enough to pay for good public services and understand that wasting yet more money when we could start saving now is not going to help. People want to know that their government is competent, that it is trustworthy and that it is going to do the right thing, whether that is actively helping them out or just getting out of the way.
Those are all messages that the Tories have been focusing on for ages. Because they’re the ones that only a Conservative government can deliver.
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The hyper coverage has meant, I think, that the British electorate is having difficulty seeing the forest for the trees, especially when the latter include MPs’ expense claims and an economic crisis where the perpetrators appear to have escaped a just comeuppance.
Yet the ‘forest’ remains: does the Labour Government’s record in office deserve reward or punishment at the polls? To paraphrase Hamlet, ‘That is the question.’