Who on earth still buys the fairy tale that the PM-in waiting is a good communicator?The nation's disgust with 'the Westminster class' has been smouldering for months. People say they've had enough of incomprehensible politicians who are incapable of coming up with a straight answer. The Tony Blairs, the Harriet Harmans, the Hazel Blears. For years they'd wriggle out of simple questions by getting the viewer and the interviewer drunk with bamboozling displays of verbal diarrohea.
Change, then. Isn't it what they want? Isn't 'the common man', the average Sun-reader, just gagging for change?
Sure. Yesterday, Prime Minister-to-be David Cameron was handed a platform and a half to illustrate his "vision for change".
One was offered by his new mates and supporters at the News of the World. In an article for the Sun's sister paper, the Tory leader spelt out the word "change" five times, no less. And yet, he managed to say very little. Plenty of hollow statements like this:
"Our plan is for the biggest shake-up in welfare for 60 years. It includes giving the long-term unemployed the personalised support they need to get back into work".
But those exact same words could have been said by any senior New Labour minister in the last 13 years. In fact they have been said, in exactly the same way, for the past 13 years.
And then there was Andrew Marr's interview on the BBC. If you watched, you may have noticed how vague each and everyone of Cameron's statements was.
He said absolutely nothing. He dodged questions about his wealth. He ducked stuff on financial regulation and public cuts, unemployment and public debt. He also said nothing factual on Europe. Even Nick Robinson, generally quite soft on the Tories, wrote:
"So what does the self proclaimed "straight talking" guy say about one of the biggest foreign policy dilemma he's likely to face if he becomes prime minister? Nothing. Nowt. Nix. Zippo. Zilch."
For all the myth that Britain's PM-in waiting is a charismatic fella and a good communicator, David Cameron is actually an abysmal one. For all the ritual talks of 'change', the country is in the process of replacing one elitist lot with another that talk and act in exactly the same way.
If that's the best the opposition can come up with after a decade and a half in the wilderness (and with a government in tatters), then this country is seriously doomed.
One was offered by his new mates and supporters at the News of the World. In an article for the Sun's sister paper, the Tory leader spelt out the word "change" five times, no less. And yet, he managed to say very little. Plenty of hollow statements like this:
"Our plan is for the biggest shake-up in welfare for 60 years. It includes giving the long-term unemployed the personalised support they need to get back into work".
But those exact same words could have been said by any senior New Labour minister in the last 13 years. In fact they have been said, in exactly the same way, for the past 13 years.
And then there was Andrew Marr's interview on the BBC. If you watched, you may have noticed how vague each and everyone of Cameron's statements was.
He said absolutely nothing. He dodged questions about his wealth. He ducked stuff on financial regulation and public cuts, unemployment and public debt. He also said nothing factual on Europe. Even Nick Robinson, generally quite soft on the Tories, wrote:
"So what does the self proclaimed "straight talking" guy say about one of the biggest foreign policy dilemma he's likely to face if he becomes prime minister? Nothing. Nowt. Nix. Zippo. Zilch."
For all the myth that Britain's PM-in waiting is a charismatic fella and a good communicator, David Cameron is actually an abysmal one. For all the ritual talks of 'change', the country is in the process of replacing one elitist lot with another that talk and act in exactly the same way.
If that's the best the opposition can come up with after a decade and a half in the wilderness (and with a government in tatters), then this country is seriously doomed.
6 comments:
As loath as I am to quote him, yesterday Alistair Cambell called Cameron 'VacuDave' on his blog following his uninspiring performance at Andy Marr's.
He is vague personified old D-Cam...
This is veering towards empathy with Homer Simpson's assertion that "democracy doesn't work" just because people make stupid choices - which, I might add, is very true. Style wins over substance because that's what it's designed to do.
Were it not true, then Ashdown would have been PM instead of Major and Blair. After all, he did suggest the 'penny in the pound income tax' idea long before GB realised that PFI hadn't worked and did the same.
The fact is that GB has a track record of stupid policies, especially around tax (IR35 anyone?) but particularly on financial management - not encouraging for a former chancellor. It's a question of mediocre leadership over pisspoor leadership.
Me? I'll vote for Clegg - he may not win but at least when things get worse I can sit smug in the knowledge that I didn't contribute to the problem...at least until my house gets repossessed.
I'm finding myself in the strange position of knowing I'll probably vote Labour, even though I don't like them.
Because I like my MP. He's a backbencher and he's not a joker, unlike pretty much *all* the main party leaders. I'm very much in line with most of his voting record.
We'll see who the LibDems and the Greens put up though. I might really like them too.
On the subject of D.A.V.E., as I've now decided to call him, I'm going to be disappointed but unsurprised if as much of the country falls for him like they fell for Blair, seeing as he's pulling *exactly the same* trick.
Cameron is operating in the post-Blair, post-New Labour project which got the country hooked on the idea of a pre-packaged, "ideology free" policy for every eventuality, because that sold better than Old Labour's core values (a.k.a. a euphemism for ideology used by anybody who claims ideology is what the other lot, regardless of whoever the other lot is, do). That these "policies" were largely intended more for the waste paper bin than implementation was never the point. So people are hooked on a diet of "policy", whilst simultaneously complaining it's "hollow", or even better are enamoured with the circular argument that any policy of Cameron's isn't a "real policy" because someone somewhere said he didn't have any!
MJW,
you are right Cameron operates in the post-Blair post New Labour era and all that. But thats no excuse at all, because I was under the impression that the Tories were going to change all that and bring some substance back to politics. At the end of the day, isnt NL despised because of too much spin?
Whichever your political or ideological or social views, his performance on Sunday was indeed very ppor and uninspiring, in that I throughly agree with the poster.
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