Friday, February 15, 2008

What does Cameron really think?

Nick Robinson has spent a while trying to track down the real David Cameron. When he did this some years ago for Gordon Brown, it was relatively straight forward - the views of Gordie were well known.

David Cameron was tougher to tie down. But Robinson sets out three defining events which have shaped Cameron into an alleged Tory "moderniser":

1. His wife Samantha, who apparently dragged Cameron into the real world, especially on things like Section 28. Strange that, a Bullingham Club member being dragged into the real world by the "daughter of a baronet whose job is selling £950 handbags".

2. The birth and treatment of his severly disabled son, which, in particular, gave Cameron an exceptionally deep knowledge of the National Health Service, at the sharp end.

3. Defeat in 2005.

Some would add a fourth defining experience for Cameron - his career PR man at Carlton Television. Much of what we have seen of him over the last two years seems to flow from that experience. "All mouth and trousers", I think it is called.

Tying down what Cameron would do in office is a lot harder for Robinson:

...that is where friends of Cameron become rather hazy. Faced by choices about governing rather than political positioning they cannot spell out what he would do.

Take just, one example, Europe. It’s one thing to instruct your party to stop “obsessing” about the issue. It’s quite another to decide whether to betray your activists who believe you are committed to renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU or to pick a long, lonely and, potentially, futile fight with the European leaders you’ve fought so hard to join.

Put this or other choices on tax or climate change or social justice or social responsibility to a member of Team Cameron and they soon reply “Ah but he is a pragmatist”. In this sense he is not a moderniser but a tradition-aliser harking back to the days not just before Thatcher but before Heath and “Selsdon Man”.

But Robinson concludes that, in that respect, Cameron is a bit like Blair was back in 1994. Blair was so hard to define that Robinson was forced to cancel a planned documentary on him. We under-estimate Mr Cameron at our peril.

No comments:

Post a Comment