Today he's had a major launch of his book "Cameron on Cameron". (One might even call it "Cam squared") It's a series of interviews with the editor of GQ magazine (arguably a "lads' mag", which may be why Michael Gove has rowed back on his condemnation of the said publicational genre and invited them to tea at the House of Commons). Cameron uses the book as a keynote re-launch of his social reform agenda, which he says will be as historic as Margaret Thatcher's economic reform agenda (presumably he will be picking a fight with some unfortunate echelon of society such as she did with the miners). He says he wants to take on the mantle of Disraeli.
So let's briefly recap:
- "Cameron on Cameron"
- "Style magazine" editor
- Aspirations to equal the achievements of Thatcher and Disraeli
- Social reform
Ummm. Something doesn't quite add up does it? I was expecting Mr Cameron to, at last, demonstrate a bit of seriousness. Something weighty.
For a kick-off, the title of the book is not auspicious. Who writes a book about themselves and calls it basically "Me on Me"? It reminds me of the character Gilderoy Lockhart (above), played by Kenneth Branagh in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Lockhart is uber-smug (indeed one feels that one has to don sunglasses to deflect the glare coming from his nether regions) and talks about himself somewhat, plugging his auto-biography, which is called "Magical Me".
I have great respect for Dylan Jones, editor of GQ. But he seems a strange choice to co-author a book which is meant to lay the foundations of a political thesis similar to that worked up by the likes of Keith Joseph and Airey Neave for Thatcher. One would have expected such a co-author to have done something like politics at Oxford, rather than being a graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Don't get me wrong. That college has my huge respect. Jarvis Cocker, one of its alumni, is one of my heroes.
Disreali? Forgive me, but I have not read a book on Disraeli. I have read Jenkin's brilliant biography of one of his contemporaries, Gladstone. Disreali's main achievement appears to have been to stitch together the Conservative party after the schism caused by the Corn Laws, which also led to the creation of the Liberal Party. Disraeli was also winner of the "Order of the Brown Nose" for his relations with Queen Victoria. This was in contrast to Gladstone, who was not one of Victoria's favourites, to put it mildly. Disreali co-engineered the 1867 Reform Bill with Lord Derby, mainly on the rebound from a similar Gladstone measure which failed to get through parliament. There were some foreign successes with the Suez Canal and the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
So, someone will have to explain. Why does Cameron see Disraeli as someone to aspire to? What vast achievements did Disraeli attain that Cameron aspires to equaling? It is baffling. Presumably, stitching back the Conservative party after its 1997 defeat would be the main thing he has in mind. I don't know.
I am considering ordering this Cameron on Cameron book from by library. I am certainly not going to buy it. So I will reserve judgment on the vast social reform agenda which apparently is meant to be within the covers of this mighty tome.
The BBC have been kind enough to offer some tasty morselettes from the oevre:
-Cameron sees himself as more doggy than catty.
-His wife was a Goth.
-They row about "arrangements".
-"William Hague once said to me, 'Being leader of the Conservative Party and wearing a hat are incompatible'."
-Asked for his favourite political joke: "[Lib Dem leader] Nick Clegg, at the moment." I am on my knees with mirth.
I like this quote:
(Blair) wasn't tough enough with his team. They kept saying, I am sorry I'm not going to accept this, I don't want to go. Well, I'm sorry but in my position when I want someone to go I simply tell them, and then that's that. You have to be tough about it.
That'll come back to haunt him!
Anyway, to give Cameron a chance I turned to Andrew Sparrow and a recently updated Comment is Free piece. He summarised Cameron's philosophy via one of Cameron's quotes:
We want to respond to what should be a new post-bureaucratic age, by decentralising power, by giving people more opportunity and control over their lives, by making families stronger and society more responsible.
The problem with this statement is that it sounds like a cop-out. What measures will Cameron introduce, other than nanny-knows-best lectures from himself, to facilitate his goal? Well, he's announced a tax benefit for married couples. I really have not seen anything yet which suggests that this is anything other than a vote-buying give-away which will do absolutely nothing to achieve what it pretends to aim to achieve. Couples don't break up for want of a couple of tenners a week. And any married couple which comes together or stays together due to the incentive of £20 a week would not appear to have what it takes to stay together long-term.
Sparrow quotes Richard Reeves, recently appointed director of Demos, giving another example where a "solid" Cameron proposal is not promising:
Cameron verges on hypocrisy on the issue of state action. He has set up a Young Adult Trust, which he says is 'working in partnership with many of Britain's leading youth organisations to develop plans for all 16-year-olds that help teach them the responsibilities of adulthood'. A national programme to teach adulthood? If Ed Balls announced it, the Tories would be turning it into a piece of 'nanny state gone mad' propaganda. Cameron is quite right that Labour is very often guilty of knee-jerk statism, but he is equally at risk of unthinking anti-statism.
So the jury is still out. As Dylan Jones explains via video on Amazon, this book helps to explain who Cameron is and that he is earnest and genuine.
The problem is that I am yet to see anything to convince me that David Cameron actually understands the true scope of problems in the UK today, in their true perspective. I am not convinced he actually wants to solve anything other than the dilemma of his own job title. And I am not convinced he has any idea of a programme to solve whatever it is he thinks he wants to solve.
Indulging in a hagiographic book which discusses his pet preferences, is not an auspicious way in which to launch what is supposed to be an historic movement for social reform.
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