Simon Heffer's loathing for David Cameron's politics is well known. Two others are clearly in the irreconcilable camp. They prove their status again this morning with columns infused with anger:
- Gerald Warner in Scotland on Sunday reflects on the Tories' new Europe policy: "For an Heir of Blair this kind of betrayal is business as usual: if you take the Great Charlatan as your guru and template, then doing the reverse of what you promised to perform and selling out the national interest are lessons learned on page one of the manual. Cast-Iron Cameron's followers are Britain's Vichy Tories. That title was earned by his party's pathetic Scottish subsidiary when its Holyrood MSPs embraced the devolution settlement and left Scots Tories and Unionists swinging in the wind. The Vichy name now sits even more appropriately on the Cameron clique that has supinely endorsed a treaty that resigns the sovereignty and destiny of Britain pre-eminently into the hands of a German chancellor."
- Peter Hitchens in The Mail on Sunday: "Which is the real David Cameron? The one who talks mistily about the marriage bond and his love of country – or the ferocious backer of Ms Truss? And where has the Tory Party been this week, when the nation’s mature grown-ups have been longing for a clear, hard line against illegal drugs, whose unrestrained use is one of the main reasons that our society is broken? Mumbling into its sleeve, because Mr Cameron will not be frank about his own past, let alone condemn it, and presumably because too many of his own louche, moneyed circle are themselves corrupted by illegal drug use. Which is the real David Cameron? The one who pretends he can mend the broken society – or the one who gives comfort to those who broke it in the first place?"
The mean-spirited nature of these attacks tells reasonable readers more about the writers than the targets.
The centre right columnists most enthusiastic about David Cameron are Matthew d'Ancona, Daniel Finkelstein, Max Hastings, Peter Oborne (although sometimes unpredictably), Matthew Parris, William Rees-Mogg (markedly since his children became Tory candidates) and Bruce Anderson (the first Cameron cheerleader). Interestingly, three are at The Times.
Sympathetic are Benedict Brogan (although from a less ideological perspective), Janet Daley (particularly recently), James Forsyth, Martin Ivens, Charles Moore, Fraser Nelson and Amanda Platell.
More critical than sympathetic (but not unreasonable) are, I'd say, Stephen Glover, Dominic Lawson, Melanie Phillips (never nasty like Heffer and Hitchens) and Jeff Randall (he has become much more sympathetic in recent weeks).
Iain Martin is blogging away brilliantly at the WSJ but doesn't currently have a mainstream column. I'd mark him as sympathetic.
Overall - perhaps not unrelated to the Tories' improvement in the polls - support among the centre right commentariat is much healthier than when ConHome wrote about it in April 2006.
Tim Montgomerie
