Labour attack Cameron for opportunism and triviality

Labour have opened fire on David Cameron this morning.

John Prescott told Labour's spring conference that Cameron is a "chameleon":

"He can change the colour of his skin at will.  But this political animal underneath is Conservative to the core.  The Tories will come to learn that voters won't trust anyone who writes a right-wing manifesto one month and disowns it a few weeks later.  That is not courage, that is not conviction - it is pure, naked opportunism."

Is the deputy leader of NuLabour really giving us a lecture on "opportunism"?

Also attacking Mr Cameron is Alastair Campbell.  The Mirror reports an email that the Labour spinmeister has sent Labour MPs.  In a series of comparisons Mr Campbell attempts to say that Gordon Brown "has a deeper, more relevant understanding of the challenges facing Britain in the future than a young man who seems to think he can glide to power on a mix of media charm offensives and personal trivia."  This is Campbell's list...

"Cameron rides a bike - Brown has steered Britain through the longest period of sustained economic growth, with unemployment and waiting lists way down.

Cameron took drugs - Brown has funded a doubling in the number of drug-users getting treatment.

Cameron has hired an environmentalist to give his home an eco-friendly makeover - Brown has paid for the insulation of one million pensioner homes.

Cameron opposes chocolate oranges being sold at checkouts - Brown has led the way in helping developing countries sell real oranges.

Cameron hired Bob Geldof as a consultant - Brown persuaded the finance ministers of rich countries to cough up an extra 50billion dollars for Africa.

Cameron plays tennis - Brown has trebled investment in sport, helping to win the Olympic bid for 2012.

Cameron prefers The X Factor to Strictly Come Dancing - Brown has given free TV licences to those over 75 years old.

Cameron is trying to give up smoking and bought nicotine patches at Boots - Brown is trying to eradicate child poverty.

Cameron has tea with 10 sugars before Prime Minister's Questions - Brown helped to deliver a new sugar trade deal that will save EU consumers four billion dollars from 2010.

Cameron ate kebabs at university - Brown is helping Turkey join the EU."

As David Cameron takes tough decisions about the big issues facing Britain - for example: on Iran, on nuclear power, on economic competitiveness - it will be much harder for this knockabout stuff to have any effect whatsoever but it will be important that he does make those tough decisions.  Equally important will be intensive and imaginative demolition of Gordon Brown's record on stealthy taxation, failure to moderate personal indebtedness, the private pension mess, productivity and benefit complexity.  Oberon Houston made a good start at this not so long ago and ConservativeHome should probably start doing a lot, too.

Comments

[Elena]

Urgh. I wondered how long it would be before Alastair Campbell crawled back out from under his rock again.

Is he losing his touch? All of the points he makes have one fatal flaw:

Brown is the Chancellor, IN Government. Cameron isn't, so CAN'T make decisions over Britain's future yet. That's the whole dratted point!

I'm actually quite amused at this NuLab offensive, especially by Prescott's words:"That is not courage, that is not conviction - it is pure, naked opportunism."

Uhh... who are we talking about here? David Cameron or Tony Blair?

[Andrew Woodman]

Except Brown has not paid for these thing. It's the British taxpayer that is paying through the nose. This type of point scoring might work with Mirror readers, but Campbell will have to do better than this to convince middle England who Brown will surely have a problem with.

[Stefan Fraczek]

John Prescott is certainly something of a hypocrite - but the fact remains that he speaks the truth.

[Elena]

Be that as it may, Stefan, I cannot see this criticism from Labour sticking, simply because of the hypocricy of it all.

I'll give NuLab something - they're very clever at adapting their line of attack to hit the 'soft' parts of their opponent - but will the Cameron scaremongering actually _work_?

Surely the people we've won over since the election of Cameron as leader won't be swayed by this - most people recognise the fact that Cameron is trying to change the party, surely?

[Rob Largan]

"I cannot see this criticism from Labour sticking, simply because of the hypocricy of it all."

Becareful here, there are many voters of a younger age who dont really remember the Labour Party pre-Blair pre-modernisation.

[carol42]

I don't think the flip flop will stick in view of NL's record but the chameleon jibe might as it just is what I, and quite a few conservative friends, are worried about.

[James Maskell]

Anyone beginning to feel a little bit sorry for Ruth Kelly...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4704522.stm

She got egged earlier this week and she's had to fight for her job over the sex offenders in schools issue. Now her own party is losing faith in her. Taxi for Ruth Kelly?

[Elena]

Did her party _ever_ have faith in her? To be honest, I think she was always seen as a Blairite drafted in to keep up the numbers. And party activists don't seem to be very keen on Blairites anymore. At least, not the staunch ones.

I think there was also a serious question over how capable she was to handle the education brief.

I am beginning to feel a little sorry for her, though!

[Richard]

What exactly is the point of John Prescott? Has he achieved anything?

[Edward]

The interesting thing is, despite Prescott's Bush jibes, much of this is brought wholesale from the Republican attacks on Kerry when it became clear he would emerge from the Democrat primaries as frontrunner and subsequently.

The idea then was to say that, no matter what small gripes you had with *the administration*, you knew where you were and you knew you'd get strong leadership. Meanwhile the opposition would "like to do it" but is too in thrall to vested interests rather than freely taking decisions for the good of the country to actually do it. As a result they flip-flop round trying to be trendy. Ties perfectly into the security theme and is a theme (aussie) Howard and Bush have played a treat before.

Problem is that Cameron needs to be a little gimmicky to get the party repositioned - or at least capable of being repositioned - in the public eye. What is important is that he doesn't make Kerry's mistake in taking up battle over it or trying to justify his positions. Weather it. Then the strongest way for Cameron to overcome this is to take a tough policy position on which is defensible and sustainable on a positive issue and come out fighting on it to show he does have conviction.

Isn't it odd, for example, that whilst they have such an almighty row coming up internally over education Blair and Brown would rather attack him than sorting the mess out.

[Chris Palmer]

"Isn't it odd, for example, that whilst they have such an almighty row coming up internally over education Blair and Brown would rather attack him than sorting the mess out." - Edward

Not that odd. David Cameron and the forces of Conservativism are the common enemy to both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They might not be the best of friends at the moment, but they both hate Cameron more than they hate each other.

[Alexander Drake]

Quite right Chris. And we have to all remember that we have more in common with each other, than we do with any of them.

Those in our party you disagree with might be half-wits, but at least they're OUR half-wits.

[Will]

" What exactly is the point of John Prescott? Has he achieved anything? "

I think history will treat him quite kindly. The working class deputy that provided balast to the New Labour project ( quite alot of it obviously ) to help Tony get through his party reform and provided support in government.

Tony's Willie, if you like.

[Tom Ainsworth]

I wish Prescott would steer clear of the word 'naked', though. Ughhh!

[Rob]

Ed, Yes I think your right about this site playing a more constructive role in demolishing the record of this government. Too often at the moment this blog, which started so well, has been characterised by a highly negative and carping tone focussing energy on vitriolic personal attacks rather than a constructive contribution to the debate.