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I've just read the interview and am always struck by how personable Cameron always is. I really believe this man will usher in a new era of politics. Brown is yesterday’s man fighting yesterday’s battle.

Politics doesn’t have to be nasty or unkind it can be about doing the right thing and making life better for your constituents.

Yesterdays men - absolutely. PMQs makes me smile. You have weary Blair flanked by grumpy old Brown and fat jowled Prescott. They need replacing by their younger ministers before being replaced by the Tories.

Yes please Stevie, very neatly put, I agree with you completely.

Cameron does come accross very Human, it's something I like about him. I fear he may he lose this the longer he is the Job (especially if that Job involves being PM) but the same may apply to anybody.

As one of that generation now pushed aside by the 30/40 somethings ( the yesterday generation of Tony & Gordon....) can I say a word in our defence about Editors comment on fear of failure - its a youth thing. Experience (which means failure as well as success) makes you realise its surmountable. Churchill had lots of failures but because of those was more willing to take risks - guided by experience - than a younger leader whould perhaps had been.

Yes I know kids in their gap year dash round semingly oblivious to mortality and Alexander, Edward Ironside & Canute had barely left the nursery before hitting the stage but in general kids fear exams, they fear job interviews etc, it's an upward climb with threat of failure held over you.

and we ageing baby boomers aren't afraid to take risks (or perhaps act stupidly) - in last couple of years I've followed lions on foot, rafted the Zambezi rapids three times....

It's not age that makes the Labour government yesterdays men, it's that they have lost faith in their ability to do much more than govern by rote and think up eyecatching wheezes to hide the paucity of real real solutions to today's and tomorrow's problems. What do Milliband, Balls etc. offer besides more of the same?

Having defended my generation can I just add that I'm really impressed by my party's new generation and think they offer real hope!

it's so nice that he believes in trusting people.

"It's not age that makes the Labour government yesterdays men, it's that they have lost faith in their ability to do much more than govern by rote and think up eyecatching wheezes to hide the paucity of real real solutions to today's and tomorrow's problems. What do Milliband, Balls etc. offer besides more of the same?"

This could quite easily be said of Cameron as well.

The thing that strikes me most about Cameron is just how cautious and unambitious he is. He seems so incredibly frightened of criticism that he doesn't want to say anything that could possibly be criticised -- hence the obsession with platitudes.

Ted - Thats what I think is nice about this blogging community, that there are people of all ages participating and mostly everybody is tolerant.

I can give you a few years Ted, and I agree with you up to a point, but I don't think age necessarily cures a fear of failure or a lack of confidence, I think that, personally at least bloodymindedness sometimes drives one forward, so as not to be consigned to the scrap heap on account of age.

Perhaps David Cameron's fear of failure is related to doing something for the first time, and if so that is something that many people experience. Far better that than someone who is so convinced of his rectitude (apparently) and of course with help from above, that the modern phrase 'I don't do' in this case 'I don't do being wrong', is increasingly what describes him.

John - it depends what you see as caution and unambition. You would, I infer from previous mailings, prefer he came up with, for example, strong tax cuts, was anti-Europe. Your view of ambitious is in seling the "core" better.

I think dropping a number of the policies we stood for less than a year ago, introducing A lists etc shows ambition. I don't think he is cautious - he's gambling a lot on what the party will accept.

As for platitudes - I don't accept the No 10/Murdoch caricacture, I don't think he would have coralled the best of our party leadership into his shadow cabinet & policy groups if thats all he is doing. Slogans might appear as platitudes but repetition of key messages by DC, by Osborne, by Davis, by Willettes etc is about getting key messages lodged in the voters brains.

It's not enough by itself but neither can we expect a full formed policy set to emerge in a few weeks. Its not just about convincing the voters but also about taking the majority of the party along. He stood for change not just as a more acceptable face no the same un-reformed party. Change is what he must deliver and some of us will not like it - as Barbara Villiers recognised/warned during the election.

"In life, I have always been more frightened of failing than I have of concentrating on trying to climb the next peak. It is always a great relief when something that could go wrong doesn't."

Well I'm a naturally cautious person myself, so I find this understandable on a personal level, but on a political level, I find little to inspire about a safety-first approach.

The Conservative Party is at its best when it is bold, when it is radical, when it challenges political consensus - to be fair to David Cameron, it looks like the party may well follow this path under his leadership, which is why I'm surprised he made the statement above.

Much worse than the fear of failure, is the fear of success. It encourages people to remain "in the comfort zone". I remember Eric Morecombe saying in an interview that he and Ernie were terrified of "bombing", of not not getting laughs. This made them determined to succeed.
This struck a chord with me. In my early years, I was a talented athlete, but I lost some races because I was afraid to take the initiative and demonstrate how good I was. You may remember Sebastian Coe fatally holding back in the 800 metres at the Moscow Olympic Games. Disgusted with himself, he made up for it in the 1500 metres.
Take my word for it; fear of failure is good. Fear of success breeds a "choker".

I should have added that success brings to insecure people unwelcome pressure to "keep it up", to "keep ahead of the competition"
It can do your 'ead in.

I just wanted to say how glad i am to belong to the same party as Ted and Patsy because their comments above are almost poetic and quite certainly life-affirming.

I'm a bit Cameronesque in that I'd almost rather not do something than be seen to fail doing it. (Gosh this blog is encouraging disclosure way beyond the norm!). So I found this article in the Telegraph quite psychologically interesting, in that it sort of made me more aware of what it is about Cameron that makes me feel warm and good - it's a pre-cognitive feeling to be honest: as long as he didn't speak nonsense I'd like him. And I can imagine that remark making some bloggers sneer (it would have made me roll my eyes about 20 years ago - 'everything bows to LOGIC, DOC-TOR'); but I also think it's what the analytic bloggers (those who treat politics like a branch of deductive inference) are missing (incisive though their contributions are).

What was I going to say, oh yes, only this, that having a leader who's human enough to open up a bit about fearing the future, etc, is a lot nicer to me than having a prime minister with a messianic complex gone hyper, who clearly can no longer even understand when or why he lies to us all the time, who has been so shamelessly convinced of his divine duty to rule for so long that he can no longer even understand the meaning of the words "Just Go".

"John - it depends what you see as caution and unambition. You would, I infer from previous mailings, prefer he came up with, for example, strong tax cuts, was anti-Europe. Your view of ambitious is in seling the "core" better."

Not necessarily. I fail to see how *anyone* from the right *or* the left of the party could be particularly excited by what he is actually offering (as opposed to his mere tone).

He is explicitly selling himself as continuity from Tony Blair. He has cut down the divide between the Labour Party and the Tory Party to such a ludicrous extent than debates around education revolve around more "setting" in classes.

Is that our great ideological divide?

If you *are* excited by David Cameron's direction then you must either think New Labour have done a great job with the country and are sad to see Tony Blair stepping down, or you are someone who considers cosmetic factors to be of primary importance. Either way, I don't see this as a popular viewpoint.

"I think dropping a number of the policies we stood for less than a year ago, introducing A lists etc shows ambition. I don't think he is cautious - he's gambling a lot on what the party will accept."

How does introducing A-Lists show ambition for the country? It doesn't in the slightest. It shows that Cameron and his team are obsessed with image and internal party matters. Do you really think the country cares at all about this? Do you think they would regard it as "ambition"?

At least Clause 4 had some impact on the country. If it was an internal party dispute, it was of some importance. The A-List is only really of concern to party members and activists.

"As for platitudes - I don't accept the No 10/Murdoch caricacture, I don't think he would have coralled the best of our party leadership into his shadow cabinet & policy groups if thats all he is doing."

Umm..I think you need only read the piece Cameron submitted to this site to see his gnomic nature. As for coralling the best of our party leadership, I don't see how this signifies anything at all. Most people in the Tory Party want an end to old divisions; that doesn't mean they don't have concerns about the direction Cameron is taking us. I think alot of those currently supporting Cameron (at least openly) are hoping he will show some ambition further down the line. I am very dubious about that.

"Slogans might appear as platitudes but repetition of key messages by DC, by Osborne, by Davis, by Willettes etc is about getting key messages lodged in the voters brains"

They are slogans that don't mean much to ordinary people. When David Cameron says "I believe in trusting people and sharing responsibility", I don't think very many people have any idea what this means. Especially as he doesn't give any very good examples of enacting it. Indeed, many of the things he has said suggest he doesn't believe in "trusting people" at all (the A-List, gender pay gap etc). So what does it mean? If I don't know, I can't see how the public does.

Furthermore, when he talks about switching to "fair trade tea", don't you think the public can see through this kind of gimmick? After 10 years of Tony Blair the public are rather more cynical than they were when Blair first emerged. I believe this kind of nonsense alienates more voters than it attracts.

"It's not enough by itself but neither can we expect a full formed policy set to emerge in a few weeks."

Nobody is asking for that. The point I am making is what little Cameron *has* said on policy matters suggest that he is very unambitious.

He is in serious danger of becoming a self-parody. His Gandhi-quoting, eco-friendly happy-clappy, Notting Hill image surely has a very limited attraction. Perhaps this explains the discrepancy between the gushing media coverage and the current opinion polls.

"He stood for change not just as a more acceptable face no the same un-reformed party. Change is what he must deliver and some of us will not like it - as Barbara Villiers recognised/warned during the election."

No -- he stands for continuity. He stands for keeping the country more or less as it is and doing nothing to it. This is why I say he is unambitious. The "change" he offers is purely internal to the Conservative Party. There is nothing ambitious about that; ambition requires a vision to achieve something, not gain power for power's sake.

The comparison of David Cameron to a BMW Five Series is an interesting one, I hope his "Built To Last" is as successful as theirs.

The Editor would be better to highlight today's disatrous poll in the Sunday Telegraph that has Labour ahead, at the height of the peerages-for-cash scandal, four points (!!!).

Labour can take comfort from the fact that despite the scandal it is ahead in the polls on 37 per cent. The Conservative were trailing on 33 per cent, the same score they achieved at the last general election, with the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent.

It suggests that David Cameron's honeymoon period may be over. Last month the Tories were on 37 per cent but that has been falling steadily. A poll last week put them on 34 per cent.

Nick Sparrow, the managing director of ICM Research, said: "While they were ahead of Labour, they were not ahead by enough. They needed to build on the lead and instead they have gone backwards."
source: Telegraph

As I've been saying for a while now on this site, the Cameron Project is flopping and floundering.

When will this site wake up? When will the Party?

Cameron is the right man, but Steve Hilton and his left-wing ideas must go, and he must go soon. It ain't working....

Rebel
Suggest you also take todays Yougov poll which shows Conservatives 3% ahead into account before making too much of ICMs. It depends on whether you are AC/DC

If you are in the DC camp then of course YouGov's considerable record in getting it right shows we are still on track. YouGov poll results since election are very close to the average across polls.

If you are AC (anti Cameron) then the trend in ICM is indeed bad news and conirms that Cameron's 100 days were a mere flash of publicity now wasted in neoBlairite compomise.

So we can now have choice in poll eveidence supporting our views - isn't capitalism wonderful!

Hi
I’m new to this site, so don’t know the etiquette. Just read a detailed account of the potential problems with the alcopops policy vs. EU regs. http://umbrellog.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-seemed-like-good-idea.html Seems to me that the headline policy announcement should also be accompanied by a narrative covering the implementablity, given the points in this link. Does that analysis exist anywhere?

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