Labour to portray David Cameron as slippery estate agent

Labour's attempt to paint David Cameron as an opportunist chameleon didn't appear to work.  Plan B, according to today's Sunday Times, is to portray the Tory leader "as a much more slippery creature — a floppy-haired estate agent."  Hazel Blears, Labour Chair, used the estate agent attack in a recent post for Labour Home:

"We may buy and sell our houses from estate agents - but would you put one in charge of the country?"

A Labour insider told The Sunday Times:

"Middle England hates estate agents and you can just see Cameron as one. He’s posh, floppy-haired, flash and full of chat. He’s willing to say anything to make the sale, but nowhere to be seen when the roof falls in.”

Charles Smailes - representing some of the nation's 134,000 estate agents - damned the planned campaign as “derogatory and derisory”.  Mr Smailes suggested Labour might be taking revenge for estate agencies' opposition to Home Information Packs.

Comments

[Donal Blaney]

I am buying a house at the moment. It's not the estate agents I hate particularly. Some who sent me house particulars were impressive, some were useless. But what I really hate is that I have to pay 3% stamp duty when I buy my house. Will the Conservatives campaign to reduce stamp duty? I am not holding my breath alas.

[william]

Tax Harmonisation.

In Belgium they pay 10%, I believe. We haven't seen the half of it yet Donal.

Not to mention that putting 1 euro in an employee's pocket there costs an employer 2 euros 40 cents.

Labour are pushing for more EU, and more tax. They're the slippery sort. Cameron believes in building communities from the bottom up, and ultimately making the State redundant. Seems an honest enough message to me.

Labour's campaign will backfire. They're describing themselves perfectly (apologies to all reputable estate agents of whom I know many).

[David Belchamber]

Donal has a very good point; the first thing with stamp duty is to double the opening threshold, so that most first time buyers don't have to pay it. Then raise it in stages, so you don't end up paying, say, 3% on the whole purchase price.
As for the Labour insider's quote, it could have applied equally well to the present incumbent of No 10 nine years ago!

[Sally Roberts]

This is going to upset an awful lot of estate agents! ;-)

Seriously though, don't they think that name-calling is rather childish and will ultimately backfire?

[Patsy Sergeant]

Something about estate agents and DC came out in Sunday AM just now, obviously it was the latest 'directon' from the spin machine, but it didn't come out easily and I can't now remember who made it or exactly what they said - well you say does that matter, as long as it is 'connected up'?

Well here is another thought, when those ridiculous 'house packs' become compulsory next year, people won't be connecting up - house packs and estate agents with anybody else but Mr. BLAIR and the LABOUR government. Right?

[michael mcgough]

The cap most certainly fits but why not stick with chameleon,a tag that has been vindicated with the EPP issue.I would suggest that this is because more voters know what the EPP is than know about chameleons.Most people are familiar with DODO though,and if you threaten enough people around you, you end up DEAD.

[Della Petch]

The only really dirty name they could call him, would be a 'New Labour politician.' Ugh. Makes me shudder to think about it.

[Paul Kennedy]

Just to show you the effect of the Stamp Duty Stealth Tax, the stamp duty on a house costing £130,000 is £1,300, yet when the price of the house doubles to £260,000, the stamp duty increases SIX fold to £7,800.

And yes those of you who suggested name calling does backfire.......eventually, are right, although in the short term it can reinforce negative perceptions about the recipient.

[Jaz]

Labour can try, and go right ahead. It won't stick....because the preachers are the sinners themselves.

[Editor]

A good line, Jaz!

[michael mcgough]

UKIP won't have that problem Jaz!

[Julian Morrison]

I don't think it's going to stick, because it lacks a message beyond "ner ner na nerr ner, you're a poopy head". The public will think "they would say that, wouldn't they" and "is that all the stones they have to throw?"

[ChrisD]

"Labour can try, and go right ahead. It won't stick....because the preachers are the sinners themselves." Good line Jaz.
Oh dear oh dear, when are Labour going to learn? The chameleon attack did not work because, a)It reinforced DC's message of change, b)Labour are unpopular and discredited and this type of negative attack simple backfires and makes them look nasty.

[YorkshireLad]

"Seriously though, don't they think that name-calling is rather childish and will ultimately backfire?"

If they thought that they wouldn't have gone ahead with the "Chameleon" campaign, would they?

All it proves is that they've run out of ideas.

[James Maskell]

Desperate Housewives? I thought he was a big fan of "The West Wing"?.

[Henry Mayhew]

Cameron is toast at the moment, as he was before David Davis imploded in the campaign. No momentum at all on any issue. He doesn't have a policy that I am aware of, now that he has decided not to leave the EPP.

Being slagged off gives him some marginal credibility as an opponent of Labour, but without ideas in the near future the end ain't gonna be pretty. Isn't the country crying out for change?

[Paul Kennedy]

Crying out for improvement, rather than just change as not all change is for the good. I also sense our country is crying out for strong and decisive leadership where the interests of our country and its law abiding citizens are paramount.

[Jack Stone]

Henryyou don`t know the meaning of the word change. The sort of change you want is that which takes the party back to the past with its tax cuts, anti-immigrantion, anti- Europe message. That message which lost us the last two elections and would lose us the next if anyone would be foolish enougth to follow your advice.

[Julian Morrison]

Jack Stone: you're mistaken. What lost those elections was knowing what Conservatives are against, but having very little idea what they're /for/. Labour have a vision: the pragmatic, managerial state, achieving socialist goals by wielding Thatcherite means. Conservatives said /how/ but argued no case for /why/, so they looked opportunist, amoral, willing to sell out some people (immigrants) in order to buy the votes of others (racists). I doubt people are in love with the EU or tax (although the immigrants thing was ill-concieved). They just won't vote for a party with no philosophical coherence. This being why D.C. is likely to be the next-but-one PM after Brown - he has a dream, and is working to sell it.

[Henry Mayhew]

Thanks Paul & Julian. Jack, how about this: We hand the welfare state over to mutual societies guaranteed and part-funded by the State. We all get to put away tax-free long term savings from which we can draw welfare if we can convince our mutual society officers that we are genuinely unemployed/sick and looking for work. Government would pay in enough to cover basic benefits with our own contributions topping that up or going towards a better than basic pension if not drawn down in welfare payments.

Surely, a critical policy area the Tories must develop is to give everyone a stake in building their own welfare and pension pot rather relying on tomorrow's taxpayers. Gordon has destroyed faith in today's system and job mobility makes employers' pension schemes inappropriate going forward.

We need change, we need improvement. Don't we need political leadership with the guts to identify problems and then seek outside advice on solutions?

[Richard Weatherill]

"... but nowhere to be seen when the roof falls in."

Sound more like G Brown to me!

[william]

Cameron's persona is only just starting to take shape. Labour are trying to find a way to land a blow. Obviously chameleon hasn't worked too well. The 'estate agency' one smacks of desperation. Blue Labour (UKIP) hasn't run for long. Specific insults targeted on Cameron are bouncing off, it seems, as people simply like him. It used to be Teflon Tony. Now it's Durable Dave.

The real barb which hurts us is in fact the one which is hurled at all politicians from the big parties...that they've abandoned the British people, formed an elite which makes deals about things like immigration without observing the views of ordinary voters.

Cameron has a better defence against this than many as he is young enough to claim he's not tainted with the decisions of earlier generations. People have not yet made up their minds about Cameron, and they can see that his persona is still in the development phase.

The electoral challenge that Cameron will be facing in three to four years time could well be other than from Labour, or Lib Dem. It could be the challenge from fast growing minor parties, low voter turnout, and the continuation and expansion of John Prescott's electoral postal vote fraud.

He will, if this is the case, need to show above all that he is a politician that can be trusted.. that he's interested in the views of the electorate, and that he has new solutions to offer. In short he must offer 'hope', or a 'no hope' angry alternative party will exploit the gap. His latest speech in Birmingham did exactly that.

[Julian Morrison]

Henry Mayhew: nah, I don't like your solution, too centralised, one size fits all, and the guarantee / part funding will either come with heavy strings attached, or be a massive source of cheating and slapdash mis-management.

I think the most essential task of a Cameronist government has to be to /get out of the way/ of ordinary people's inventiveness. Not to design or fund a cure, but to remove legal roadblocks, tax, imposed expenses. This all must be done on an equal access basis, to let people try various stuff and find what works. If government has its own suggestions, they have to be just that, suggestions, which may be good or bad but have no monopoly privileges in law.

[Julian Morrison]

Hmm, following from the above, I think a rather good policy to announce as a manifesto promise might be: "if you're doing good, call us with your problems, and we will make them go away". That is, use the general public as the sensor/feedback on what red tape needs to be cut. Have an expedited pipeline from complaint to deregulation, with a reaction time measured in hours, not months. Have the ability to return a call and say "we changed that law, you can go ahead".

[MH]

Actually as an ex-Tory voter, I think it sums him up admirably.

[John Moss]

We're just as guilty of sniping at "barristers" - more often than not on our own side - and at "trade unionists".

However, the comment from the head of the NAEA is germaine, many are young and pretty niave, but they won't vote labour again.

On the subject of change though, we are not - I hope - going back to crass hard core nationalistic right wingery, rather - again, I hope - forward to a sort of liberal conservatism with vouchers and independence for providers in health and education.

After all, Tory policies weren't unpopular in these areas at the last election, they were well received until people were told they were ours.

Sanitising the Tory brand is a slow process but it is being acheived. Slight re-positioning or re-presentation of policy that already has had lots of hard work done on it by successive teams alongside this appears to be a sensible way forward.

[john]

estate agents Golders Green think that Estate agents should be more regulated.