No more 'hello sunshine', Mr Cameron

Matthew Parris in today's Times:

"Mr Cameron must be brave in the way Jack Straw was brave this week when he wrote what he did about the Muslim veil. He must say or do something that he genuinely believes to be important and right but which will hurt or annoy significant numbers of people, including natural supporters. These “moments” cannot be confected or precipitated by a team of professional advisers; and if anyone tries, it will show. They must come naturally. There is no such thing as a fight that carries few real risks, yet reveals the fighter to be brave.  Otherwise the cartoonists will carry the day. Martin Rowson, of The Guardian, is drawing Mr Cameron as a plump, purple-pantalooned popinjay, prancing around a pantomime stage trilling: “Hello flowers! Hello clouds! Hello trees!” As Bambi was found to have teeth, so must a sword be discovered beneath those pantaloons — and quite urgently."

Comments

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Given the contempt in which Cameron is held by some of the contributors on this site I can't begin to imagine the carnage if he were to do Mr Parris' bidding and seek to "hurt or annoy significant numbers of people, including natural supporters".

[tapestry]

Parris is running out of things to say, and he wants Cameron to do something to fill his columns for him. Cameron's far too savvy to fall for that one. Maybe Boris could insult the Patagonian ambassador. Would that help, Matthew? Why not write about Gordon Brown's psychoses, and social gaucheness? Cameron's just too sane and normal for you. Sorry.

[TomTom]

I cannot imagine Cameron being beastly to the aristocracy or Etonians somehow; he's not the type to turn on his own

[Richard]

I would be interested to know Cameron's opinion on Jack Straws comments. Nobody likes a fence-sitter.

[Richard]

Straw's*

[Monday Clubber]

Perhaps the more thoughtful Cameroons might like to reflect carefully on the fact that, unlike Simon Heffer, now-critical correspondents such as Matthew Parris, Andrew Gimson, Tim Hames, and even Janet Daley were initially friendly to the "Tory Modernisation" project.

I see the more paranoid among the Dave brigade are already resorting to the "shoot the messenger" technique.

Personally, I don't advise it.

[Gunther]

Are you talking about Dave, Leader of the Nopolicy Sqiggle Tree Party?

[Yet Another Anon]

I cannot imagine Cameron being beastly to the aristocracy or Etonians somehow
Or the Bosh - Noel Coward wasn't it?

Matthew Parris seems to be becoming more of a windbag by the day and so is Michael Portillo.

[Yet Another Anon]

Actually I think Billy Connolly probably could have put it far better than Matthew Parris and probably in a few words - "Dae Somehin'" perhaps.

[C List and Proud]

Sorry, Parris' message was that the vacuity has to stop and some meat has to be put on the bones.

To be fair Osbourne and others did do this - vaguely and obliquley - in a few carefully chosen areas and without committing us to anything.

I'm still convinced we will come out of the policy review process with pretty much the same basic liberal, local agenda we had last time, (but which we never campaigned on because it scared the focus groups), and it will be too little too late and we then end up losing again.

Davis was right, we knew what we wanted to do, just needed a four year campaign to sell it.

[Victor]

Cameron is a super salesman. He could sell a pig in a poke, and is setting out to do just that. Do you think anyone will notice?

[Ralph Lucas]

Quite right Cardinal. Parris has ants in his pants. It takes time to evolve a decent policy, more time still to talk people through it. Chasing quick headlines did for our last 3 leaders.

[Yet Another Anon]

Part of the problem in this country is that too much even politicians see parliamentary elections being only about forming a government - David Cameron is the leader of a party of 198 MP's, there is no reason why he can't have policies on various things now, sure he can have reviews on them and consider the ideas presented and amend the policy if neccessary, but even with a running policy he can still point out that things can change on a regular basis and what the policies in 3 years time would be depends on what would happen in the interim - Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill were very active in opposition as well as government, if Labour is divided on an issue than other parties can decide what happens and unless he wants Conservative MP's to vote like Independents then he needs policies, John Smith and Paddy Ashdown maintained clear positions as Leaders of Opposition parties, they organised and were very successful in defeating the government on a number of issues and even where they couldn't they still took a position, if after the next General Election there was a Hung Parliament situation and maybe a Labour minority government, is David Cameron again going to say that they lost and it's going to be nearer the time before they have any policies - ultimately all political parties have to work with the situation at hand and attempt to change things otherwise they could be waiting forever for things to go their way and them finally to have overall control in government - there doesn't seem to be any interim plan with regard to being proactive in trying to have some impact, because if they do then they can point to things and say they opposed the government on such and such a thing, or took a slightly different view or a very different view and if David Cameron wants to shed the perception of him that he is vacuos then he needs to do things and try to have an effect now as well as in a few years time, but then again equally he shouldn't set out to be oppositional for the sake of it - parties going into elections where people think that they are at least still going to do something, to try things even if they lose are more likely to attract votes, and especially if it went into a Hung Parliament situation.

[UKfirst]

I don't understand.

Last year the Tories had a set of policies, and if they had won the election would be implementing these policies now presumably.

But now they say they have no policies. Am I missing something?

[Hugo]

Missing something UKfirst? It is called writing a blank cheque.

[Richard Carey]

Given the contempt in which Cameron is held by some of the contributors on this site I can't begin to imagine the carnage if he were to do Mr Parris' bidding and seek to "hurt or annoy significant numbers of people, including natural supporters".

Given that a significant number of the contributors you refer to prefer to hide behind pseudonyms, or just make a stream of posts of whinging anti-Conservative predictability, I would expect that "the carnage" would consist of a lot of pseudonymous anti-Conservative whinging. Doesn't sound very scary when you put it like that, does it?

Missing something UKfirst? It is called writing a blank cheque.

Funnily enough, what I thought UKFirst was missing was the fact that we lost that election - I think that might have had something of an impact. Yes, we won a number of our target seats, but Mr Blair (for the moment) is still in No. 10.

I do think that Matthew Parris is probably trying to be controversial and generate some copy for himself in the future - and why not, that's his business. But equally, some of what he says is to some extent common sense. If an issue were to arise that in some way genuinely required the leader of our Party to face down vested interests, be they inside or outside of the conservative movement, I hope he would do it. That's called leadership.

[greg]

The Conservatives had policies at the last election? They kept them well hidden.

[Bruce Standing]

greg - The Tory Press gives policy indications such as stopping immigration, leaving the EU, lowering income tax, ending inheritance tax. This is enough to get people voting Conservative without the Tory Party needing to actually have any policies.

[Yet Another Anon]

This is enough to get people voting Conservative without the Tory Party needing to actually have any policies.
Assuming they are the actual Conservative policies, which as they haven't been outlined could be anything but certainly leaving the EU does not seem to be on the agenda - if people read the papers and then assume that will be the Conservative Party policies then when different things eventually emerge they would be somewhat dissapointed.

[Yet Another Anon]

This is enough to get people voting Conservative without the Tory Party needing to actually have any policies.
Assuming they are the actual Conservative policies, which as they haven't been outlined could be anything but certainly leaving the EU does not seem to be on the agenda - if people read the papers and then assume that will be the Conservative Party policies then when different things eventually emerge they would be somewhat dissapointed. Some people will be swayed by the papers but most will notice that the Conservative leadership is not saying those things whatever they eventually come out with and many will conclude that David Cameron can't take policy decisions without holding a policy review first and will know that government doesn't work like that so he will end up going into a General Election having not shown that he is able to respond to something coming up at short notice.

[Yet Another Anon]

Hadn't realised that the message before last had gone through - I got an error message saying that it had a Bad Header Request and I had to go back a page, anyway something else occurred to me immediately after so I had added that.

[Vince]

Hadn't realised that the message before last had gone through - Doesn't the Conservative party have the same problem?

[Annabel Herriott]

If Martin Rowson of The labour leaning Guardian is drawing rude cartoons of DC, then he must be doing something right.

[Cecil Van Percywinks]

I disagree with the suggestion that Cameron has to be brave and cheese off everyone - he's already done that by trying to change this party...

Although it must be noted that the line between bravery and stupidity is not so thick!

[Gunther]

The Jellyfish Man needs to shake himself up and come up with a few policies - and the RIGHT policies before it is too late.

[Cecil Van Percywinks]

But surely Gunther, isn't resisting calls to fish out some policies just the kind of bravery that DC should exhibit as Parris suggests?

Though being dictated to by the media isn't something that I (or DC I imagine) would enjoy.

Jellywish Man? enlightmen me please

[Gunther]

I wrote Jellyfish, not jellywish. It was a reference to the Jellyfish Hero whose story emerged at the start of the conference.

[Matt Wright]

This "policy" thing has taken on a life of its own. Maybe more rational reflection is required and to prompt such a debate, may I play devils advocate - Do we need to announce policies at this stage of the plan? We overtook Labour in the polls and stayed ahead despite having no policies. Generally speaking I'm not convinced voters vote for parties because of policies per se. However they do want a good feeling about what a party stands for at a given point in history. I have argued this case before on this site. I think some commentators looking for "meat" are confusing policy with position. I liked both Camerons speeches to the conference because they started to add meat to our position. Specifically he stressed the need to be in the centre ground. I think this analysis is correct. He set out the big idea, namely social responsibility and he also put health centre stage. Again this is the correct approach as it is the caring issues that most voters are both interested in and actually vote about. Also we cannot solve problems by making laws but only by empowering communities. I believe that more than policy detail we need to repeatedly explain our position to the public. By this I mean that we need a thorough debate so people get the point about social responsibility. Something similar happened when Thatcher set out a position. It was only fater she won that details emerged. We won the derbate about economic responsibility and Labour had to adjust to that. Labour has also failed on so many social issues. Cameron, far from being the terrible person some people seem to think, may actually be setting out precisely the new position that marks out our age and the next big change we have to make. Again we can set the agenda. This is a very exciting opportunity for our party. Not that you would think so reading the wrist slashing neagtiveness of some of the people who post to this site!!

Matt

[Julian Williams]

At present Cameron's team are pretending that Labour is doing well and all they need to do is take over where Labour left off.

They need to admit that Brown's accounts are cooked and his golden rules exceeded and a lot will be paid for from pensions saved for the private sector employees.

Being honest is not a policy, but it is facing reality and providing something more than angel delight and photo-opportunities.

Instead they are promising more spending, they are more tax and spend than New Labour (see Anatole Kaletski TimesonLine.co.uk). They are just plain dishonest.

[Yet Another Anon]

Most of the debate at the moment seems to be going on in UKIP and the Labour Party, it's all very well saying that you set the social issues centre stage but this does require giving an indication what the intention is on them, naturally people want value for money in the public services for what is spent however it is raised - there is no merit in itself in commitment to public spending, money provided by the Treasury has to be accounted for to ensure that it is spent on what it was intended for and social programmes can make things worse and increase dependency - I have for some time been of the opinion that the NHS is actually one of the biggest causes of mass hypochondria and dependency that there is around, it also is relatively minor in terms of the health of the nation - the biggest factors in public health are water quality, air quality, good nutrition and general food quality, adequate supply of food and water, exercise, education, access to reasonable transport links and quality of housing, Public Healthcare mostly is a small factor especially in consideration of how much is actually spent on it. Things such as stress from a breakdown in society and the wrecking over decades of the ability of the state to deal with transgressors is far more detrimental to physical but even more so to mental health than the NHS - people who feel unable to go outside because of scum hanging about, the authorities under various governments fail to properly deal with the people causing the problems but maybe tell the person who doesn't go out that it is a mental problem and gives them anti-depressants instead that maybe are less effective and might even cost more than dealing with the problem in the first place. All the NHS does is patch people up, it is not some kind of solution to societies ills.

[Julian Williams]

It is not PC to say it, but the NHS is pure Stalinism. The State decides what you get and you are discouraged from looking outside the State.

[Andrew]

It's more like Castro's health service, except somehow even less efficient. We're actually spending close on the European average now, and the NHS is still crap.

[TomTom]

It is not PC to say it, but the NHS is pure Stalinism. The State decides what you get and you are discouraged from looking outside the State.

Actually that describes Education more than Health - with Kenneth Baker's National Curriculum laying down what is taught, when, how...........and the whole centralised control over schools and universities brought in by the Thatcher Era.

[EdR]

Most people who want policies mostly seem to be either:

1) The media who want 'eye catching initiatives'.
2) People unhappy with the trajectory of the party in the last year who want reassurance.

Either way, it's not like there was any big secret that Cameron was going to delay policy development until after his policy review groups reported back. This makes perfect sense to me. There's no real reason to make promises in 2006 which may not face the British electorate until 2010. Four years is a long time and not just in politics. Moreover, the longer period gives him a longer time to research and develop ideas in a thought-through coherent way, makes him less vulnerable to attacks from Labour, and means that he has time to grow his image so that when he 'beefs up' people respond to them as Cameron policies rather than "ew, Tories."

At the end of the day, all amping up the pressure for policies is doing is demonstrating that Cameron has patience and a willingness to make a plan and stick to it. Two qualities I appreciate in someone seeking the highest political office, especially after the panic of the Major years and the glibness of Blair.

[Sean Fear]

Without even taking into account people like Heffer and Hitchens, it looks to me as though something approaching a majority of centre-right journalists are increasingly critical of David Cameron.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

No muslim will ever vote for Straw. He's reaching out the the white working classes who he needs to elect him next time. It wasn't a statement of belief, it was a survival strategy.