Alastair Campbell rejects all of the leadership candidates

Writing for this morning's Times Alastair Campbell, Labour's spinmeister, puts the knife into all of the Tory leadership candidates.  Fox, Rifkind and Willetts are summarily dismissed.  Messrs Clarke, Cameron and Rifkind receive more attention:

AC on Ken Clarke: "At the risk of fuelling the belief that he is the man Labour fears, Mr Clarke is the one Labour should most relish getting stuck into. He has many qualities. He is his own man and a bit of a bruiser. He has been presented in some circles as the Tories’ Mo Mowlam, a tribute to his human touch. But that is insufficient.  He has been Chancellor but the gulf between what is required for that position and the top job is enormous. Unlike Gordon Brown, Mr Clarke is lazy and prone to leave the detail to others. The laziness shows up in his speeches, made for headlines not argument."  Mr Campbell goes on to criticise Ken Clarke's Iraq position "without saying what his alternative is" and "in thinking that he could redefine his lifelong position on Europe simply by stating that he had changed his mind".

AC on David Cameron: "He looks and sounds like a traditional Tory toff because that is what he has been bred to be. He and George Osborne like to market themselves as being to today ’s Tory party what Blair and Brown were to Labour in Opposition. But Mr Blair and Mr Brown thought things through, in depth and in detail, reviewing every aspect of party and policy from first principles, adapting to a changed world. I see little sign of that in Mr Cameron’s speeches so far."

AC on David Davis: "I have a clear idea how Labour should tackle him, rooted in my firm belief that he is politically and emotionally incapable of taking the Tories to the centre ground."

Mr Campbell concludes:

"None of the candidates has yet to articulate any sense of how he would mould and lead a genuinely changed Conservative Party. Every time the candidates attack Blair and Brown, the staple of nearly all their speeches, they confirm Labour’s dominance of the landscape, and expose their inability to do what Tony and Gordon did — take arguments about their own party back to basics and build a coherent long-term strategy to change party and country. It sounds easy. It wasn’t. Not one of the Tories on offer understands the nature of what was required by Labour then, and by them now.  Whoever wins, the next leader is likely to go the same way as Major, Hague, IDS and Howard: defeated by new Labour because he fails to understand it is a real and sustained political project."

Comments

[James Hellyer]

If things are moving that way, it hardly seems sensible to discard hard-won consensus of the last few years and dash to the party's Left with Ken.

[Blimpish]

On the basis of those numbers, we've got a gap of 0.64 points, and are closing at about 0.2 a year, so we'd be smack on the centre ground in three years time (very flawed extrapolation, but the point applies). Lurching to the Left would simply confuse the picture - we're now only 0.57 Right of Labour, too.

[James Hellyer]

And Labour becomes more disconnected from their base the further they move to the right. It weakens their core vote. Conversely maintaining the current position strengthens ours.

[Michael Fishwick]

But you can't win with just your core base! A stronger base isn't the same thing as more votes. How many defeats do we have to suffer before we realise this? Waiting for the extra voters we need to win to come to us is complete madness! We've got to attract voters by becoming attractive through our values, language and behaviour.

[James Hellyer]

"But you can't win with just your core base!"

And I never said you could.

"A stronger base isn't the same thing as more votes."

A weaker base easily translates into fewer votes (see Labour, election 2005).

"We've got to attract voters by becoming attractive through our values, language and behaviour."

Language and behaviour, yes. Values? Well, our policies do attract people, it's the people selling those policies who then put them off. That's why we need to add to our repertoire to build our support: strong policies on human rights, the environment and helping the vulnerable can not only compliment and work with existing Conservative policies, but actively confound voter expectations.

[Michael Fishwick]

James, you advocate "maintaining the current position". This is a 'position' which appeals only into the core Conservative vote. And yes a weaker base naturally translates to fewer votes, but its the price you pay in reaching out and in the case of Labour, remaining in power (see election 2005). I agree with your last point, but more than that, since '97 the Party has lacked a big and consistent narrative bringing together all the essential elements which would make the Tory brand an appealing one for mr and mrs voter. I actually think detailed policies are one of the least important elements...successful opposition parties are usually policy-lite.

[ヴィトン 財布]

Norwich-born Ursulina really enjoys ヴィトン 財布 online gaming and crafts. Last but not least what she treasure most is enjoying a Vancouver canucks hockey-game IRL.