HAS BOY DAVID  LOST IT?

DC has made various pronouncements recently, many of which I welcome.

He wants to make the Tory Party a party that appears to inhabit the centre ground of politics. I am not sure whether he knows what he means by this. Does this mean that no radical ideas will find a home in this middle ground? Surely the middle ground is an area that allows ideas from both the political left and right to flourish? Nevertheless, I know what I mean by the centre ground and I welcome his approach in the first instance. So much for a strategy.

I am not so happy with many of his tactics. He has chosen to fight Labour on their own home territory. He wants to be 'reasonable', decrying 'Punch and Judy' politics. No doubt this is partly aimed at disaffected Tories who switched to the Lib-Dems. Again, I welcome this approach in principle. You can smile sweetly, speak quietly, and stab your opponent in the heart with a dagger of words composed with precision and wit; they lack both. The Tories must not forget that they are meant to be in opposition, which does not of course mean that they should oppose anything the Government says or does on principle; that would be quite wrong. Yet this Labour Government has given its opponents so much ammunition with which to oppose it, and personally I find it difficult to see where an opposition can agree with them on the vast majority of issues.

This is a Government that achieves little. Focus groups identify what concerns the country. The Government will then make pronouncements, as for example in relation to reducing the number of people receiving incapacity benefits. In so doing Labour have used their old maneuvre and assuaged people's concerns by stating they will reduce the number of claimants  - over the next 10 years, which in itself is a total irrelevance. But they will of course do nothing. The fact that they have said they are doing something seems to be sufficient for the many of all political persuasions. They just need this reassurance that something is being done. Of course, they don't really care either way unless it affects them personally. Should this be the way of British politics

and governance?

Blair was nervous at first, after DC was elected, then bemused, then relieved at the approach DC was taking. Why fight Labour on their own terms? If Blair says Black is White, then it is so. If he says White is Black, then it is so. At least it will so be perceived by a vast swathe of the British public, so badly has the standing of Parliament suffered and Government propaganda afflicted the people of this country. It happens nowhere else in Europe to this extent. And yet DC wants to join this sad debacle. Does he expect to be able to out-Goebbel Blair? Why should he even think he can achieve that? Why buy the imitation when the real  thing is available?

Labour have once again out-witted the Tories. They understand, as ever, how to handle them under this new leadership. They will marginalize DC and trivialize him ever increasingly. As I have stated before, the only hope, on present trends, is for Labour to lose the election, the Tories on present trends cannot win. And once again, where are all the other hard hitters brought onto the front bench? I suspect they are increasingly dissatisfied and keeping low.

So, has boy David lost it? I don't think he ever had it to lose.