Heffer: Tories 'stupid party'

Simon Heffer's sure in a huff. In today's Telegraph, Heffer points the finger squarely at David Cameron and George Osborne for failing to bury Labour in light of Northern Rock, and months of "sleaze, failure, and prevarication" from the government:

"Being an opposition is not just about pointing the finger. If you aspire to prove you are fit to govern, you must also convince the wider world that, faced with such a crisis of this size, you could deal with it well."

Heffer's two-point plan for the Conservatives? A platform of reduced taxes and John Redwood as Shadow Chancellor

Heffer points out, and rightly, that the Conservatives' lead in the polls (excluding the most recent Guardian/ICM poll taken during half-term but before Northern Rock) averages around 9 points - about half of the lead Tony Blair was regularly polling in the run-up to 1997.

Westmonster's said it before: the Tories under Cameron are trying to assuage the fears of cautious voters who aren't quite sure this is yet a party of government. Cameron's (and Osborne's) approach eschews the preference of the Tory tax-cutting base, maintains Labour's popular spending programmes, and essentially says "we'll be like New Labour, but without Gordon Brown and his associated incompetence and sleaze."

This is a page straight out of George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for US President, wherein he downplayed his lowercase-c conservative tendencies and focused on "Restoring honour and dignity to the White House." Only after he narrowly won that election did he show his true colours.

It may be a winning appeal for the Conservatives, provided Cameron can keep his right-wing firebrands at bay until the next general election, and provided El Gordo keeps screwing up. But with voices like Heffer's getting louder, and with the Telegraph leaking non-existent Tory spending cuts, just how long will Davy be able to keep them at bay?

Written by Andrew Levy on 20 Feb 2008 9:47 AM. There are 1 comments so far. Permalink