Apparently it’s the first anniversary of Plastic Dave Cameron’s ascension to the Tory throne.
Apparently this means it’s time for State Of The Party pieces in the Sunday broadsheets.
Apparently the State Of The Party is confused.
In the Sunday Telegraph, a focus group thinks Plastic Dave is:
“[a] family man; posh; English; nice but dim; quasi cyclist; highly intelligent; cheerful; unknown quantity; slick; interesting; directionless; PR friendly”… Something stark is becoming apparent: Cameron is inspiring the most admiration among those who usually tend towards Labour, the Lib Dems or minority parties or who didn’t vote at the last election. He provokes the most critical comments from those who most frequently vote Tory.
Tory traditionalists are hostile towards Cameron for the same reason socialists (remember them?) were aghast at the rise of Mr. Tony Blair – because he’s full of shit as far as they’re concerned.
Consider that previous Conservative Secretaries of State for the Environment number the notorious greens Nicholas Ridley, Michael Heseltine and Peter Walker (who were, in fairness, complicit in the destruction of our coal industry, thereby significantly reducing the nation’s carbon emissions – if you don’t count the emissions involved in now shipping in all that cheap coal from Poland), Kenneth Baker and – oh, yes – Michael Fucking Howard: that line up shows you exactly how serious the last 30 years’ worth of Tory leaders took their responsibilities to the planet.
All of a sudden the annual conference finds itself addressed by a plastic man who rides a pedal cycle (as alien a concept to them as it was to Katharine Ross in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid) standing in front of a picture of a tree scrawled by a five-year-old with ADHD. When conference ends, the delegates drive home in their Jags and 4x4s and go back to work in businesses raping the planet with gay abandon. They don’t “get” it any more than Scargill and Benn “got” the blue-pencilling of Clause IV and the fellating of business tycoons.
And it would, of course, be more convincing to the rest of us if that pedal bike wasn’t being shadowed by a car carrying Plastic Dave’s change of clothes.
Almost everyone thinks he is caring and compassionate… Jane adds: “It seems to come naturally to him.” Even Colin agrees: “There is sincerity in him. You can’t fake that.”
You can’t?
Can’t you?
The Observer worries that Plastic Dave’s approach to politics might lead voters to see that the emperor is naked:
The greatest risk David Cameron takes is that being fashionable will go out of political fashion.
The newspaper’s Andrew Rawnsley also points out that eventually someone is going to ask Plastic Dave actually to say something meaningful instead of mouthing sanctimonious platitudes.
But then, what’s this in The Sunday Times?
David Cameron, the Conservative party leader, is facing an official investigation for hosting a series of fundraising events in the House of Commons. He and other senior Tories have hosted 32 fundraising lunches or dinners in private parliamentary rooms in the past two months. They are thought to have raised more than £100,000.
Last week, two backbench Labour MPs filed a formal complaint with Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
Parliamentary rules ban the use of Commons dining facilities for fundraising. They state: “The private dining rooms are not to be used for direct financial or material gain by a sponsor, political party or any other person or outside organisation.”
The sale of dinners in the Commons is the latest fundraising controversy to hit Cameron. Last week the Tories disclosed they had taken substantial loans running into millions of pounds from several offshore trusts and companies at rates below those offered by conventional banks.
Thank fuck for that: sleaze and money. After a year, at last I can identify with the Tory leader.