Sunday, August 27, 2006

Another Cameron flip-flop, but has his Party changed an inch?

So, the fifth Tory Leader since Margaret Thatcher believes she was wrong to condemn Nelson Mandela and the ANC as terrorists and wrong to support the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The strategy of the failed fourth Tory Leader since Thatcher - Michael Howard - seemed to be that the only trouble with Thatcherism was that the country hadn't had enough of it and was begging for another dose.

David Cameron happily endorsed Howard's approach. In fact he was the architect of it.

Cameron was the author of the Conservative Party 2005 manifesto, the most right-wing ever Tory platform which was rightly rejected by the British people.

For the past nine months, Cameron's strategy has been to persuade us that he's changed his spots.

Catching up with the rest of the world and publicly recognising that Nelson Mandela's ANC were not terrorists as Thatcher declared was the latest stage of the rebranding operation.

Cameron's agenda has been boosted by Thatcher's chief spin-doctor Sir Bernard Ingham who sniffily reacted to the Mandela endorsement by questioning whether Cameron is really a Tory.

Outrage from Ingham, Tebbit & Co is all part of the Cameron script and exactly the reaction he was banking on from the hard-right grandees. Cameron wants to portray himself as any colour you want him to be - red, yellow, or green.

The truth is he can keep changing the branding: but when you scratch off the surface, the product underneath only comes in one colour - Tory blue!

The question now is how far will Cameron go in his attempt to distance himself from Thatcherism?

Perhaps his next move will be to tell us he won't be following Thatcher's example of inviting the ruthless dictator General Pinochet for afternoon tea...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of Margaret Thatcher's less attractive qualities was a friendship with the grisly torturer General Pinochet.

However, she did stand up for what she saw as British interests. She knew how to finesse the American government, sometimes simpering, sometimes boxing their ears.

Tony Blair has got the simpering bit off rather well, but can't summon up the personal qualities required to tell them when they are wrong.

Chris Palmer said...

Well Phil, I must say you do rather a good impression of a parrot - so well done in that respect.

Interesting to note that in the 1988 General Election, in which Margaret Thatcher was elected with a third landslide majority, 100,000 more people voted Conservative than 9 years previously in 1979 - so, to say that people were tired of her is, well, complete tripe. This is something even Mr Blair has not achieved, with his vote dramatically plummeting by 4 or 5 million votes since 1997.

But then, that's the usual leftist tack these days isn't it? Hope that if you tell a lie enough times it will become the truth.

Again, how exactly was the Conservative party 2005 Manifesto the most right wing ever? Any facts (if you understand the concept of a fact) do you have to back that up? Or are you spouting rubbish... again?

And then there was the Dave the Chameleon video. Well that worked well didn't it.

We in the Conservative party know David Cameron is a true blue really. It's all one vast great conspiracy - and when Mr Cameron and we get back into power, hoho, my word, are we going to have fun!