Don't you forget about me

It's been an amazing year for Cameron. The only major activity his party has engaged in, is publishing six very general policy discussion documents from which one could derive almost any manifesto. And yet the Conservatives have moved from a 10-point deficit last September to a long-established 20-point lead. How do those polls make the smug egotists of his inner Cabinet (Osbourne, Maude, Hague and Gove) feel? Their ears must glow hot in anticipation of their Ministerial briefs and travelling the world as team Cameron.

The problem with Cameron, as Alistair Campbell says in every public utterance, is he's done nothing to earn such a 'winning lead'. Brown's woeful display as PM has been the entire reason for Dave's illusory popularity. Now Brown is enjoying a very good war in the City there has been a minor panic in Tory ranks as their lead rapidly comes under threat.

So it was pure ego and selfism which inspired Cameron to stand up at the crack on Friday morning at Bloomberg's to ditch the days old agreement to support Govt action through the market crisis. (I watched Cameron decrying Brown's disastrous economic management while FTSE flashed above him showing a rise of 400 points that morning.)

Politics is like comedy - timing is everything. Early Friday morning is a really poor time to chose for hitting the news and the weekend papers so it was a bad tactic. But it's a poor strategy too to be shouting, "listen to what I think," when the economic storm is still raging. It's certainly too early to start taking lots of long-term decisions on the resolution. And Cameron will have to eat platefuls more humble pie than even John McCain when it comes to his previous utterances on de-regulation. Haven't seen much of free-marketeer John Redwood lately. It was only two weeks ago, he told Tory conference in Government, they would, "repeal 54 different pieces of regulation in our first de-regulation bill".

Cameron's argument, Britain should have followed the example of responsible conservatism like ex-Australian PM John Howard, is specious. Australia's relatively stable position is almost entirely derived from selling collossal amounts of raw materials to China. We'll see how they fare as global recession bites this year and next. First Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper put it well when she said, Cameron has been engaging in "juvenile political games".

Cameron's speech was obviously rushed, it must have been to contain excrutiating lines such as, "we need to do far better in bringing into everyday use technologies that are still in laboratories and developing in the laboratory technologies that haven’t even been thought of yet." Wise words, eh Dave.

New opinion polls are expected in a day or two and Brown is bound to benefit from his 'bank managerial' calm through the crisis. Cameron doesn't like to include many 'grey beards' in his team. It shows more political immaturity and flashes of real arrogance that he cannot take criticism from those who have the experience he obviously lacks. At last, it is starting to show.