David Cameron's postured anger yesterday about Gordon Brown being the predominant opponent of Parliamentary reform, underlined his lack of political experience. The public are never going to believe the expenses farago is essentially a Labour problem; one only need mention the words 'duckhouse' 'moles' or 'moat' to be reminded of manifold Tory excess.
His much trailled speech yesterday was embargoed until midnight Sunday and the accompanying press release was written mainly in the future tense, "he will say this...he will mispresent that... he will be a total hypocrite..."
But when it came to it, he had been compelled to changed the text. He held back from walking headlong into contempt of court proceedings by continuing to make party political points which could seriously compromise the criminal cases against the four Parliamentarians.
Speaker Bercow had made clear all MPs should be mindful of 'sub judice' rule. Someone close to Cameron with a lawyer's brain (perhaps Sir George Young) was smart enough to pull Dave back from going big on Tory PR chief Andy Coulson's tabloid style attack.
The dismal furore over the clutching-at-straws defence of Privilege will soon pass. The intention of 1689 Bill of Rights was clearly to protect freedom of speech and not insulate members from the legal consequences of any potential criminal wrongdoing. But the trials won't begin in earnest until the Autumn so the leaders will for reason of timing and legal probity have to find another arena to battle it out before the May election.
Cameron is still touchy about party funding as chief fundraiser Lord Ashcroft has never deemed it necessary to be explicit about his tax status. Here is a series of exchanges between commentators and senior Tories refusing to answer this simple question.
It may be more than a healthy dose of wishful thinking but Cameron has looked decidedly shaky in recent weeks. Osbourne may maintain that arrogant swagger of a man certain of his views but he is an serial flip-flopper which offers no reassurance to the markets And most encouragingly, there appears to be a party schism opening up over green taxes - an inevitable consequence when there is such a strong element of neo-con climate deniers in the senior ranks.
If the Tories weren't up against such a wholly unpopular figure as Gordon Brown they'd be in real trouble. But the Good Ship Cameron is starting to take on a little more water as it nudges uncertainly against the political icebergs.
No comments:
Post a Comment