Wednesday 12th March

Well, actually in the circumstances my opinion, though nobody has ever asked me for it, is that Mr. Cameron is not so bad.  At least compared to Heath or Thatcher, who were equally awful.  In the same way that many life-long Tories didn’t really mind Tony Blair; the reason being that he isn’t a full-blooded Tory (just as Blair wasn’t really Labour).  Mind you – many in the Cabinet are, especially Jeremy Hunt and Ian Duncan-Smith, who are like dogs who though kept on their leashes refuse to stop snarling and baying for blood.  The trouble with Mr. Cameron is that he realised early on that the tide was turning against the Tories.  Labour won a landslide in 1997 which even took them by surprise; it was as if they couldn’t quite believe the polls themselves.  In the end they wasted much of that good will, with internal bickering and a caution which was probably unwarranted.  They won two more elections on lower shares of the vote, largely because the Tory party was being led by right-wingers Hague and IDS and Michael Howard.  Then along came Cameron, whose mission was to detoxify the Tory brand.  He only partially succeeded and now that we have had four years of (a slightly watered down) Tory administration the Tory brand is again hated by many. But not as much as many Tories hate Cameron.

Firstly for trying to introduce the concept of Compassionate Conservatism in the first place; secondly for not winning in 2010 outright; thirdly for going into Coalition rather than leading a Minority, but Real Tory Government, even if it might have been shot down in flames after a couple of years; also for his natural caution in not immediately giving them a referendum on Europe and last but not least for sanctioning Gay Marriage.   This last actually raises the hackles of more Tory backwoodsmen that any other single policy.

All of this means that he is in real trouble.  Until 2015 he must still appease the LibDems – still try to appear reasonable, but at the same time he knows that not only will he have to fight those same LibDems for many marginal seats, but UKIP is snapping at his heels, presenting the Tory faithful with just the very ideaology they actually love.