19 November 2012Lynton Crosby, that is - the Australian election guru who has been brought in to run the Conservative election campaign in 2015.
Something has been missing from the no10 operation for more than a year now. There has been no real grip over events and it seems as if they are drifting from one presentational problem to another.
The problem of coalition politics is partly to blame, but only partly. Cameron is just not good at Party management and is failing to balance the needs of coalition and those of the Party he leads. He seems to default too often to keeping the LibDems happy and angering his own Party. That would not be so bad in itself but for the fact that the instincts of the country as a whole are more with the Conservative backbenchers than the LibDems on issues such as the EU, the environment and the Human Rights Act.
Only if Lynton Crosby is given sufficient authority can he make a real difference. That will mean Cameron paying more attention to the country and his backbenchers and standing up to the LibDems. The coalition is only likely to last another year to 18 months anyway until we have a period of minority Conservative government in the run up to an election.
There is everything to gain and nothing to lose from Cameron being and being seen to be a true Conservative in the coming two years.
You can stand in a canyon and cry out your own name and imagine that the place knows you well.
That there is some distance between Dave and...well, and you, Barry, there is nothing that conceals that fact, and yes in the run-up to the next election true colours shall need to be hoist.
The Electorate has next to nothing to lose. The Conservatives were not elected last time, New Labour are still seen as cracked-Conservatives and along with the Lib-Dems appear as bed-warming-pans;once of use, then as ornament, but now neither use nor ornament. It seems to me that the Conservatives are in a hurry to secure their own place at the back of the same Political bric-a-brac stall.