The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

New Tory, New Tony

Barely had David Cameron's new seat as Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition cooled after Prime Minister's Question Time today than the Labour party chair, Ian McCartney, dashed off an email to me. I am informed, in case I hadn't noticed, that "the fundamental divide between the parties remains the same." Both of them want to govern the country, but only one of them, at a maximum, can do so at any one time. "The Prime Minister made clear that it wasn't enough to say you supported education reforms - you needed to back that up with support for Labour's investment programme." Those who call Tony "Lord, Lord" shall not be saved, but only those who do the will of his Father in heaven.

Also, "Labour would never agree with the Tory leader's belief that we should return to selection at the age of eleven." Tony believes in selection by income, not age. The Tories, I am told, "opposed all Labour's extra investment in schools, hospitals and the police and are still committed to cuts to public spending, to axing the New Deal, cuts to tax credits, and to selection in schools". They didn't oppose Blair's commitment to trampling international law, but Ian McCartney does not mention this. Possibly he believes that he can make his case without dragging in matters under which Tony has drawn a line.

In any case, it's clear that Ian McCartney thinks the Tories are a very bad thing indeed, and that if they were in charge Britain would not be in the state it's in today. Its schools would be in need of urgent overhaul, its hospitals inadequately funded, its police perhaps even inclined to be trigger-happy. Obviously, that would be just too awful.

"We need to show Britain what these 'modern Tories' really stand for," Ian McCartney concludes. "Your support is vital"; whereupon he holds out the e-cap for a financial donation. As an afterthought, Ian McCartney adds "PS. With important elections next year, we need you out campaigning so I'll be in touch with more information about how you can help take on the Tories", and holds out the e-cap for another financial donation. I can hardly wait.

This apprehension among the Blairites is only natural, of course. According to Ian McCartney, "Conservatives' current rebranding exercise is simply putting a new gloss on ... Tory policies". It seems David Cameron really is the new Tony Blair.

Nay, there is worse. David Cameron has a disabled child, a pregnant wife with whose lump he finds public quality time at every opportunity, and he has invited everyone - yes, everyone! - to accompany him on a wonderful journey. David Cameron is young, looks back upon his university days with the kind of tolerant indulgence Conservative politicians normally spare for rich people's children, and has more hair than his three predecessors put together. To the first Tony Blair, labouring desperately to keep yet more embarrassing curtains from rising to reveal his roaring inadequacy, David Cameron must seem like a Dorothy, poised with his chums (David "Tin Man" Davis, George "Put 'em up" Osborne and Boris "If I only had a brain" Johnson, perhaps) upon the yellow brick road of Liberal Democrat collaboration and ready to take Tony's place as munchkin-in-charge to the Wicked Witch of the West.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home