David Cameron Is Not A Failure
Mark Thompson thinks those who are saying Cameron is a failure are simply being foolish.
27 Nov 2011, 16:30
No failure!
However I want to tackle something that I keep hearing and reading about Cameron. Essentially I keep hearing that he is a failure. This is from across the political spectrum including a number from his own party.
It goes something like this.
Brown was unpopular. Very unpopular. We were in the midst of the worst financial crisis since before the Second World War. On top of this Cameron had had several years in which to prepare for the election and yet in the end he couldn't even get an overall majority.
All of these things are true but they fail to take into account a number of factors.
1) The Conservative Party were a basket-case of a party after 1997 and by 2005 after 3 consecutive trouncings they were still in a woeful state. William Hague who is one of the most gifted politicians of his generation couldn't improve their fortunes very much and nor could the subsequent two leaders they had which included a former cabinet minister and Home Secretary of immense experience. Cameron forced through a programme of modernisation which at least left them electable in 2010. In fact it was nearly 20 years since his party had been in such a position (since 1992 when the polls dived following Black Wednesday and never recovered until Cameron's time).
2) Cameron was not facing just Brown but also a fresh-faced insurgent named Nick Clegg who was able to seize the mantle of change that Cameron wanted for himself (if Cameron had just managed to get a couple more percentage points at the expense of the Lib Dems he would have had a majority). I know lots of Tories think it was a terrible mistake for Cameron to agree to the televised debates which helped Clegg forge this impression but Cameron had little choice. Sky were on the verge of "empty chairing" him and the other broadcasters may well have followed suit, after all they could not be accused of political imbalance if the 3 leaders were invited but Cameron refused to show. In fact this would have been disastrous for his campaign as he would have rightly been seen as a coward. What Cameron actually did as soon as he saw that Clegg was in the ascendancy is what he always does when his back is against the wall which is to come out fighting and by the second and third debates he did very well and helped to puncture the Cleggmaina bubble.
3) David Cameron is actually the most successful national politician in terms of percentage of the vote won of the past 10 years. The Conservatives under his leadership in 2010 got 36.1% of the votes. In 2005 Tony Blair only managed 35.2%. It is only our "interesting" electoral system that translated Blair's 35.2% to 55% of the seats when it only gave Cameron 47% on a higher vote share than Blair.
4) He is Prime Minister. This might seem like an odd point to make but it was not guaranteed that it would happen. The coalition negotiations could have gone very differently. The fact that Cameron came out straight away with his "open offer" to the Lib Dems enabled all that flowed from it. His political judgement was spot on and he only had a few hours in which to make the call the morning after polling day. Had he flunked it and allowed Labour to make the running and retain power the Conservatives could well have moved against him. Instead he is safely ensconced in Downing Street. It is David Cameron who gets to take the decisions about things like the Libyan action, the UK's response to the financial crisis and he has the highest and most listened to political platform in the land. And will likely have it for at least another three and a half years.
It is worth bearing in mind that there are only 5 other people who have become Prime Minister of the UK following a General Election in the last 50 years. Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Major and Blair. It is a very difficult thing to do but Cameron has managed it.
Whatever you might think about how he got there it seems perverse to consider him a failure having done so.
Comments (7)
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"William Hague who is one of the most gifted politicians of his generation"
This is, I feel, the point at which your thesis loses its way in a "jumping the shark" sort of style.
Hague is a man so politically unastute his career as potential prime minister was ended by his choice of **HAT**.
27/11/2011 22:42Yes Cameron forced through a "modernisation" programme, but that is probably why he lost, why he is indeed a failure. "Modernisation" attracted few if any voters in winnable seats. It lost enough votes to UKIP to lose 20 or so marginal seats. And the electorate thought "if I want namby-pamby centre-left politicians, I can vote for the real thing in the Lib-Dems or New Labour".
28/11/2011 09:39@William MacDougall
28/11/2011 11:04The Lib Dems as a whole are no longer centre-left. Their membership is centre-left, the party is centrist and the leadership is centre-right.
This apologia for David Cameron is pretty weak stuff. Yes, he is PM - but only by the skin of his teeth after forging a coalition agreement which renders the government pretty much illegitimate: always remember that no-one, but no-one, voted for the brokered mish-mash of policies that the coalition agreement comprises. If it had been put to the electorate as a manifesto it would have been a political suicide note (possibly not the longest in history though).
Cameron has simply failed to capture the naturally right-wing voters who flocked to Margaret Thatcher and gave her solid majorities in three Parliaments. That he could not achieve a simple working majority after the tragedy of the Brown administration is simply woeful. That he reneged on his pledge for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty shows that he misreads the electorate. That he is in bed with a bunch of political shysters such as the Lib Dems shows his desperation to occupy Downing St at all costs, when perhaps the more astute strategy would have to let Brown struggle on for a few months and then wipe the floor with him in an autumn 2010 election.
The greatest problem this government has - apart from its illegitimacy as a cobbled together coalition - is that its policies are hobbled by unwilling partnership with the Lib Dems. The sooner he has an attack of honesty, realises this cannot go on and calls an early election, the better the electorate of the country will be served.
28/11/2011 11:12Most unconvincing. He is a success only in that he has found a way into the top job. But his proclaimed agenda for government is in total ruins; debt is soaring, immigration is booming while unemployment climbs - he has achieved nothing but to continue the work of the previous Labour government.
When his show is over, Dave will still be a millionaire, and his family will still have golden futures. Britain, though, will be in a very bad and dangerous place, facing possibly quite hideous times.
So I say David Cameron is a failure, and unlike Mark Thompson, I am correct.
29/11/2011 10:27A very good, balanced article. Same can't be said for some of the comments.
04/12/2011 19:56Cameron has failed by not understand that our relation with the EU has changed even though our Treaty / contract with the EU hasn't.
Cameron goes up to bed and catches Clegg in full swing with Samantha.
Cameron : I want a divorce
07/12/2011 17:52Clegg : You can't the wedding contract hasn't changed