Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron is right to be sceptical of the polls: he does not want to be the Tory Kinnock

Cameron is right to be sceptical of the polls

issue 10 June 2006

After more than a decade of intellectual struggle, the Conservatives have finally made a political breakthrough over the National Health Service. Last month, when a thousand people were asked which party was ‘putting forward the best health policy’, the Tories finally claimed a lead. Men favoured the plan more than women, and even 8 per cent of Labour voters admitted they preferred David Cameron’s proposals to those of Tony Blair. To beat Labour on one of its flagship issues is indeed a remarkable triumph, but one marred by a technical flaw: the Conservatives do not have a health policy.

The old one was torn up by Mr Cameron the day he became leader. He hopes to have a new one by the end of next year, when the lengthy policy review process is completed and Oliver Letwin’s small army of 350 thinkers have reported. But until then, the health ‘policy’ which ICM found to be so compellingly attractive exists only in the imagination of the voters, to the bemusement of Conservative policy-makers, who also note a lead on education, another area where the party has eschewed firm policies in the first six months of Mr Cameron’s leadership.

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