I had thought David Cameron would shy away from immigration. That the scars of the 2005 campaign would keep him away from it just as Letwin’s 2001 disaster left him too traumatised to ever consider tax cuts again. Yet today at 11.15am at Policy Exchange, Cameron will give a keynote speech on immigration – the topic which, polls show, troubles the public the most. Remember, Iain Dale had told us on Friday that the Great Clunking Fist was planning to grasp this nettle first. So Cameron today beats him too it.
For me, his mission will be to show a more mature understanding of the problem than Labour. The bar is set low. Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” mantra (an old BNP slogan, as the Fink has brilliantly shown) is not a policy. It’s the old Blunkett technique of strong words, backed by drift and inaction.
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