The final phase of preparing the country for Prime Minister Cameron is under way. Having decontaminated the brand and marched ahead of Labour in the polls, the Tories are now introducing the country to Statesman Cameron.
Politics abhors a vacuum. So with Gordon Brown hunkered down planning his autumn ‘relaunch’ and David Miliband practising looking like an innocent flower while being the serpent underneath, Cameron had the opportunity to act the statesman during the Georgia crisis. He did so, even going to Tbilisi to convey Britain’s solidarity with Georgia. As one top Tory purred to me, ‘He’s combined the toughness of a Thatcher, with the tactical acumen of a Blair.’
It is a sign of the change in the political weather that during this episode Cameron appeared a plausible Prime Minister; the contrast to the Conservatives’ chaotic response to the war in the Lebanon could not have been starker.
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