Labour’s new attack strategy: Cameron’s a right-winger

The Observer has a cracking scoop: a brief document detailing a new Labour plan to attack Cameron. The memo has been written by Shaun Woodward, the former Tory MP and Labour cabinet minister who now heads Labour’s anti-Tory unit. He will report to the shadow cabinet in the next few weeks. He says:

‘At the last election we faced a Conservative party (and a Conservative leader in David Cameron) whose strategic goal was to decontaminate their brand, intending to present themselves as reformed, modern, centrist and pragmatic. Cameron was effective in promoting a perception [that] his party had changed.


But here is the paradox: whilst the Tories made changes before the election – intended to convince the public they were compassionate – since the election (and especially in the last few months) the Tories have taken major strides back towards their ideological roots. Buffeted by events, there is a growing incoherence between ‘liberal conservatism’ and the increasingly shrill language the Tories are using as they vacate the centre ground.’