Is intellectual self-confidence a good thing? Ed Miliband was teased in parliament by David Cameron for claiming to possess it, and teased again by Lord Finkelstein in his notebook for The Times. ‘I know he thinks he is extremely clever,’ Cameron sneered at PMQs. Lord Finkelstein refers to a book that claims that intellectual self-confidence is a curse because it leads to wrong decisions. I disagree. We argue in the leader of this week’s Spectator that Miliband is very confident about bad ideas, and Cameron lacks confidence in good ones. More’s the pity.
Cameron was being unfair: intellectual self-confidence does not mean thinking you’re ‘extremely clever’. It’s about believing you have the right ideas, and being prepared to articulate and act on them. In my opinion, one of the main reasons that the Conservatives failed to win the 2010 general election (in a recession, against a loathed Prime Minister) was the failure to express a clear idea of what they stood for – and what they’d do in office.
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