The resemblance first struck me when, spotting Cameron’s waxy forehead on the front page of a newspaper recently, I unfolded the paper to find that the forehead belonged to French Socialist party candidate Ségolène Royal. It got me wondering whether similarities between the two extended beyond their oddly embalmed complexions.
Politically, of course, they should be opposites, yet Royal has edged so far to the Right (to howls of protest from old French socialists) and Cameron so far to the Left (to equally noisy protests from Thatcherite Tories) that they seem destined to meet somewhere in the middle. Old socialists are appalled by 53-year-old ‘Ségo’ for adopting conservative policies to woo voters tired of unworkable statist solutions; and, like Cameron, she has been busy stealing oppositionist clothes, by suggesting that parents should be allowed to shop around for good schools.
Crucially, neither is an ideologue. What they appear to want most is stardom.
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