Sunder Katwala thinks that Dave’s talk of the “Great Ignored” carries echos of Nixon’s “Silent Majority”; Hopi Sen doesn’t much care for the phrase either and wonders why Cameron didn’t go for Chesterton or Kipling instead. This seems sound advice though I wonder if eloquence and allusion can carry a message these days without being seen as hopelessly elitist or, worse, pompous and artificial. Rhetoric, I fancy, is mistrusted.
Anyway, this is part of what Cameron had to say:
“We’re fighting this election for the great ignored. Young, old, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight. They start businesses, operate factories, teach our children, clean the streets, grow our food and keep us healthy – keep us safe.
They work hard, pay their taxes, obey the law. They’re good, decent people – they’re the people of Britain and they just want a reason to believe that anything is still possible in our country. This election is about giving them that reason, giving them that hope.
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