The problem with that David Cameron ad

Labour’s new ad with David Cameron facing both ways highlights what was wrong with the Tories’ opening ad of the year, that one dominated by Cameron’s face. The Tory strategy for the election campaign has to be to try and make it into a referendum on this failed government. But that ad, which emphasised Cameron so strongly, gave Labour an opening to try and turn the election not just into a choice between two parties but into a referendum on David Cameron and Tory policy. Labour’s success in doing this is largely responsible for the Tory wobble.

The contrast between Cameron and Brown does work to the Tories’ advantage. But it works because it is a contrast. In this anti-politics age in Britain, it is nigh-on-impossible for any politician to move votes on their own.