David Blackburn

The Tories’ problems have more to do with branding

Two weeks ago, David Cameron delivered a brilliant speech. It keyed into exactly what Michael Wolff means by the phrase, ‘Cameron is a politician who quells, smooths, conflates, reassures.’ It offered hope and optimism, a future free of the current morass. In that case, why are the Tories still faltering?

Cameron rode on the wake of Brown’s incompetence for eighteen months. It was never an exclusively positive endorsement, something of which Cameron was aware. Mandelson, Campbell et al have brought Labour back into the race with a series of well aimed jibes that the Tories haven’t changed. Paralysed by sudden self-doubt in the face of Labour’s resurgence, the battle has thus far been about them, not the government’s record. They cannot go on like this.  

The Tories have abandoned their obsolete politics. I agree with Tim

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