Cameron’s weakness and the British media

Imagine for a moment that ahead of November 30th, 80+ Labour MPs had demanded that Miliband – perhaps against his own personal judgement – should come out forcefully in favour of the strike.

Imagine the outcry from the press. “Weak Miliband”, they’d cry, “he can’t control his party, he’s beholden to fringe interests.”

Imagine if the Deputy Leader – from another faction perhaps, but essentially from the same place politically – had criticised the decision to back the strikes, openly and publicly. Yet imagine that the Deputy Leader was too weak – too compromised – to walk away from the top table. Instead they go on national TV to give a spineless performance, wringing their hands and lamenting a decision they were informed of, rather than consulted on.

Imagine the outcry from the press. “Weak”, they’d cry, “he’s powerless.”

Of course this poorly disguised allegory is exactly what Cameron and Clegg have done this week over Europe. Cameron’s veto (that wasn’t strictly a veto) has exposed the fracture at the heart of government, and the increasing pull of the Tory Right. It’s also killed the lie that the Lib Dems serve as an antidote to that same Tory Right. Clegg has either been treated with disdain by his Tory masters, or was guilty of shambling incompetence for failing to push Cameron into a deal he could back. At present he seems to be vacillating between the two in a desperate attempt to justify his governmental existence.

Yet the media narrative isn’t about a weak PM, or a weak DPM, instead much of the comment has been about how Ed Miliband and Labour should react – as if that was the important issue. If the roles were reversed, you can be sure the coverage would have an altogether different hue to it.

The free press? The independent arbiters of our politics? The willfully blind being led by the deliberately blind?

You can keep them.