Crisis Cameron

By Natan Doron and Olly Parker

An interesting article by Harry Cole – the artist formally known as Tory Bear – appeared yesterday bemoaning how “the leftist dominance of the media, helped greatly by the Fabians and Harriet Harman” has put in place a media blackout surrounding the issue of family breakdown and discipline in schools.

If the idea that Harriet Harman and the Fabian Society ran the UK’s media wasn’t ridiculous enough in itself, Cole goes on to praise David Cameron’s crisis-management skills. To most people, they would observe that Cameron’s crisis management seems to follow the same pattern: Ignore it and hope it goes away, keep ignoring it, realise you’d better say something, then reach for your copy of “Tory Party: The Best of the 80’s” before rolling out the right-wing hits and hope enough of your base will sing your praises for the problem to go away.

After a quick tweak of Cameron’s nose – (he’s a bit posh apparently) – Harry praises Cameron’s in-touch response to the riots. Now I’ll admit his Witney speech hit a lot of the right populist notes, but this round-up conveniently failed to mention that on the second night of rioting, when the police had effectively lost control of London, our Dave was Tuscany basking in the aftermath of his latest u-turn.

Harry Cole then welcomes the opportunity to have a “proper conversation” about why it happened. Conveniently, he ignores how Cameron dismissed Miliband’s original call for an inquiry before performing yet another u-turn.

This business of Cameron calling for an inquiry being “welcome” whereas Miliband’s somehow being a sign of weak leadership, are typical of current Tory strategy: allow Cameron to make statesman like speeches looking at the causes of the problem by asking key allies – hello Michael Gove – to shout down any attempt to do so by Labour as “soft on crime”.

It’s pretty transparent stuff but evidently it appears the Tory base have bought it hook, line and sinker. But if I were a Tory concerned with winning the next election, I’d start to ask serious questions about the leadership Cameron is providing in times of crisis.

After the phone hacking scandal a YouGov poll showed that only 36% felt Cameron had dealt well with the crisis. After the riots, ICM put this figure at only 30%. So while Tory Bear thinks Cameron is showing a sure touch, the swing voters who decide the next election think the next time the UK is in crisis, Cameron should probably just stay on holiday. To put things in perspective, Tory Bear’s almost comic obsessive recipient of hatred, Gordon Brown, won post-crisis approval ratings after the failed terror attacks and floods of 2007 of +45%. Cameron’s remain stuck on -12%.

Pretty much the only line Cameron has left that resonates with the country right now is the “Labour’s fault” mantra. The problem with the line is the longer you’re in power, the less resonant it is. Every time you wheel it out one more person will think “hang on, aren’t your lot running the country now?”

To give credit to Harry he does identify this, “words will not be enough, the proof will be in the pudding: the policy”. In other words his right-wing are starting to turn their minds towards what’s really beyond the rhetoric. Labour have been clear; “tough on crime, tough on causes”. We can, and should, throw the looters in jail. But if no structure, no training and no jobs wait for them when they get out, then we are doomed to repeats every time a single spark lights up London.