Sunshine Dave’s broken record

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

He started off so brightly and cheerfully, betrayed only by his tiredness and his croaky voice. The late night (and mid afternoon) rewites of the speech had clearly taken their toll. But he was determined to come out bright – almost breezy. This was sunshine Dave, the Tory leader for the good times. He attacked those who showed “pessimism about our economic future, our social problems, our political system”. It wasn’t long before he joined them.

Because try as he might, he’s Broken Britain Dave at heart. This was trailed as his Reagan speech – his “Morning in America”, but in such difficult financial times that kind of upbeat message would be unworkable. He thought he was onto a winner by hectoring hard-working families to pay off their credit cards (which would push the economy even deeper into trouble), but after much ridicule that was “clarified”, and removed. Instead he was left to play the Tory greatest hits.

Discipline in schools, Europe, attacks on Labour, defence – it was a Thatcherite conference speech delivered by a man who wishes to see himself as a One Nation Tory. That’s not to say there wasn’t some Cameroon red meat in there. His pledges on international development and gay marriage are to be applauded, even if it felt like they were inserted to justify policies unpopular within his own party.

Whilst borrowing some of Ed Miliband’s own lines, it was in many ways a mirror image of the Labour leader’s speech last week. Whilst Ed’s speech was firmly focussed on Britain (with a worrying lack of foreign policy), Dave’s mission was to be a globe straddling collosus. He delivered these lines well – especially on Libya – but it’s undermined, as Nick Robinson noted, by his status as an onlooker in the current economic crisis that threatens to engulf his premiership. Whilst he was happy to heap scorn on Labour’s economic policies, he wasn’t as keen to talk about the growth timebomb that ticks away under his desk. Some day the time will come when he is forced to acdept responsibility for his own economic policies – when the time comes, he’ll need to do better than he did today.

Today’s speech also differed from Miliband’s in terms of audience. Whilst Ed seemed firmly focussed on the viewers at home (despite the unfortunate gap in live coverage), Cameron seemed to be speaking more often than not to those in the room, convincing and cajoling a recalitrant party. It was a tub-thumping – and at times almost smug – speech designed to woo and convince the room, which is a shame really, as the room was only three quarters full.

Average, like Ed Miliband’s speech last week, would be the kindest way to describe this stacatto would be crowd pleaser. But Cameron needed to show more than he did today. He had an opportunity to face up to the problems of modern day Britain, but he fell back on sniping, and preferred to play the old Tory records.

There’s only one problem with that though – those records are broken. It’s time for Dave to get some new tunes.