Optimism, Mr Cameron? Tell that to your party…

In his New Year Message today, David Cameron says that “We can look to the future with realism and optimism’. That’s a rather unbelievable display of chutzpah, even by Cameron’s lofty standards. Tell that to the families struggling to make ends meet as inflation pushing up the price of essentials whilst wages remain static. Tell that to those desperately trying to find work where there is none, as their benefits are frozen and the Chancellor vilifies them as scroungers. Tell that to the disabled, the poor and the unemployed Mr Cameron.

And tell it to your party too, because they don’t seem all that optimistic for the future either. Take former MP Paul Goodman (now of ConHome), who writes in the Sunday Telegraph today that:

“There are four main reasons why 2013 will be a mere staging-post (and an uneventful one in electoral terms) on a journey towards, in all likelihood, a Labour-led government.”

Goodman’s piece is broadly correct, and the four reasons he gives are compelling (although I don’t share his certainty that the 2015 election is a foregone conclusion). His piece certainly doesn’t feel like it represents the war cry of an optimistic party.

So how about grassroots members? Well only 12% of those who took part in a recent ConHome survey thought that Cameron would be leading a majority Tory government post-2015.

Cameron may want us to be optimistic in 2013, but he can’t make it so just by saying it. Not even for his own supporters…