Dave’s long bluff is finally being called

It is probably time to worry when they start laughing at you. The developing world of social media is a pretty raw place. But when David Cameron’s Twitter feed posted a picture of him apparently talking ever so earnestly on the phone to President Obama last week the response was rapid, and brutal. The image was ridiculous, most people seemed to say. Pretentious. Self-serving. If you believe in “the wisdom of crowds” then its conclusions were damning for the Tory leader.

How irritating for the ex PR guy to fall on his face so publicly. The social media nightmare continued when it emerged that the people managing Cameron’s Facebook account had also been paying for more people to “like” his page. I think this is what is known as a #socialmediafail.

In this age of transparency fakes usually get exposed fast. But it has taken quite a long time for the Cameron image to crack. Go back to his almost note-free speech at Blackpool in 2007, when he dared Gordon Brown to call a general election. The media were wowed. The Labour leader blinked. And Cameron was up and running.

Tony Blair had been right, in his last speech as Labour leader in Manchester the year before, to say that the new young Tory leadership team was beatable. Of course, he wasn’t staying on to try and beat them. But Blair had spotted what so many in Westminster either couldn’t or chose not to: that there was rather less to Dave and George than met the eye.

One nifty ruse on inheritance tax from Osborne and Labour lost its nerve on an early election that would probably have seen it hold on to power, if only with a reduced majority. Cameron’s speech reminded me of that story about the Gruffalo, when the little mouse convinces the big scary beast that he’s actually even scarier himself. From that moment Osborne established his reputation as a “strategic genius”, although I’m not sure how much evidence there really is to support this claim.

Fast forward on to today – skipping over the Tories’ incoherent response to the great financial crisis of 2008/09 and the inconclusive election result of 2010 – and you can see several once supportive figures now asking if Dave and the gang have really got what it takes. Tory backbenchers are uneasy, and thinking about Life After Dave. Both Benedict Brogan – “some senior colleagues appear to have given up on victory in 2015” and Matthew d’Ancona – a Tory veteran told him “the party [is] going back to its constituencies and preparing for Opposition” have expressed doubts about the Conservative party’s chances of holding on to power next year.

The latest scuffle and disarray over James Brokenshire’s speech on immigration to the Demos think-tank last week points to a party machine that is malfunctioning, and a leadership that simply doesn’t know what to do. Every lurch towards UKIP supporters seems to make things worse for them. And yet this still seems to be the “strategy” the Tories are pursuing. As I argued here last month: Lynton isn’t working.

Historical “counter-factuals” – or “what ifs?” – can be entertaining, if ultimately futile. What if Dave had been able to tell his party: “Look – I’m a Thatcherite. I believe in a small state, privatisation and free markets. But I don’t think the Conservatives can win an election on that prospectus. So just go with me on this: let’s talk about compassion and green politics, and try and win that way. There’ll be time for a more robust approach once we’re in office.”

But Dave never did level with his party in this way. It would probably have been impossible to do so. Instead, we had photo opps on glaciers and hug-a-hoody speeches, with little in the way of substance to follow up the PR poses. Climate change was going to be a big priority for his government, and now sceptics are in place in vital ministerial roles. We were told he would not bang on about Europe, and then we were offered an in-out referendum. No wonder so many in his own party don’t seem to know who he is or what he really believes.

The long Dave and George bluff, launched in Blackpool nearly six and a half years ago, is finally being called. It is beginning to look as though their game is almost up.