David Cameron, the new Neil Kinnock?
Believe it or not, one of my best friends is a quite senior member of a South London Conservative Party. We regularly go for a beer & a curry and have many a fine discussion about all manner of issues. During our last evening of merriment the subject of David Cameron's election chances came up. His assessment? Camerons biggest worry is having a Neil Kinnock moment. Some of you will remember that in the run up to the 1992 election, it was generally accepted that Kinnock would beat John Major. The Tories had made a hash of the economy and Kinnock was riding high at the polls.
Kinnock decided that he'd have a pre election victory rally at Sheffield (no it wasn't called that, but that is how it looked). All of a sudden, he looked smug, complacent and out of touch. I saw this report on Sky News and wondered whether Cameron's Kinnock moment had arrived.
The report says :-
Speaking on GMTV, the Conservative leader said he believed Ms Smith had "questions to answer" about her reported claim of at least £116,000 in second home allowances on her Redditch family home while listing a London flat she shares with her sister as her main home.
But asked if she should resign following the revelations at the weekend, he said: "I do not think this individual thing is the issue."
I was amazed that Cameron said this. He has a fantastic opportunity to sort the system out, clean up parliament and make the politicians behave in the way the man on the street expects. Now if Mr Smith wants to watch porn while his wife is away, who cares? But to be subsided by the taxpayer is a different matter. His wife is the Home Secretary. She runs the legal system. She's paid a kings ransom to do the job. The least she should do is check her expenses. I had a mate who went to prison because he was caught fiddling the dole for a few quid. How can she sit in judgement when she's been up to it herself. My friend got a very harsh (considering the amount which was very small) sentence as he was trained as an accountant. The judge said that in his position he should have known better.
I don't want to see Mr or Mrs Smith go to prison. Having said that, Cameron has given the impression that he doesn't care about low level fiddling. Not only that but he's in effect saying that while it's wrong for dole cheats to fiddle a couple of quid, it's OK for politicians.
Most worryingly, for a man who wants to become the next Prime Minister, he's shown lousy political judgement. In football terms, he's missed an open goal from 2 yards out. I've no idea whether this will be Camerons Kinnock moment, but from where I am sitting he didn't look like Prime Minister material today. With both Brown and Cameron looking like indecisive ditherers, the public may well choose to be safe and stick with the indecisive ditherer they know, just like they did with John Major.
