' Regurgitation' is such a splendid word, it's almost onomatopoeic. And as some of you who are not half blind might have noticed, there's a lot of it goes on in this blog. Well, hell, nobody pays me for this so why should I think as well as key-tap? Anyway, such original thinking as I can come up with is surpassed effortlessly almost every day by the likes of, say, Charles Moore. He is a fully qualified 'Splendid Chap & Brainbox' because he used to be the editor of The Spectator. All former editors of 'The Speccie' qualify for that title, er, with the possible exception of Boris, but then, he was born in 'Noo Yawk' and thus his American antecedents make him, Churchill-like, a bit dodgy and we shall not know his true worth until WWIII! Where was I . . . ?
Ah yes, Charles Moore doing my thinking for me . Let's face it, with the general election approaching there is only one man who gives even the slightest appearance of being 'prime ministerial' and that is David Cameron. Ed Miliband began as a sort of Shakespearean villain who stuck his knife into his brother's back which at least gave him a dangerous air but since that dramatic moment he has slid down the theatrical pole and is now reduced to playing the role of a panto villain who tips buckets of water down his own trousers and reduces the audience to giggles. I am tempted to say that he could not organise a piss-up in a brewery - mostly because I don't think he would know what you meant by the phrase! Nick Clegg is like the invisible man who used to appear in those old black and white movies who slowly evaporated before our eyes. After five years of living in the limelight of being Deputy Prime Minister, the handsome, eloquent, new boy on the block has now become the most despised man in British politics. Everyone is hoping and praying that he will lose his seat along with most of his utterly useless Lib-Dem colleagues.
So that leaves us with " Call me Dave". Quite a good-looking bloke, dresses well, family man with, so far, no scandals. Well-educated in that Eton 'n' Oxbridge way which means that he has the ability to absorb information and then regurgitate it (that word again!) onto an exam paper but which is no indicator of intelligence. He conducts himself well as our prime minister and has smoothed the country through a rather hideous economic period even if he has failed to deal with the fundamentals. Above all he is a Tory and as I am a small 't-tory' - why am I so unenthusiastic?
Enter Charles Moore to tell me!
[...] has a natural air of command, a good turn of phrase, some common sense and nearly five years of experience. He looks suitable to represent Britain on the world stage. The difference between him and his opponent is in his favour. Indeed, can anyone name a leadership quality in which Mr Miliband wins over Mr Cameron? Naturally, Mr Cameron's advisers play this difference up and campaign on it.
Exactly! Couldn't have put it better myself, er, well, I didn't, did I?
But how far does it get them? You could easily believe that Mr Cameron would be a better prime minister than Mr Miliband without voting for his party. You could decide that neither man merits an overall majority and therefore vote happily enough for a third, fourth or fifth party. Or you could stay at home.
And there's the problem. It is just impossible to be enthusiastic about Mr. Cameron. Decent - yes, worthy - yes, prime ministerial - yes but, in a very deep and fundamental way - do we give a fuck? - no! Mr. Moore puts it more elegantly:
For all the nearly 10 years that Mr Cameron has led his party, I have found myself in the strange position of defending him to his enemies, and criticising him to his friends. I find that many of my fellow-Thatcherites are slightly mad in their intense dislike of the poor man. He is not some politically correct cuckoo in the Tory nest, some Brussels sprout, some monstrous betrayer of the Iron Lady's legacy. He is a wholly recognisable, though modernised version of a traditional British type - the moderate, ruling-class Tory. He has that type's usual mixture of decency, patriotism, balance, mental laziness and smugness.Oh God, I wish I could write like him! That's exactly and precisely correct.
The word "caring" in politics most often refers to social policies, and is usually best translated as "spending lots of public money". But really the word should have wider application. It is a judgment of motive and of how deeply a politician works out what matters and what needs doing. Does David Cameron want to go on being prime minister merely because he thinks he should be, or does he care? The motto of the most long-standing Tory family, the Cecils, is "Sero sed serio", which means, "late but in earnest". We all know Mr Cameron tends to be late ("government by essay crisis"), but we still don't know whether he is in earnest. He won't win unless we think he is.'Over here' we're not frightfully keen on that " vision thang" but we do need some sense of purpose, some sense that a course has been chosen for well-reasoned purposes and that it will be pursued with vigour because the person leading it is committed to it. Alas, 'Dim Dave' gives every appearance of being a metropolitan 'faddist', whatever rises up over the horizon filled with hot air, he supports - same-sex marriage is but one example. The fact that it is either of zero interest or downright obnoxious to the butcher, baker and candlestick-maker of any town in Britain (outside Brighton!) never impinges on what passes for his brain. And on the truly important matters such as Europe it is quite clear that if he had his own way he would not change a thing. He has been dragged to the altar of an EU referendum like the reluctant groom to a pregnant girlfriend!
So come on, Dave, give us a reason to vote for you. Otherwise, instead of voting I might just slump here tapping this rubbish out into the ether and I don't think my readers can take much more!
