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Friday 15 May 2009

What is David Cameron up to?

There are so many things to say about the current MP’s expenses crisis that is systematically undermining the trust that people have in Parliament and the British political process.

With the blogosphere this morning trying to work out whether Labour would come fourth or fifth in the upcoming European elections, a development has occurred this evening that may prove to be crucial, and it comes off the bat of David Cameron. In what can only be described as an exceptionally brave calculated gamble, he decided to abandon the chance to show a party political broadcast in the run-up to the European elections in favour of this:


Sceptical as I am, I cannot help feeling that this is a move in the right direction. It has become something of a get-out-of-jail-free-card for the current Government to pass issues over to review boards, enabling them to wait months for a response, by which time public interest in the matter is negligible. In doing this, Cameron has recognised that people are no longer going to be satisfied with long-drawn out solutions. If MPs are to be respected again, then it will take a large public measure, such as the one Cameron has started tonight, to mend that.

Whether this is brought about by the desire to undo the four-point poll slump in The Times this week remains to be seen, but I will say this – the ability to sense the public mood and produce a politically pitch-perfect speech is something that Cameron has been called an expert at, certainly with regards to conference speeches in the last two years. This time around, he has found exactly what is needed and acted upon it, even at the expense of a conventional party political broadcast (you can’t honestly say that the video is NOT designed to be vote-winning) before a series of elections that will be seen to set the stage for the general election. The move is ballsy. Only time will tell whether it pays off.

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