I am making a vicious U-turn on the part where I haven't been doing this thing. It seems to be all the rage at the moment. I had a period of disaffection with politics after the Scottish elections there...it was hard to focus on anything political without wanting to slap several people - some of whom I voted for - for being so very, very stupid. ANYWAY. We can draw a line under that one, for now. Today, my focus is on Westminster.
David Cameron is in stormy waters, at long last. He's spent his career thus far as Prime Minister artfully dodging most problems, deflecting them onto the Liberal Democrats and occasionally an unfortunate underling like Michael Gove. We're coming to a point now, though, where he's going to have to take a stand.
Dave has built his political image around being above the left-right struggle of ideological politics. He sells himself as just being about what's practical and the Right Thing To Do, even when there's a blatant torrent of ideology glimmering just under the surface. His cuts doctrine, for example - blatantly with many ulterior motives, but justified under the banner of the deficit, and laid at the door of George Osborne in any case. Eventual credit, when we get around to having an election again, will wash back to Dave; short-term blame can stick to your Osbornes, Cleggs and Cables. All Dave has to do is remain distant.
The thing is, the nature of coalition government and indeed the way he's set up the Conservative party, doesn't sit well with this. At some point, Dave is going to have to be a leader, and set out some boundaries. He's playing a bit of an Ed Miliband game - not setting a firm policy base on a great many things, and hoping he can get away with winging it. It makes it a bit easier to dodge criticism. Ken Clarke has given him a bit of a problem though, by bringing forward this crazy idea about halving people's sentences for pleading guilty. For once, Dave had to put the foot down. No, he said. No, that's not happening.
While this was undoubtedly the correct decision, Dave has put himself in the game, now. People are asking, aren't the Tories the party who are tough on crime? And by answering yes, he's getting involved in that left-right debate. He's getting involved in politics. Now he has to deal with the ideological debate within the Conservative Party, where a number of MPs are beginning to wonder if they really are the party of law and order. Are they still for locking up yobbos, or should they be hugging hoodies? Christ, half of them don't even know if they're allowed to wear a tie on TV. And don't even get started on Europe, for the love of god. That's a can of worms Dave has been keeping at arms length since he took the party leadership.
Perhaps the most telling issue right now though is health. Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms, which were very, well, Conservative, were naturally enough extremely unpopular. So Dave's move has been to make it personal - he's backpedaled on Lansley's reforms, and tried to make it an issue of personal trust in him. He's been playing that "I like the NHS" card his whole political career, even lowering himself to referencing his dead son several times in televised debates. So now it's not about whether we like the reforms, its about whether we like him - which could work, or it could backfire horribly. The whole mess could land square in his lap, with Lansley out of the picture - although equally it might just quietly disappear, like the Big Society. That was another one that Dave tried to champion as his personal issue, and when it became clear that it was utter horse-cock he managed to make it disappear.
I don't think he can do that with the NHS. It's a far, far riskier game to play - if the Big Society even existed, nobody was that sure what it looked like, so it was easy to hide. The NHS is not easy to hide. It's like John Prescott. And what makes it worse is that people aren't hugely happy with it the way it is, but they'd be even unhappier with any changes that are possible under the current budget. Kind of a lose-lose situation, right there. Harking back, it's the sort of thing Gordon Brown had about eight of in his first two months in government...Dave has done pretty well to put it off this long. But there it is; it's a bucket of shit, it's on David Cameron's doorstep, and it's not going away.
Welcome to government, Dave.
