Cameron vs. Brown

Very good article in today's Telegraph, that sums it up very well. In particular:

There is now a strong streak of nihilism in one strand of Conservative opinion. Some MPs and commentators state that the Tory leader (insert mildly offensive sobriquet such as "Call me Dave" or "Cam the Sham" here) simply has to go for reasons related to his incompetence, schooling, arrogance, Rwanda and forays with huskies.

The country has gone to the dogs, irretrievably.

This is an easy get-out: the Tories can concede defeat to Gordon Brown, endure a pointless leadership race, watch as any talent drifts away to the private sector, and moan as the Prime Minister expands the role of the state in quite frightening ways.

For anyone who would rather this country be governed by an administration committed to tackling the root causes of its current social meltdown, such an approach is pointless.

Simon Heffer is one of the primary mouthpieces of the sort of people who would rather whinge than fight, but there are others, and the whole situation takes me back to the Major years. Then we had a Conservative government in deep trouble and the attitude of some Conservatives was to trash it in public as if the Labour Party had disbanded and the argument was about the nature of the Conservative government, now whether there would be a Conservative government. Brown and his merry men are not idiots and they have had a long time to prepare for government. They have analysed the weaknesses of their predecessors, at least in terms of perception, and have sought to remedy them. Unfortunately, the Conservative response has not gone well, and the only real punch landed on the Brown team has come from Iain Duncan-Smith's Social Justice report. This is significant: real policy pushed Brown onto the back foot, and more of that is on the way, which is great because it is now desperately required.

Beneath the political cut and thrust the real world has continued to turn and there Labour's mistakes, many of which are Brown's mistakes, will start to catch up with them. This may include the general economic situation, and while I do not relish any kind of trouble for our country, I think that the current turmoil in the international capital markets cannot help but feed through in ordinary people's daily lives. In simple terms, an economy based on easy credit may find itself with no easy credit. Then things may get very bad very quickly. This makes the puerile attitude of some who call themselves Conservatives even more inexplicable.

Frankly, if the country has gone to the dogs then the debate should be how to get it back not the size and colour of dogs.