I attended a meeting today in Burgess Hill’s Mid Sussex Conservative Club between David Davis and Conservatives from West Sussex.
David Davis started badly. His speech was an amalgam of answers he gave on Thursday night’s Question Time with some more taken from his earlier speeches. It must be hard, I suppose, to always come up with something new when making a speech, but two days after Question Time is too soon to make the same joke with the same wording.
Then his speech finished, he started fielding questions and he showed why so many MPs are supporting him. His answers were correct, clear and showed why he is a leadership contender. He made references to policies on taxation, Europe (properly the EU), education, emmigration and crime. He explained how the Conservatives can win the next election and why non-Conservatives have in the past voted Conservative.
But.
There is a but.
In 2001 Michael Portillo entered a similar meeting held in Hove and everyone stopped. Portillo’s mere presence in a large garden made the conversation stop and all attention turn to him.
When Davis entered the room, I could not tell you, there was no similar hush. At one point Davis was standing next to me and I did not notice. When the formalities started he was introduced by Tim Loughton, my MP. Tim spoke and everyone listened in raptured silence. Now I admit, and I hope he doesn’t read this, Tim is an excellent MP, and he should be a leadership contender in the future, but he upstaged Davis. Tim has the charisma that Davis should have if he wants to persuade the general public. Davis’ policies are spot on, and Tim’s too; but Cameron, like Tim does, carries an audience with him.
Cameron’s performance on Thursday was not polished, but the public like him.
Never-be-converted socialists have told me that they do not want Cameron to win because he will beat Labour in 2009 or 2010.
Policies are not enough. In the May 2005 election the Tory’s policies were better than Labour’s. In 1997 the Labour manifesto was patently a lie from cover to cover, but you could have been forgiven for believing it. In 2005 that excuse was gone. The differentiator between the Tories and Labour from the public’s perspective was not policies, it was character.
Whatever lies Blair told, whatever injustice he allowed his Chancellor to perpetrate, people liked and believed Blair. Cameron can bring that, and only that one hopes, to the Tories.
Having seen Davis in the flesh I commend, in the strongest terms, Cameron. As does the DailyPropaganda.
This is a copy of a post from Gav’s website: GavPOLITICS
[Technorati: David Davis, David Cameron, Conservative, Tory, Tory Leadership, News and Politics]
