James Purnell takes on Cameron
snowflake5 Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 11:02:42 PM GMT 
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Here's a quote from the speech:
There is one aspect of the Tory sales pitch I agree with. Cameron has said many times that we shouldn't judge him on where he's come from but where he's going.
Absolutely: I couldn't care less where he went to school or who his parents are. It's where he's going that worries me, not where he's been.
Because I don't think, in his heart of hearts, he knows who he is any more. At every stage in his life David Cameron has just drifted with the orthodoxy around him. The answer, for him, is always blowing in the wind.
So when people say he's really right wing they're almost right. He was really right wing once. He wrote the 2005 manifesto, after all. But then the wind changed direction so he turned with it. He loved free markets and Thatcher when all his friends did. He no doubt believed the same as Norman Lamont, when he worked for him.
He bears, as was said of Lord Derby, the imprint of the person who sat on him last. And we were the last people to sit on him. His team worked out that New Labour was popular. This was attractive to Cameron: looks like a new orthodoxy. Better join up.
This is the real charge against the Tory leader: that he has no settled convictions. He just has bits and pieces along the way. And you can't lead if you are confused.
When he wrote that 2005 Manifesto, he forgot to mention the environment. When he became leader, his focus groups told him the environment was a bridge issue back to the centre ground. He wanted to become new. So off he went to the Arctic Circle.
Vote Blue, Go Green, we were told.
Then the oil price went up, the focus groups turned and all of a sudden he's less keen. So now we find him, at Prime Minister's questions, attacking the very green taxes that he himself had proposed a few months earlier.
His politics are like the parting in his hair. One week it's on the right, then it shifts to the left, then all of a sudden it's down the middle.
I particularly like the line about "He bears the imprint of the person who sat on him last. And we were the last people to sit on him."
To read the rest of the speech, click here
Absolutely: I couldn't care less where he went to school or who his parents are. It's where he's going that worries me, not where he's been.
Because I don't think, in his heart of hearts, he knows who he is any more. At every stage in his life David Cameron has just drifted with the orthodoxy around him. The answer, for him, is always blowing in the wind.
So when people say he's really right wing they're almost right. He was really right wing once. He wrote the 2005 manifesto, after all. But then the wind changed direction so he turned with it. He loved free markets and Thatcher when all his friends did. He no doubt believed the same as Norman Lamont, when he worked for him.
He bears, as was said of Lord Derby, the imprint of the person who sat on him last. And we were the last people to sit on him. His team worked out that New Labour was popular. This was attractive to Cameron: looks like a new orthodoxy. Better join up.
This is the real charge against the Tory leader: that he has no settled convictions. He just has bits and pieces along the way. And you can't lead if you are confused.
When he wrote that 2005 Manifesto, he forgot to mention the environment. When he became leader, his focus groups told him the environment was a bridge issue back to the centre ground. He wanted to become new. So off he went to the Arctic Circle.
Vote Blue, Go Green, we were told.
Then the oil price went up, the focus groups turned and all of a sudden he's less keen. So now we find him, at Prime Minister's questions, attacking the very green taxes that he himself had proposed a few months earlier.
His politics are like the parting in his hair. One week it's on the right, then it shifts to the left, then all of a sudden it's down the middle.
I particularly like the line about "He bears the imprint of the person who sat on him last. And we were the last people to sit on him."
To read the rest of the speech, click here
James Purnell takes on Cameron | 58 comments (58 topical)
James Purnell takes on Cameron | 58 comments (58 topical)
