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Mount: Cameron Refreshing, But Style Isn’t Enough

Cameron has assembled a shadow ministry of almost all the talents. But Hague, Clarke, Fox, Letwin et al will need to be more than political eye-candy. If the Tories are to look economically competent as well as likeable and socially concerned, the party needs to carry out the kind of strategic rethink that Keith Joseph […]

Cameron has assembled a shadow ministry of almost all the talents. But Hague, Clarke, Fox, Letwin et al will need to be more than political eye-candy. If the Tories are to look economically competent as well as likeable and socially concerned, the party needs to carry out the kind of strategic rethink that Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe masterminded in the four years before Margaret Thatcher came to power. Gordon Brown masterminded a similar exercise for Labour in the years leading up to the 1997 victory. ~Ferdinand Mount, The Daily Telegraph

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Note that the “strategic rethink” in the 1970s didn’t involve becoming more like the party of Government–the Cameron era promises loads of Blair-like “initiatives” and tremendous heaps of Bush-like “compassion,” and if the British people don’t gag first it might just fool them for the duration of one parliament.

John O’Sullivan, for his part, has a much less enthusiastic review here with this gem of a quote: “Britain’s main opposition party has consequently taken a giant leap into the dark by electing him leader. It shows a thoughtless daring of Gorbachevian proportions.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. In the rest of the article he tears down Mr. Cameron’s shining new image with a number of other withering observations.

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