A colleague at work made an intelligent remark today. He said something like: "David Cameron's problem is that Nick Clegg really is what the Tory leader has been pretending to be."I was impressed - even when he admitted that that he was reading it off Facebook.
Because this seems exactly right to me. When he became Conservative leader David Cameron grasped intellectually what he had to be: modern, socially liberal, egalitarian, environmentally concerned.
He grasped it intellectually, but nothing in his background or his political career before 2005 gives one any sense that this is what David Cameron is really like. As I remarked the other day, David Cameron is under strain because he is acting the whole time.
By contrast, "modern, socially liberal, egalitarian, environmentally concerned" is a good description of what Nick Clegg is really like.
I suspected when Nick Clegg became leader that many had voted for him or furthered his candidacy because they thought he was like David Cameron.
He is far better than that. He not like Cameron: he is like what Cameron works hard to pretend to be.
It is no wonder, as one commentator observed after last week's debate, that you could see Nick leaching the charisma out of Cameron as they stood beside each other.
Remember the angst of the leadership election? Chris Huhne failing to communicate his massive intellect and Lynne Feather taking him in hand - but too late? The viral message that, if the election had run for another week, Huhne would have won? A veteran local Councillor in my ward sized Huhne up at a local hustings, and was sooo frustrated at his performance. Such are the twists and turns of history.
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