I schlepped down to Demos at London Bridge to watch David Cameron make an unimpressive speech in which he largely failed to convince his audience that a) Margaret Thatcher believed in social justice and b) he is the true inheritor of Tony Blair’s reformist mission. Assembled media, Great & Good, wonks, waiters and your loyal citizen journalist (that’s me) giggled at the thought.
The speech marked, as well as another stop on Cameron’s gimmicky ‘take back the centre ground’ roadshow, the publication of Demos’ latest pamphlet which is a zeitgeisty open letter to Dave about ‘Fair Conservatism’ (written by a Tory MP) called True Blue.
My favourite Francophile philosopher/historian/guru Theodore Zeldin was there too and he put it nicely: Cameron’s just not ‘beautiful’ enough. He’s dead right. The man has the charisma of a bag of sugar and none of Blair’s almost hypnotic charm.