Lurching right
- 25 Jul 07, 10:27 AM
A blog or two ago I mocked the spinning of comments made at the political Cabinet about the Tory leader lurching to the right. This morning it finally dawned on me that it is Brown not Cameron who has - to use a phrase bequeathed to British politics by Alastair Campbell - "lurched to the right". In terms of political strategy it's brilliant and accounts for many of the Tories problems.
First, Brown lurched to the right by posing in front of a Union Jack and a slogan "Brown for Britain".
Then he did so by hiring the former head of the CBI and a former head of the Navy for his "government of all the talents".
Next he did so on gambling, followed by cannabis. All, as I have written before, calculated to provoke purrs of approval from the Daily Mail.
Today about deporting foreign prisoners (a reheat, I'm told, of an announcement made by officials some weeks before he became PM) and terror laws. What's more, there's an intriguing hint in The Sun about him announcing a border police force today. If true, that would presumably be the one proposed by Michael Howard and, er, David Cameron.
Brown has moved to occupy ground left free by Cameron's efforts to prove that the Tories have changed. He's done it in a way that maximises destabilising pressure from Tory MPs and what we used to call the Tory press to, you've guessed it, "lurch to the right". And he's made each of his announcements on the one day of the week when the Tory leader used to be able to count on setting the agenda - PMQs day.
The left meanwhile have been given very little to celebrate save for a man they trust replacing a man they'd come to loathe.
Clever isn't it?
Update 12:28 PM: Well well. David Cameron had a choice at PMQs - to defy his critics or to woo them. He chose the latter by "banging on about" (his phrase not mine) Europe and thus allowing Labour to say that he's, you've guessed it, "lurching to the right". He must be very worried.
Update 12:39 PM: So there you have it. Gordon Brown has just announced not a National Border Police Force (the Tories' idea). Deary me, no. He has instead announced his backing for something he's calling a Unified Border Force who will wear uniforms. Imitation is the......
