Monday, June 12, 2006

Political cross-dressing: Should left-of-centre voters now support Cameron?

Last week's outbreak of political cross-dressing, with David Cameron saying let's be nice to public sector workers and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown threatning them with miserly pay increases, provided plenty of food-for-thought for my Saturday Column and accompanying Podcast.

It led me to pose a question which I think could well become a defining issue for many existing Labour and Lib Dem voters in the run-up to the next General Election. It is this.

"Is Britain better off being governed by a centre-right party that seeks to adopt an inclusive approach to voters of a left persuasion, than a centre-left party forever fretting about whether it can also appeal to the right?

"In other words, could a David Cameron government, in practice, turn out to be further to the left than Tony Blair’s?"


I suspect there will be some fairly robust opinions on this - Stalin's Gran, I'm relying on you for one!

But it seems to me at least a valid question to ask whether voters on the left will get a better hearing from a man who seems keen to court their support than a man who has always been able to take that support for granted.

The question is given added significance by the dramatic lurch to the right of the Lib Dems, who have abandoned their unique selling point of being the party that backs progressive taxation in a cynical bid to outflank the Tories in Middle England.

There are a lot of centre-left votes which are going to be up for grabs at the next election. And mine is one of them.

* You can read my column in full on my companion blog, In the name of God, go!

A generous accolade

Iain Dale is one of the two leading political bloggers in Britain in terms of visitor numbers and influence within the political media as a whole.

So I'm extremely honoured to have been named as the No 1 journalist blogger in the country in Iain's latest set of listings, above the likes of Adam Boulton, Nick Robinson and Stephen Pollard.

If I'm honest, all three of those get more traffic than I do, but I do try to provide something a bit different from what the mainstream media are doing a lot of the time and I'm glad Iain (and other loyal readers of my blog) seem to have recognised this.

It's also a typically generous tribute from Iain who, even though he has reached the top of this particular branch of the profession, regularly takes the time to promote this and other blogs which are not nearly so well read as his is, for which thanks.

Coming soon: My top 10 political bloggers...

Friday, June 09, 2006

Alastair Campbell launches World Cup blog

I originally thought this was a spoof, but yes, it would appear to be the genuine Alastair.

Whatever his record in British politics, and I personally take the view that, with the sole exception of Rupert Murdoch, his has been the most baleful influence on British public life over the past decade, I've always thought he talked a certain amount of sense when it came to football, so accordingly, he can have a link on this blog!

You can access the great man's views HERE. Hat tip: Skipper.