Today's Daily Mail contains a surprise - a scathing attack on David Cameron

[fedsron2us]

by their political editor Peter Osborne . It is even surisingly sympathetic to Gordon Brown. No online link but this quote will give you the gist

Poisonous abuse isn't very clever Mr Cameron. It just risks wrecking your credibility

Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday was universally reported as a bloodbath. Without exception commentators described Gordon Brown's performance as inept, while they hailed yet another Commons triumph for David Cameron.

The Tory Leaders deadly jibe that the Labour Party had intended to elect a leader but ended up with a loser was rewarded with praise. Indeed, one enemy of the Prime Minister told me that Camerons rebuke had defined Gordon Brown for ever. He compared it to the moment 15 years ago when Tony Blair leant across the despatch box at John Major and spat out the words: 'I lead my party he follows his'.

There is always a herd instinct in British politics and David Cameron has confidently placed himself at the head of an ugly, baying mob. Like all mobs Cameron's brutish band of brothers has little interest in decency or decorum.

<snip>

The Tories are now 18 points ahead in the opinion polls. But the short term gain comes at long term cost.

For the truth is that Cameron is not only destroying Gordon Brown but risks destroying himself. For the most part the British electorate are decent people. If David Cameron is not careful voters will come to the conclusion that for all his cleverness he is an arrogant and perhaps nasty man.

Clearly, not everyone in Toryland is happy with the party's current leadership even if they are miles ahead in the polls.

Interesting times.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Peter Obourne has always been fairly independent, as far as I can tell

Certainly not a slave to the Tory party line. I don't know if he normally let's that show in the Mail, but his stuff for Channel 4 has normally been worth watching, even when I don't agree with it.

[non sociopath skin]

2. Perhaps yet another sign that not all of those on the centre-right are enamoured ...

... with the bland, arrogant posturing of the likes of Cameron, Osborne and Johnson.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

3. Doesn't surprise me, to be honest

Cameron is an arrogant prat, but he is not personally a raving rightie with a frantic desire to hang 'em all, flog 'em all, and send 'em all back where they came from. I am sure that the Hate-Mail would much prefer a Truer Believer; a younger version of Tebbit (Davis perhaps?; but there are plenty of other possibilities).

[fedsron2us]

4. I think your partly right

The Mail can not resist sniping at Cameron because he is an opportunist not really a true Thatcherite believer. I am pretty sure that the first time he stumbles then they will be on his back immediately. There is also a an element that the Mail and the Murdoch press are in competition with each other over the future of the Tory party as with everything else. Nonetheless, I think we are also about to see the beginnings of some seismic changes in British politics which are going to happen as the economic and political status quo of the Thatcher/Major/Blair years begins to unravel. The meltdown which is currently happening at the very centre of the western financial system is going to change everything. Some people on the right of British politics can see what is coming and are already positioning themselves for the fall out. It would be nice if the left were also ready for the crisis of capitalism that is about to unfold but sadly too many have retreated into a negative and defensive mind set since the 1980s which means that they have not really come up with many new ideas. Indeed, much of radical politics now consists of just a rag bag of single issues cobbled together without much thought or any coherent ideology, particularly in the areas of economic organisation and finance. Dare I say it the left has probably invested far too much time on social liberalism and far too little on socialism.

[non sociopath skin]

5. Who, on the right, are you referring to, Feds?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

6. I think that there has been much more attention to and more progress in social than economic issues.

but I wouldn't say that the left have spent *too much* time on social liberalism. One need only observe how things are in the more 'Jesusland-ish' parts of the USA to realize that social liberalism is important and easily threatened - and to read the rantings on social issues in the Hate-Mail and Express to realize that we need to be vigilant in protecting minorities and other groups subject to discrimination (e.g. women, although we are not a minority!) from intolerant bullies who would like to go back to the 1950s, or better still the 1350s.

However, I *do* think that it's a mistake to divide social from economic leftism and to act as though only the former is important. This is particularly common in the USA, perhaps because poor people tend not to vote and so 'don't count' to the policymakers; but has been increasingly common here. Poverty is one of the biggest and harshest forms of discrimination and freedom-limitation. Social liberalism without economic justice is really only social liberalism for those who can afford it.

[T_i_B]

7. The link

Even stories from the Daily Mail need a link for those of us with nose pegs at the ready!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_page_id=1772&in_article_id=562143&in_author_id=382