Comment: Cameron sees dark days ahead
David Cameron
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By Adam Leveridge. |  |
Thursday, 08, Oct 2009 06:13
After a week in which the shadow cabinet resolutely supplied the gloom, David Cameron today failed to provide a glimmer of hope.
By Matthew Champion
Today in Manchester it seemed like the true challenge facing up to the Conservative party leader had finally dawned on him.
A deficit of £175 billion; an oversized government; an under-funded armed forces fighting a distant war; an ageing population; an unfair tax system; the breakdown of the family; a labouring health service; a public sceptical with their political system and a network of failing schools.
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These were the problems listed by the Conservative leader himself as he finally took to the stage at the end of his party's conference.
"None of this will be easy. We will be tested. I will be tested. I'm ready for that - and so I believe, are the British people. So yes, there is a steep climb ahead."
A population about to undergo such a precipitous ascent could do with a bit of rousing, but Cameron's speech was sombre; a reflection of the austere economic climate beyond the conference bubble.
There had been expectations before today's speech that the entire conference had been designed as a good cop/bad cop routine between Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne. The latter delivered a truly sobering warning on Tuesday when he unveiled a raft of policies and cuts to public services designed to keep Britain running.
This would have made Cameron's mission today to accept the difficulties the country was facing but paint a picture of a brighter future. That future was nowhere to be found when the Tory leader reflected on the death of his six-year-old son Ivan earlier this year.
He said that for him and his wife Samantha, who he later hailed as "what sustains me the most", the last 12 months could only mean one thing.
"When such a big part of your life suddenly ends nothing else, nothing outside, matters. It's like the world has stopped turning and the clocks have stopped ticking. And as they slowly start again, weeks later, you ask yourself all over again: do I really want to do this?"
No one is suggesting that Cameron no longer wants the job he is months away from getting, but today's mission statement from the man who in all likelihood will be prime minister next May painted a dark picture of the Britain he will inherit.
He read from an email sent from a woman supposedly too poor to afford central heating, trapped in her home on an estate blighted by drug dealers while her husband gazes out of their window as their savings fritter away.
For the most videogenic of the party leaders Cameron gave the worst-delivered speech of conference season. Nick Clegg gave the best speech of his life at the Liberal Democrats, while Gordon Brown had rare fire in his eyes once again at Labour. In comparison Cameron looked unwell, coughed several times, his voice rarely rising.
The man who stunned conference two years ago by giving a speech without an autocue, lectern or notes, glanced nervously down at the podium, his voice breaking several times during a frequently emotive speech. When Mrs Cameron came on the stage after the address as delegates rose to their feet for only the third time (the other two for laying into Labour over unfair tax on the worst off and while in praise for the armed forces) her husband looked like he really needed the support of his wife. He had admitted as much earlier on.
Minutes later husband and wife were in a car on their way out of Manchester as the conference hall they had just left was dismantled behind them and the shadow cabinet looked on slightly bemused.
The same opinion polls that have predicted a Tory victory at the next election have also said the electorate know too little about the real Cameron.
Today he gave one of his most genuine speeches yet. The electorate might be worried, however, at just how dark their future leader's mood seems.
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