Political Penguin

I’ve been wondering about this whole Grammar schools issue that’s reumbled on the last week or so. What exactly was the point of it? Why deliberately stir up an issue likely to cause a few ruffled feathers in the ranks without some win situation somewhere along the line? Was he looking for a defining ‘clause 4′ moment? Or is it simply that since Tony’s said he’s off, suddenly the media focus has turned towards the Labour Party and he’s feeling a bit left out.

I of course write anything about David Cameron with hesitation having had the pleasure of understanding what exactly the Tories perspective of freedom of expression is the last time I gave him a mild ribbing. On reflection it was interesting to see that at the first sign of criticism there is an overbearing tendency to come in all guns blazing to shut down opponents. Although in saying that, they could have done a bit better than send the tea boy Sam Rouke (now parted company with the Tory Party) but that’s all by and by.

What it does show is an almost frenetic desire to protect David Cameron from criticism, or to be more accurate, from allowing the smiley nice guy image to drop. My own personal interpretation of those events formulated in my mind that I simply think he’s got a bit of a nasty streak behind the public persona. We saw after the budget this year that in a situation where he’s been done over (in a political context) he reverts to a more basic and one might say playground approach of name calling. Maybe it’s just me but I wouldn’t want someone with such a tendency to be representing my country on a world stage.

Anyway, I have digressed, back to Grammar Schools. David Cameron announces that no more Grammar Schools will be built under a Tory Government which actually means not a lot, it’s not much of a policy but the Tories are seriously short on that as it is. So if it is pretty much a meaningless policy then the only logical conclusion is that he was either really desperate to get in the papers as they’re ignoring him at the moment or he was spoiling for a rumble with certain sections of his own party.

Was it a ‘Clause 4′ moment? Well, if it was then unlike the man he is modelling his style of leadership on, Tony Blair, he has proven himself a complete and hopeless imitation because whereas Blair faced down, quite publicly at Labour Party Conference sections of the Labour Party (I remember my own MP David Winnick giving one of the most passionate speeches against its removal from the constitution) Dave’s gone about it in a bit of a half-arsed cowardly way by doing it in the press.

The upshot of all this is that if that was his plan then he’s had his bottom kicked, not particularly strongly either, but has shown that he can’t face down a couple of non-entity politicians that nobody’s ever heard of or a few blue-rinsed old duffers in his party and has done a quick U-turn at the first sign of trouble. That’s not good leadership, in fact it’s pretty weak leadership that no Tory member would expect from any leader of a party with such a longstanding position in British politics.

However I’m tempted to shy away from the idea that he was trying for his ‘Clause 4′ moment despite it being a nice idea that having tried it he got done over by such a weak challenge. I say this because if you’re going to do something like that, then you don’t book a holiday in Crete in the very near future. Politics requires sticking power and if his idea is that he runs off on holiday the moment things get a bit difficult then he’s not got what it takes to lead our country.

Personally though, I think it’s just a simple case of trying to grab a headline, nothing more, nothing less and to be honest, I think that’s simply all Cameron is about anyway. The problem being that in his pursuance of publicity he has opened up a front within his own party through which elements that are not happy with his leadership, or the direction that he is taking the party can attack him. What we’ve seen in all likelyhood is a simple bit of mis-judgement which in itself makes one question his leadership abilities, but equally that there’s a section of the Tory Party that is none to happy about where he’s taking their party and are vocal enough to say it.

What have we learned from this little affair? Well, whatever the root cause or motive for the events that have taken place is, there are second in importance to the realisation that the Tory Leader simply hasn’t got the bottle to face down his detractors and is quite happy to change policy this way or that on the basis of a few grumbles from his party. If is goal is to emulate Tony Blair then sorry, he’s not up to anywhere near his standard.