Sure youth and experience are two sides of the equation, but Cameron is not unexperienced himself. He wrote Howards manifesto and he was at Lamont’s side during the ERM fiasco, so twice his own track-record counts against him. By comparison Brown is rightly garlanded as a triumphant visionary.

[Cameron] deftly counters the Great Clunking Fist’s accusations that he’s still wet behind the ears, pointing out that for all his experience, Gordon Brown has made rather a hash of things over the last year.

Well, quite. If the only criteria for ‘promotion’ to Government was experience we’d never change any of our beloved leaders since they would always be the most experienced (equally Brown should never shuffle his Cabinet!).

What matters is how our beloved leaders are perceived to have handled events.

I rather expected your ignorant ‘let-them-eat-cake’ attitude to the people’s outrageous demands for law and order and tougher immigration controls. But I think the quote which provides the best insight into your rather insulated, limited mind is the term ‘anti-european’ to describe eurosceptics. I am a eurosceptic but I am as about as pro-european as it is possible to be. You are no more pro-european as I am, only more federalist and therefore an anti-British ignoramus.

British multiculturalism has left a “terrible” legacy which has allowed extremists to flourish, shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve has warned.

and:

Mr Grieve’s comments come as an ICM poll for the Guardian suggested Labour had narrowed the gap on the Tories.

The poll put the Conservatives on 41%, Labour on 32% and the Lib Dems on 18%.

A ComRes survey for the Independent on Sunday last weekend put the Tories on 39%, Labour on 27% and the Lib Dems on 21%.

Full sorry story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7639047.stm

Falling in the polls – play the race card. Same old Tories.

Blair wasn’t a great Prime Minister. He accepted the Thatcherite fudge left at the end of the eighties. No leadership on Europe, largely unreformed public services and an acceptance of the Tories social authoritarianism. To this he added a willingness to engage in illegal pre-emptive strikes on other countries. The last bit puts him below John Major in my estimation. Cameron looks like he’ll continue the same style of government we’ve had since about 1987.

The only way such a party can function is through strong central control from the leadership which roots out and removes any sense of dissent – because when any dissent does emerge the coalition becomes unstable and threatens to implode.

Cameron’s change is that it’s more of the same thing: it’s more power politics, more concessions to truth, more compromises with honesty, more inevitable failures and another eventual collapse.

How bad will his end be? Worse than this time round.

I don’t think that the Thatcher social polarisation was ever closed. We live in an untrusting, mine-is-mine society, one that expects cheap collective provision and then moans about its failures. That is what the liberal left needs to address, and with very simple stories.

When I was a teenager, thirty years ago, the Daily Mail was a filthy rag, purchased by reactionary right wingers. Today, the Daily Mail is a filthy rag, read by “average” people. The Daily Mail delivers simple, hateful stories. This is replicated by right wing bloggers. And there is no simple counter argument.

Glad to see you started by reminding us that the Tories have actually polled over 50% (i.e. 15% more than Labour and Liberal Democrats together recently). I’m also impressed by Smithson’s Law: the most accurate poll is the one most favourable to the Tories.

It’s too soon to tell whether or not the Tories are the “same old, same old” – yes, they’ll protect the rich whatever else they do, but how exactly does this distinguish them from New Labour? In terms of the membership, which has not been renewed even to the small extent that Labour’s was in the 1990s, and is consequently pretty elderly, the answer is almost certainly “no”. But that probably doesn’t matter – what we need to look at is the new intake of Tory MPs. Maybe I haven’t been looking in the right places (well, I haven’t been looking, to be honest) but there seems to be little analysis of who they’ve adopted in the 200 or so seats they’re certain to gain at the election.

My impression is that the real “hot button” issue at their selection meetings was Europe, or more precisely, Europhobia. Doubtless many of them will cool off on the issue, especially once the City has applied its charm offensive – Mark Field was elected to represent the Cities of London and Westminster as a Europhobe in 2001, but he’s been reprogrammed since – but some will doubtless be foolish enough to bang on about it in that fantasy land where the rest of Europe organises its affairs to suit the UK.

It’s pretty certain that they’ll privatise welfare delivery to a motley collection of more-or-less dodgy start-up entrepreneurs and evangelical churches, but, frankly, the unspeakable James Purnell will do the same given half a chance.