Sunday, October 01, 2006
The Cameron effect
As David Cameron prepares the address the Conservative Conference this week for the first time as Leader, he must be aware that the question most people are asking about him is 'Where's the beef?'.
The thing is it is not only his opponents and the media who are posing this question, it is members of his own party, and fairly high-ranking members as well. On his blog yesterday, the Conservative Assembly Member for Mid and West Wales, Glyn Davies, joined the distinguished ranks of Cameron-doubters. Under the heading 'Policies would be nice, Mr Cameron', he wrote:
David Cameron has put the Conservatives back in business by coming over as a thoroughly decent sort of fellow while Labour have turned on each other like ferrets in the proverbial sack. So we have reached first base. The question for us in Wales is when will Dave set out for second base - the one marked policy. We cannot work to the same timetable as the Party in Westminster because we have our Welsh general election next May 3rd - in 7 months time. I am not expecting much in the line of solid policy but it is reasonable to expect some idea of the 'direction of travel'.
Taxation is emerging as 'the' key issue, both in terms of the total tax take and whether we go for any 'green tax switch' as the Lib Dems like to call it. I have always been the sort of whimpy Tory asked to join discussions with talented Monmouth MP David Davies to provide 'balance' - but even I want to see some indication that we intend to reduce tax from the dizzy heights to which Gordon Brown has raised them. Bizarrely, the only politicians who have been talking about tax cuts in the conference season so far are the Lib Dems and Dafydd Wigley. Politics is a funny old world.
Do I detect an element of nervousness amongst Welsh Tories as to how well they will do in the Welsh General Election next May?
The thing is it is not only his opponents and the media who are posing this question, it is members of his own party, and fairly high-ranking members as well. On his blog yesterday, the Conservative Assembly Member for Mid and West Wales, Glyn Davies, joined the distinguished ranks of Cameron-doubters. Under the heading 'Policies would be nice, Mr Cameron', he wrote:
David Cameron has put the Conservatives back in business by coming over as a thoroughly decent sort of fellow while Labour have turned on each other like ferrets in the proverbial sack. So we have reached first base. The question for us in Wales is when will Dave set out for second base - the one marked policy. We cannot work to the same timetable as the Party in Westminster because we have our Welsh general election next May 3rd - in 7 months time. I am not expecting much in the line of solid policy but it is reasonable to expect some idea of the 'direction of travel'.
Taxation is emerging as 'the' key issue, both in terms of the total tax take and whether we go for any 'green tax switch' as the Lib Dems like to call it. I have always been the sort of whimpy Tory asked to join discussions with talented Monmouth MP David Davies to provide 'balance' - but even I want to see some indication that we intend to reduce tax from the dizzy heights to which Gordon Brown has raised them. Bizarrely, the only politicians who have been talking about tax cuts in the conference season so far are the Lib Dems and Dafydd Wigley. Politics is a funny old world.
Do I detect an element of nervousness amongst Welsh Tories as to how well they will do in the Welsh General Election next May?
