Geoffrey Wheatcroft in today's Guardian believes that the Tories should be charging ahead but they keep on getting knocked back by their leader's lack of judgment:
And yet, in this festive season, one is left with the uncharitable reflection that whenever the political match is going their way the Tories score another own goal - from their association with plutocrats to Cameron's recent stunt in Ulster, or even his naff Christmas card. He once claimed to be Blair's heir, and sometimes he does resemble the last prime minister at his worst: a man not so much seeking office to put a programme into effect as looking for a programme to be a means of achieving power; all form and no substance; or as Wagner unkindly said of Meyerbeer's music, all effects and no causes. But whereas Blair's opportunistic cynicism worked for a time, Cameron isn't even a skilful opportunist.
The columnist concludes that although voters can see Cameron trying to reform his party by standing up to the right-wing headbangers, they can see no evidence that his judgement is any better. Even the Tory leader's opportunism is mistaken:
Much of political life involves calculation of interests and assessment of opportunity. Cameron's harshest critics in the Tory press are really rightwing Trots, who prefer revolutionary defeatism and doctrinal purity to anything so vulgar as winning elections, and Cameron is right to ignore them. But if he is going to make calculations, he might at least make sensible ones. There's not much to be said for a party of inopportune opportunists, or cynics who get it all wrong.
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