Cameron distracts us from the real battle

COMING from a highly intelligent man, it was a remarkably unguarded comment. Whatever possessed David Cameron, less than seven weeks before an election, to fire the starting gun for a Tory leadership contest in the next parliament?

For make no mistake, this is the effect of his announcement that if he wins on May 7, he won’t stand for a third term.

Indeed, though the Prime Minister may say he wants to serve a full five years more in Downing Street (always assuming the electorate will permit him) his party will surely insist on giving his successor time to settle in before the nation goes to the polls again in 2020.

Has he forgotten so quickly how he and his colleagues taunted Tony Blair as a ‘lame duck PM’, after the former Labour leader made a similar blunder in 2004?

Leave aside that his retirement plans are a huge and unnecessary distraction from the current campaign, in which the Tories should be focused single-mindedly on the fight to keep Ed Miliband’s hands off the levers of power.

Aren’t electors entitled to ask who will end up as prime minister if they vote Tory this time? Compounding his folly, Mr Cameron even listed the likely candidates for his job, naming Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson.

He could hardly have issued a clearer invitation to the contenders to launch their leadership campaigns. At all costs, they should resist that temptation and concentrate on the battle of May 7.

One thing this episode reveals is how inadvisable it is to conduct soft-focus ‘at home’ interviews choreographed to create an ordinary guy image.

Is it too much to hope that over the coming weeks, Mr Cameron will think before he speaks?