Is Sam Cam too much of a hippy for Dave to win?
SAMANTHA Cameron is liked by 54 per cent of voters, says a poll. This is double the proportion who chose Miriam Clegg or Justine Miliband. Mrs Cameron, 44 next Saturday, impresses men and women alike — as well as voters who back parties other than the Conservatives.
However, a female Tory supporter of my acquaintance offers a different perspective, saying: ‘ I blame Samantha Cameron for pushing Dave away from traditional Conservative views into hippy- dippy, New Agey-thinking, which they think will win over non-traditional Tories.
‘Maybe that’s why the party’s level-pegging with Labour, instead of being 15 points ahead.’
Is Mrs Cameron hippy-dippy or New Agey? She is a fan of ‘psychedelic’ rock band Polica, attending their recent gig in Shoreditch, East London.
Polica’s new album, Shulamith, is adorned by a photo of a naked young woman, her hair and neck caked with blood — a tribute to late Canadian feminist Shulamith Firestone, the band’s ‘mentor from the grave’.
Ms Firestone argued that childbirth was barbaric and all sexual reproduction should take place outside the womb. She became a recluse, dying alone, aged 67, in a studio flat, having apparently starved herself to death.
Music is just music, whatever the lifestyles of the musicians involved — or of the people who listen to them.
We shouldn’t read too much into the tastes of middle-aged Mrs Cameron, who says she listens to Radio 4 in the morning and ‘cutting edge’ Radio 6 Music for the rest of the day.
It can be argued that it’s very much to her credit that she has continued to follow a pastime that is overwhelmingly the province of youth, given her position as prime ministerial spouse and chatelaine of No 10. We have not had one in living memory quite like Samantha, the privately educated daughter of baronet Sir Reginald Sheffield. Is she really a Conservative, some wonder?
Tory Arts Minister Ed Vaizey, a close friend of the Camerons, said in a 2010 TV documentary that Samantha had come up with the phrase: ‘There is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same thing as the state.’
This was quite controversial, given that Margaret Thatcher, no less, is said to have observed that ‘there is no such thing as society’.
VAIZEY also told the columnist and broadcaster Andrew Rawnsley, in an interview for the documentary, that Samantha might have voted for Tony Blair. He added, astonishingly, about the 2010 election: ‘She would be going into this poll thinking: “Is Cameron the real deal or should I stick with Brown?” ’ A Tory leader’s wife who might vote for the Labour candidate — whatever next!?
The Tories quickly issued a statement to Conservative blogger Iain Dale, saying: ‘Sam has never voted Labour and never will. She took five weeks off work to campaign for the Tories in Stafford in the 1997 General Election.’ Samantha Cameron issued her own statement, saying: ‘I did not vote for Tony Blair in 1997 and I have never voted Labour.’
Why would anyone — far less a close family friend of the Camerons like Vaizey — think otherwise? Perhaps because Samantha Cameron transmits conflicting signals.
A loyal-to-a-fault wife and mother, whose opinions are said to be valued by David Cameron, she is an intriguing mixture of posh and pop.
According to Francis Elliott and James Hanning, authors of the biography Cameron: The Rise Of The New Conservative, she has led the Prime Minister to adopt a softer line on issues such as gay rights, multiculturalism and the environment.
They say that in Bristol, where she studied fine arts, Samantha socialised with a Bohemian crowd in local pubs at which ‘bikers mixed with drug dealers, hippies, students and guys from the ghetto’. She had a dolphin tattoo on her ankle, and hung out with friends who dabbled a little in drugs, though there is no suggestion Samantha ever did so.
This suggests a Leftish individual and might explain why she appeals to Labour voters — if, indeed, the poll saying they like her is to be believed.
But her background and association with Smythson, the luxury stationery company, aren’t likely to endear her to traditional Labour types.
TV presenter Cathy Newman of Leftish Channel 4 News says in an article: ‘She’s posh, probably posher than her husband. And while Ed Miliband’s missus Justine Thornton and Nick Clegg’s other half Miriam Gonzalez Durantez didn’t inherit their riches, Sam Cameron was born into it.’
Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield’s journey from stately home to No 10, via the Bohemian environs of Bristol, piques public curiosity. Remaining unknowable seems to have worked to her advantage.