MAY 7 Tories in plea to ‘flat-footed’ PM: Show us more passion to win us this Election
DAVID Cameron faced a growing revolt last night over his ‘flat-footed’ General Election campaign.
Several MPs pointed the finger of blame at the Prime Minister’s Australian Election guru Lynton Crosby.
And a former Conservative Cabinet Minister criticised George Osborne’s ‘Dickensian’ message on ‘Austerity Britain’.
The first signs of a Tory wobble emerged after last week’s polls suggested that instead of leaving Labour trailing, as Tory chiefs had expected, Labour is slightly ahead.
And far from collapsing under the weight of massed Tory attacks, Labour leader Ed Miliband’s ratings have improved.
In an outspoken intervention, retiring Conservative MP Brian Binley said: ‘With the Election campaign well under way, Mr Cameron still appears to be standing apart and aloof, almost like a spectator.’
He added: ‘Flat-footed and lame, we already look as if we’re running to catch up.’
Northampton MP Mr Binley, a former member of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee, said the provocative ‘stab-in-the-back’ attack on Mr Miliband over nuclear weapons by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was a mistake.
‘I’m told this is part of a so-called “dead cat on the table” diversionary tactic dreamed up by Lynton Crosby to take the public’s focus away from Labour’s new taxes on rich nondoms,’ said Mr Binley.
‘Lynton is from Australia where politics, like their cricket, is more aggressive than ours. But it doesn’t work here.’
Targeting Miliband could backfire, he added. ‘The one sure way to increase the popularity of the boy no one in class likes is to start bullying him.
‘I desperately want Cameron to win but we have to sharpen up our act quickly. We have to get down and busy, not down and dirty.’
Mr Binley was backed by former Tory Defence Secretary Liam Fox.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, Dr Fox said that with Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne’s economic success, the Conservatives ‘should be ten points ahead of Labour’.
He continues: ‘The questions many Conservatives are asking are: what is going on and what are we going to do about it?’
He said the Chancellor had made a key blunder when he said that aus- terity measures were needed to get Britain out of the red.
‘The term austerity has developed negative connotations with too many voters with its dark Dickensian ring. We should talk about Britain having to live within its means.’ It was time for Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne to ‘shout Tory values from the rooftops’, he stressed.
Thatcherite Dr Fox argued: ‘If we do not make it clear we believe fervently in our values, how can we expect others to do so?’
For Cameron to stay in No10 the Party’s message must contain ‘a moral dimension, a revivalist spirit and a passion for libertarian conservatism’.
Some Tory MPs have complained to Chief Whip Michael Gove about the party’s campaign.
One former Conservative Minister said: ‘Several MPs are very worried but we have been told to keep quiet. When I raised it with a senior party figure I was told, “The last thing we need is stories about a wobble.” Well, I am very sorry but something needs to be done about it.’ But allies of Mr Cameron and the Chancellor insist the campaign is on course and blamed unnamed Tory enemies of Crosby for ‘settling old scores’.
One Conservative adviser said: ‘Lynton has always said the polls will change towards the end of the campaign when the large number of undecided voters decide who they want in Downing Street – Cameron or Miliband.
‘We remain confident that by focusing on the economy and the credibility gulf between Miliband and Cameron, we will win.’
WITH less than a month to go till polling day, there is – for the first time – a sense that the election campaign is drifting away from the Tories.
The idea that David Cameron would play it safe, fight on his excellent economic record and grind out a victory by staying on the rigid tracks of a preplanned campaign is beginning to look like an error.
Yet victory is still there for the taking – if only the Conservative high command can re-establish their grip on events.
There is simply too much at stake to do otherwise. Labour leader Ed Miliband is quite open about the fact that he is an oldfashioned, Left-wing Socialist, not a Centrist Blairite. It is by making this plain that he won his party’s leadership.
This simple truth makes this contest far more clear-cut than many like to claim. There are deep differences between the main parties, primarily on the creation and distribution of wealth.
The Conservatives have now rightly chosen to emphasise this difference by relaunching and expanding their plans – frustrated by coalition – to relax inheritance tax and so allow thrifty families to keep more of their own money and pass it down the generations.
It is precisely this kind of policy, made possible by George Osborne’s careful stewardship of the national finances, that will rally Tory support.
But now we urge Mr Cameron: This is the time for passion – for an articulate fight for the Centre ground which Labour has left vacant and unguarded. It is certainly not too late.