Friday, May 07, 2010

Let down, hanging around

David Cameron has let down his party. He was elected leader on the promise that his new, smiley, PC-friendly Conservatism would deliver election victory. It didn’t.

He may be the next Prime Minister but he has achieved a watered-down version of power only if he can win over the Liberal Democrats and keep them on board.

His failure is staggering. A year ago, he was favourite to walk it. He was competing against the most unpopular Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain and in the midst of the worst economic crisis since, well, Neville Chamberlain.

Yet his “heir to Blair” project came off the rails. The voters turned their backs on the A-list “Dave’s doxies” and UKIP’s 900,000 votes could have delivered dozens of more seats for the Tories, had they chosen to promise a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Nick Clegg did worse than expected. Gordon Brown did badly, as expected. David Cameron was the biggest failure of the election and yet he is about to negotiate himself into Downing Street.

Lucky him. Unlucky Britain.

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