The Father of Conservatism

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Herein lies the Ghost in the political machine of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. Much like Max Weber arguing with the Ghost of Marx, this blog seeks to make relevant and where appropriate support or reject Burke's 'Reflections' against the backdrop of the disastrous New Labour experiment.

Tuesday 23 September 2008

Tory Tandem: David and George Show

It was an intriguing week for Tory HQ with their magazine exposures of the two Conservative front men. While Cameron secured a rather glorifying exploration of his historic rise by Time magazine in a Statesman-esque mould.

We saw George Osborne going a little lower by making front cover of the Daily Mail's
Sunday Live dressed like 007 under the headline The Osborne Supremacy. What I wanted to comment on was how down-to-earth Osborne appeared to be, something which Cameron tries, but fails spectacularly.

Having personally heard Cameron speak at a few events, I can strongly say he is an unparalleled orator and supremely comfortable on stage; however when in the crowd he mutates into a different man. In the Time exclusive, his biographer calls him
glassy and cold and thats is exactly how I considered him to be.

Cameron appeared to look through me and unable to connect, not just on the question at hand, but more worrying with the person delivering it. His pitch is
polished, another adjective his biographer enlightens us with, this Time article is one such example, but when dealing with the unscripted, the un-choreographed and the role of chance playing its hand, Cameron seizes up and becomes uneasy.

Compare this with Osborne's warm and light-hearted interview, allowing the glassy demeanor of Cameron to fall flat. Commenting on one of his part-time Selfridge's jobs George's quips “I'm a very good towel-folder now.”

Couple this with his NHS job where he entered into a computer a list of all the people who had died that week, an account of this morbid job is told with such a subtle humour it makes the reader smirk.

As a commentator, I've wanted to see less of Cameron's presidential stage play and more of the other shadow cabinet cameos, notably George Osborne, not just on policy, but also the man. I hope to see Mr. Osborne continue to step out of Cameron's glassy shadow.

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