Monday, 08 September 2008

Linkage

Who’s “reactionary?”


Melanie Philips has some advice for David Cameron... and John McCain:

In Britain and America - as in other parts of the Western world, too - an enormous gulf now yawns between leaders and led.

People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.

Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of “change.”
...
...Here's where British Tories should be paying close attention - McCain is not popular with truly conservative Republicans.
...
As a result, the danger was that they would not turn out for him on election day. And exactly the same danger is lurking for David Cameron. If conservatively-minded voters want to turf Labour out but have no enthusiasm for the Tories, the risk is they will simply stay at home...

Like McCain and Obama, Cameron too has grasped the public's anti-establishment mood.

But he made the error of assuming that the reactionary old order to be overturned was conservatism, while change, hope and progress resided on the Left.

But this is a caricature which, although an article of faith among the media, bears scant relation to reality...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 21:23:01 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 212 words, total size 2 kb.

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
66kb generated in CPU 0.2579, elapsed 4.3813 seconds.
50 queries taking 4.3236 seconds, 179 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.