Cameron on the defensive

HAIR swept back and statesmanlike, persona calm and authoritative, delivery assured – but defensive.

David Cameron looked like a prime minister for a time of crisis, but he sounded for much of yesterday’s conference speech to be on the back foot, defending the policies that do not yet show a way out of the crisis.

“Two-and-a-half years later, of course I can’t tell you that all is well, but I can say this: Britain is on the right track,” he said, attempting to reassure.

He threw in some optimism, regularly repeating – as if to convince himself – that Britain was on the rise and that we are about to become “an aspiration nation”.

But while Mr Cameron undoubtedly wrote his own speech, its contents were shaped by the outside economic events that have created such a sombre mood at Birmingham, enlivened only by the mop-topped entertainer, Boris Johnson.

In government, the Conservatives find that they cannot be Conservatives because of the constraints of coalition, as they have to drag the Liberal Democrats with them everywhere they go.

This has caused their right-wing to lash out in frustration. Hug a hoodie has been replaced by bash a burglar. No more is there Cameroonian talk of green issues and compassionate Conservatism; instead yesterday Mr Cameron spoke in defence of welfare cuts which the Child Poverty Action Group says are contributing to increasing child poverty.

He did make a brave attempt to defend the overseas aid budget, to justify spending British money on vaccinating foreign babies. Tellingly, though, he received lukewarm clapping.

His next passage was about his EU veto, and there was a fervent warmth to the applause – for all his attempts to reform his party, it is still desperate for a scrap with Europe.

Events are also painting the Conservatives into a corner, portraying them as out-of-touch millionaire toffs. This picture has been so colourfully completed by Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell’s rant at a “plebbish” policeman.

So Mr Cameron had to defend the Conservatives’ basic principles. He said that the party had “to show that Conservative methods are not just the way we grow a strong economy, but the way we build a big society; that Conservative methods are not just good for the strong and the successful but the best way to help the poor, and the weak, and the vulnerable”.

He had to defend the Conservatives’ image.

He said: “They call us the party of the betteroff.

No: we are the party of the want to be better- off, those who strive to make a better life for themselves and their families – and we should never, ever be ashamed of saying so.”

And he had to defend his own background, admitting he went to a “posh school”, but saying: “I’m not here to defend privilege. I’m here to spread it.”

He said: “Line one, rule one of being a Conservative is that it’s not where you’ve come from that counts, it’s where you’re going.”

SINCE day one, this has been Mr Cameron’s Achilles heel – during his bid to become party leader, on a wet November day in 2005, scrunched up in a small car on the A66 between Middlesbrough and Darlington, I asked him whether an old Etonian could understand somewhere like Easington.

He gave, to the word, the same answer. Seven years on, the perception still haunts him.

Mr Cameron now also has to defend the centre ground. As William Hague knows from his time as leader, it is too dangerous for the Conservatives to concentrate on their core, rightwing vote.

At the Labour conference, Ed Miliband tried to shake off his “Red Ed” tag and his geekishness to claim the centre ground and the whole nation.

“We don’t preach about one nation but practise class war,” Mr Cameron sneered dismissively.

Warming to his theme, he condemned Labour’s high-spending approach with one of his best lines: “Whatever the day, whatever the question, whatever the weather (Labour’s answer is) borrow more money.

“Borrow, borrow, borrow.

“Labour: the party of one notion: more borrowing.”

The trouble is that the Conservatives also only have one notion at the moment: to cut spending.

Mr Cameron did not offer any new ideas to increase growth, and no new directions to kickstart the economy.

Instead, he defended the double dip position that his government finds itself in.

“Our deficit reduction plan is not an alternative to a growth plan: it’s the very foundation of our growth plan,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll get Britain on the rise.”

He mocked Labour for wanting to borrow more to get the country out of the mess caused by borrowing too much, yet his own deficit reduction plan is actually increasing the deficit – our borrowing this financial year is up by £10.6bn.

Mr Cameron said it was time “to sink or swim”, but at the moment, the economy is floundering. Mr Cameron splashed around yesterday trying to shore up his position, but until the economic tide changes, he will remain on the defensive.