The Tory party is in a rather disorientated state for the start of an election campaign. At one level the strong economic recovery looks good, but the fact that it is built on household debt, a house price boom and falling living standards, for all not engaged in financial services, guarantees that it will in due course turn bad. The only question is when? Tory cynics believe not until after they have won the general election. Labour realists fear the same thing.
Other factors are now, however, in play. The electorate is much better informed and much better in touch with itself through social media, than at any time before. It no longer trusts politicians. Moreover it actually thinks politicians are liars and people who are on the make, make promises and then break them. So they pay much less attention to campaigns and much more to impressions and to popular personalities. The two most popular personalities in UK politics today are Nigel Farage and Boris.
Farage’s impact on the election campaign is both understood, predictable and feared by most Tories who have not already joined him. Boris’s impact is at times beyond understanding, entirely unpredictable, but welcomed by almost all Tories. The trouble for the Tory HQ is that the only reason for his popularity is the certainty that his ultimate goal is to replace Cameron. After Cameron has lost the election, which Boris believes he will.
That is a bit of a funny atmosphere in which to organise a winning programme, but Downing Street and Tory HQ (where is it now?) are confident they can pull it off. Well they would be of course, because they are all cronies, privately educated and bitchy. How do we know that? Of course! Baroness Warsi; a Tory of quite a different stripe who has resigned over the Government’s tardiness in calling Israel to book over Gaza. Now anther junior foreign office minister has gone even as I write this. Dear me! Time for a reshuffle perhaps? Oh, no, they have just had one.
Suddenly Ed Milliband is beginning to look like a safe pair of hands.