Iain, you’re there and I’m not, so maybe you know how real the David Cameron speech fever is. But this Daily Telegraph report on the British Conservative conference is a good example of why so many folks can’t be bothered following politics. First, the headline:
David Cameron Fights To Stave Off Election
But then the meat of the story:
He threw down the gauntlet to the Prime Minister, challenging him to go to call an election.
Mr Cameron said: “So Mr Brown, what’s it going to be? Why don’t you go ahead and call that election?”
And then the analysis:
The speech was rapturously received in some quarters. Political pundit Iain Dale said: “If the party has succeeded in putting Gordon Brown off calling an election they will have achieved one of the greatest feats in modern political history. They will have got out of jail.”
Got that? Cameron’s challenge to Brown to call the election is his way of staving off the election, because the Tories would lose it. But, if he succeeds in persuading Brown not to call the election and defeat him, it will be an amazing Tory victory. And presumably Brown will decline to call the election because he was totally rattled by Cameron’s cocky demands to bring it on. Because he doesn’t read the papers so he’s no idea it’s all a massive head fake.
Hmm.