Go easy on the rhetoric, boys! Don’t repeat Blair’s mistakes
I don’t often agree with Lord “Charlie” Falkener (unelected Blair crony, overrated and significantly responsible for the Dome f**k up etc etc), but yesterday on Radio 4’s PM he admitted a major mistake of Blair’s first years was to promise too much – “whiter than whiter”, “servants not the masters” etc etc.
Clegg, he went on, might be making the same mistake in claiming his constitutional reforms were the biggest since 55BC, or whatever.
Amen to that, brother!
Careful guys. I think I shall just refer to you jointly as Clameron for simplicity. There’s a lot I like about your coalition, but don’t get carried away. AV and what looks horribly like a stitched up voting system for an elected Lords (closed-list PR isn’t much different from appointing peers) – oh, and regulating CCTV – aren’t quite in the same league as 1832, or several other reforms since then if I remember my Ladybird history correctly.
Blair’s rhetoric promised far too much in the mid ’90s, something I constantly pointed out in my Sunday Times pieces. Now Clameron is making the same mistake. Go easy boys. There’s a lot of good will for you at the moment, just as there was for Blair 13 short years ago. But promise too much as you may disappoint.
Clameron may also find that the getting some of these measures through in big bang bills may not be as easy as he thinks. One step at a time, or you run the danger of uniting people who object to one aspect or other of the proposed constitutional reforms.
And don’t think there won’t be opposition. Stuffing the 22 Committe with ministers and placemen will increase, not decrease dissent.
Too high handed and too cliquey was the comment of one overlooked Tory MP as he sobbed into his Bacardi and Coke last night. There is a surprisingly sour mood already among the backbenches.
Be careful out there. Modelling yourself on Blair need to not run to repeating his mistakes.
