Scotland’s future: reduced to opportunistic tinkering and simplistic choices

Rather like the Prime Minister’s spurious and self-seeking arguments against electoral reform, the Scottish people have now been told they must have a “straight choice” over independence.

In other words, the prospect of any kind of constitutional settlement aside from staying in or out of the union – in other words, ‘devolution max’ – is considered so unpalatable that the Westminster elite would like any referendum to be as simplistic as possible. David Cameron’s recent hint that he might consider more powers for Scotland, in the event of a referendum deciding against independence can be considered as a mere sop to nationalist sentiment.

The Scottish National Party is minded towards holding a straightforward yes or no ballot, and although it is thinking about including a 'devolution max' question – an evolution of the current powers vested in Holyrood. Yet Cameron, playing his finest colonial statesman, has made it perfectly clear that he does not intend to endow such choice to Scotland’s voters.

That range of options, however, is something that should be self-determined by Scotland’s people, and not dictated by Westminster. After all, creating interest in a debate on Scotland’s future among English and Welsh voters would be an uphill struggle, to say the least. Yet Westminster politicians of all hues remain of the view that Scotland’s destiny is theirs to shape.

Holyrood and Westminster are currently negotiating on what form the referendum might take, and when it might be held. In the meantime, the Lords’ constitutional reform committee has already expressed its feeling that devolution should not just be a matter for the Scottish people. That might well be true, as any dis-entanglement would need to involve the other constituent parts of the UK to some degree. Its main concern is "the potential to create different and competing tax regimes within the UK". That may be true, but that’s the whole point. Further devolution or independence would invariably mean tax-raising (or lowering) powers, and internal revenue arrangements which would suit Scotland rather than the UK as a whole. The noble Lords’ argument is weaker still considering the haphazard constitutional tinkering which has blighted the UK for the last fifteen years in fact; a perfectly adequate way of describing the future of their own half-reformed chamber. We just don’t do constitutional consistency in this country, and that’s the way our politicians have always wanted it.

Meanwhile, establishment parties at Westminster plod on with the same, tired old view that Scotland’s future is a political plaything, influence over which will occasionally be swapped between competing elites. Cameron considers Scotland as a somewhat romantic appendix to England where he occasionally visits his posh mates to go shooting; he can’t possibly be seen as anti-union in his party. Ed Miliband is petrified of losing Scottish MPs after Labour’s Holyrood wipeout in 2011. Nick Clegg doesn’t really seem to have a particularly distinctive view of his own, aside from saying that he believes in "greater discretion" and "freedom" for Scotland, pulling out antiquated labels like “home rule”. Political elites are doing their patronising best to ensure the status quo is retained. Every one of them is going against the grain of popular opinion. Good luck to the SNP.

Scottish independence: to be or not to be?

Alex Salmond could be toasting with more than a Scotch whiskey sometime in the next few years

 The fervour for celebrating nationhood in the run-up to Burns Night may or may not have been coincidental, but the debate over the future of the United Kingdom ramped up a level in January. David Cameron seemed to have caught many commentators unawares in giving Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond an ultimatum - making it clear that his government would welcome a binding referendum on Scottish independence – and only on Westminster's terms.

Salmond and his Scottish National Party colleagues argue that the Scottish Parliament already has the right to hold a referendum without any interference. Yet Cameron's government has already set itself in conflict with the Holyrood administration. Salmond had previously stated his intention to hold a referendum 'in the second half of the parliament', but Cameron is keen that it be held 'sooner rather than later' – possibly as early as 2013. The government's position can be summarised thus: don't let Alex Salmond get away with breaking up the Union by giving him 1,000 days to make his argument for independence to the people of Scotland. What's more, Cameron's call is for a somewhat simpler affair – a straightforward yes or no rather than asking about the preference for two varying degrees of devolution or independence, which is the SNP's preference.

Publicly, Alex Salmond is portrayed by his opponents as a bully, perhaps in daring to defy Westminster in setting the terms of the debate. Yet, although they might not admit it, many British politicians of all hues secretly admire Salmond, who became Scotland's fourth First Minister in May 2007. They adore the gumption of the man, a formidable parliamentarian and debater who has somehow managed to take both left-wing and right-wing positions, culminating in what the Spectator called 'an extraordinary victory' against eight years of Labour and Liberal Democrat rule in the Scottish parliament. Salmond has managed to steal both the clothes of social democrats while also appealing to conservative tendencies, helping to ensure that the Conservative party itself remains an irrelevance north of the border.

Seeking to get one up on Salmond, it is Cameron who has decided that an urgent debate on the future of the union is needed. And, with little regard for broader constitutional questions, Cameron would like the Union question dealt with once and for all, in order to bolster his own party's credentials as defender of the United Kingdom, and arguably, present a distraction from the government's other troubles. As a result, some have argued that Cameron, rather than Salmond, is playing fast and loose with the make-up of the UK. Little thought has been given to the consequences for England in a UK bereft of Scotland under the current settlement. Independence could, however, provide a resolution of sorts to the so-called West Lothian question, famously posed by the former Labour MP Tam Dalyell, whose constituency gave its name to the issue. This particular issue centred around Scottish MPs being able to vote on English matters – such as funding for the NHS – a peculiarity of the British constitution seeing as English MPs have no such powers in Holyrood.

Major constitutional issues aside, support for independence has jumped to 45% in recent weeks and edging ever faster to 50% in favour. With the Scottish question likely to be dealt with in the next three years, attention would inevitably turn next to Wales, itself emboldened with a devolved government although unlikely to survive without its larger neighbour.

Are we nonetheless witnessing the second act in the break-up of the union? As it stands, it could be remarkably easy for Scotland to decide to go its own way. Some Conservative backbenchers seem already resigned to a seemingly inevitable breakaway, with heightened suspicions of the Prime Minister's true intentions only exacerbated by renewed tensions with Eurosceptic backbenchers. Yet if Scottish MPs were to leave Westminster en masse, it would have a profound impact on the make up of the UK Parliament overall – and with vastly different outcomes for all political parties. As Gerry Hassan noted in the New Statesman, 'many Tories have already given up on Scotland and dream of losing the burden of Labour's 41 seats north of the border'. With the impact of proposed Westminster seat boundary changes taken into account, Labour would lose out regardless. Coupled with the current First Past the Post voting system, the prospect of permanent Conservative rule at Westminster may seem almost certain.

A complete evacuation by Scottish MPs from Westminster would, of course, be the ultimate development. Variants on a theme have included 'devolution max', giving Holyrood the full range of powers over tax but with Scotland asking that defence and foreign affairs remain under the control of Westminster. The SNP has previously also said that it would wish to retain the Queen as head of state, and the pound sterling as currency, meaning that full independence for Scotland with its own tax system, foreign secretary and army may still be some way off.

Regardless of the final settlement, all mainstream party leaders have demonstrated their 'unity over the union' – whatever that means in the current environment. Desperate to not appear anti-union, Labour leader Ed Miliband's position has seemingly reflected the Prime Minister's own: preserve the union at all costs. Yet Scottish nationalism isn't the preserve of one single party and never has been – meaning that the right to self-determination cannot be ignored. The late Labour politician Donald Dewar (the first First Minister of Scotland) had nationalist sympathies but without the ideological zeal of his SNP rivals. Once again, it may well suit Labour to moderate its position given that not all its supporters in Scotland - or those who may vote for the party in the future - will all be quite as positive about the United Kingdom in its current guise as the Labour leader is.

This piece was originally published in Mauritius News in February 2012.

2011: a year in politics

A year ago, we could have described what had been a “challenging” twelve months in UK politics. And, if 2010 were challenging, then 2011 has been extraordinary. Harold Macmillan’s “events, dear boy, events” has never been a truer adage of the way politics can take unexpected turns.

 

David Cameron could surely not have expected an easy ride upon taking office as the Prime Minister of the first coalition government in over seventy years in May 2010. Convincing the electorate of the Conservatives’ deficit reduction strategy – and the consistent trashing of Labour’s record as big-spending, big-government and economically reckless - was the easy part. A generally acquiescent media helped Cameron and his party along the way, while the Liberal Democrats, as coalition partners, raised no significant objections to this line. But with no firm plan for growing the economy - austerity being the only dish on the menu – Cameron’s party has found that governing as if it were a single-party government with little opposition is not an option. Conflict would have to be engineered, distractions capitalised upon and personalities exploited if his party were to convince the electorate that despite being in coalition, it was still business as usual for the Tories.

As distractions go, no-one predicted quite how the Tories’ biggest friends in the media – Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers – would face such a spectacular crisis in the way that they did in July 2011 when news emerged that the mobile phone messages of Milly Dowler, a young girl who had been horrifically murdered in 2002, had been hacked into by News of the World journalists shortly after she disappeared. Within a week of these revelations – and many more - the paper was closed. Only a month or so before, the political establishment, including the Labour leader Ed Miliband, had cavorted quite happily in the company of Murdoch himself at News International’s summer party. All of a sudden, the political class was in crisis yet again, achieving a hat trick of scandal after cash for peerages and the MPs’ misuse of their expenses. Huge questions remain over Cameron’s personal judgement, both as Prime Minister and while in opposition over his hiring of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as Communications Director, and it remains to be seen whether the resultant Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the media will draw out any hard lessons for politicians.

Despite the embarrassment of his murky media connections, Cameron, like Tony Blair, has demonstrated his own Teflon-like quality. Nothing sticks. What's more, he has found it convenient to direct flak in the direction of the Liberal Democrats. As leader of that party and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has never redeemed himself from the consequences of his party’s sudden u-turn in government in introducing fees of up to £9,000 for some university courses. A referendum on moving to the ‘Alternative Vote’ system for General Elections did not result in a Great Liberal Moment – with an overwhelming 67% of the voting electorate saying that actually, they didn’t agree with Nick. Any surge in enthusiasm for the Lib Dems during the 2010 election campaign had vanished without a trace by mid-2011 as the party struggled to make the transition from party of protest to party of government - still very much the third party, stubbornly languishing at around 10% in the opinion polls despite the trappings of office.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of distractions on the international stage. With the disaster of Iraq was still deep in the political consciousness, a decision to take military action in Libya eventually paid off with the eventual demise of Colonel Gadaffi. Rather, it was Europe that once again presented itself as a pressure point for the Tories, exacerbated by crisis in the Eurozone and Tory backbenchers’ desire to score one over their coalition partners. The supposed ‘veto’ wielded by Cameron against a treaty designed to save the Euro (supposedly threatening the City’s financial interests) left the UK more politically isolated than it has been for years. And although large numbers of British people remain of the view that things like immigration, justice, defence and employment rights should be decided by Britain alone, it remains to be seen however whether there is any appetite for the EU having a less of a role in areas such as the environment, foreign policy and trade rules. Asked about the UK’s continued membership of the EU in a referendum, one poll suggested that only 41% of voters wanted to stay in, with 41% wanting to leave – a sharp shift from recent polls indicating that up to 50% wanted to leave. Other countries went ahead with negotiations anyway, with a cost in personal and diplomatic relations, most graphically illustrated by President Sarkozy’s refusal to shake Cameron’s hand during a televised clip of the summit. There is no love lost between the two men.

Whatever happens in UK politics in 2012, it is less predictable than ever. While the coalition has remained stable, the condition of the UK economy does not show any great signs of improvement. Predicted growth has not materialised, youth unemployment is unacceptably high and the promise of many more vacancies in the private sector to replace those lost in the public sector failed to materialise. The next year will mark the halfway point of this notional five-year parliament – a point at which the Chancellor, George Osborne, may well have to adopt ‘Plan B’ for reviving the economy and creating jobs. Cynically, the government may choose to play the anti-EU card rather than admit defeat on the economy.

But with the aftermath of the English riots still raw in voters’ minds, there are evidently opportunities to bolster the government’s law and order credentials, a policy area in which Labour has been gaining some ground. Labour aren't keen to say too much about the deficit, or what they might do about it. But they are also aware that most voters reluctantly accept the cuts, and, despite the obvious pain, traditional opposition arguments based on public spending, jobs and growth may not wash with voters. Miliband will need a sharper strategy and need to think on his feet in response to the government attempts to woo voters with emotional causes such as the Europe question, or the question of whether they feel safe in their towns and cities, which ultimately have little impact on the money in voters’ pockets. 

Rethinking the unthinkable - are the Conservatives the new party of gay equality?

Remember David Cameron’s cringe-inducing interview just before the 2010 General Election with GT? The then Leader of the Opposition got so flustered that he had to ask his press officer to halt the interview because he couldn’t present a convincing line on equality to the interviewer. With these images in the collective consciousness of gay voters, and without the convenience of the Tories being in government to dispel them, it was still easy to badge them as the nasty party, as Theresa May had once said.

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Keep your hands off my balance sheet, Dave

I’ll be paying back my student debt for some time to come, thanks to the last government’s zeal for vast loans and my complete inability to secure ample part-time work while I was studying. Resigned to not being financially secure until my mid-thirties – and that’s an optimistic outlook – I now realise that the semi-detached, picket fence comfort of my parents’ generation will be much harder to come by.

Short of inviting himself to kitchen tables across the land, armed with an accounts book, a calculator and a pair of scissors to guillotine our flexible friends, the Prime Minister’s response to my domestic financial crisis has thankfully proved short-lived. An early draft of his conference speech announced that “the only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households - all of us - paying off the credit card and store card bills."

All of this confuses the Government’s economic message; aren’t we supposed to be propping up fragile High Streets by spending on clothes, electrical goods, and holidays? Or should we be living as if we’re part of a religious order? What Dave has failed to explain is how we’re supposed to eke out a day-to-day existence in the meantime.

Yes, debts are terrible, nasty things that strangle our otherwise happy existences like a noose around the neck. Most of us enjoy luxuries such as shelter, food and clothes that make us look vaguely flattering, so we put off the inevitable. We limit your outgoings, dealing with one debt at a time. An instruction to pay off everything we owe on national television would have halted already fragile consumer confidence, plunging our retail sector into despair. The message is all the more insulting as when you consider that Britain’s Prime Minister and his consort are reportedly worth around £30million between them. Many of the Cabinet are also millionaires. They don’t have to borrow a penny to survive.

Here’s a better idea. ‘Plan A’ doesn’t work. Youth unemployment is at 20%, consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Cameron would be better off concentrating his efforts at macro-level, securing growth and jobs for those who really need them. That’s what he’s paid to do. Frankly, I’d rather be advised on my finances by the broadcaster and financial advisor, Alvin Hall. He’s got bags more charisma and would make a lot more sense.

To AV, or to AV not?

I'm not sure how many times the Prime Minister has been stopped in a busy shopping street by one of those ever-so-nice market research people to explain his views on the sort of washing powder he prefers, or his preferred brand of mayonnaise. I suspect it hasn't happened very often. But most people will have experienced such an encounter at one time or another, being asked to rank their preferences with a 1,2, 3 and 4 and so on. This 'complicated' task is mathematically very similar to voting for contestants on the X-Factor, or the Eurovision Song Contest.

Choosing a brand of mayonnaise, a preferred washing powder or Simon Cowell's next signing are just three of the sorts of tasks the British public are expected to grapple with on a daily basis. It's also a bit like selecting an MP under a new-fangled voting system – the Alternative Vote (AV). But does David Cameron place such faith in the intelligence of his fellow citizens?

Like the opponents of decimalisation in the late sixties and early seventies, the No to AV campaign, led by Cameron himself, has decreed that AV is complicated and could be costly to explain and run. The evidence would, however, suggest that the electorate are rather more comfortable with changing the way we do elections than the vested interests of the Conservative party – and the more tribalist elements of the Labour party - might like to think. One poll in the last week showed the Yes campaign was 10 points in the lead, although this has not quite been matched by other polls.

Recognising its weaker position, the No campaign has scrambled to rely on an incoherent ragbag of arguments, which can hardly be said to be responding to a general public disenchantment with politics and politicians. It is also trying desperately to ignore the statistical evidence – that every government since 1945 has been elected with less than 50% of the vote. Even with its landslide victory in 1997, Labour only secured 43.2% of the vote. And in some seats at the last election, seven out of every 10 voters wanted other candidates.

The No campaign tells us that hung parliaments are more likely with AV, as if this is in itself an undesirable outcome. Playing on the supposed British preference for strong, single party majority, they've completely forgotten the democratically questionable results thrown up by hung parliaments of the 1920s, 1970s and in 2010 – all under First Past the Post. Each resulted in a single party being unable to effectively govern alone.

Yet the No campaign, as personified by local organiser and 2010 Tory candidate Chris Philp at a talk given to City University students in January, Philp criticised Clegg for 'making deals in dark rooms' – despite the essential presence of the third party in supporting Cameron's government. He then made an extraordinary personal attack on Clegg in his role as 'kingmaker'. But it's clearly news to Philps that the Conservatives can no longer rely on the support of a healthy chunk of the electorate to form a majority government. Those who oppose AV in the Labour camp are similarly misguided. And, where I slightly depart from the Yes campaign's official line, I believe coalitions will remain just as likely, if not more likely in the future as a result of the slow ebbing away of support for the major parties, including the Lib Dems. Negotiating a programme for government with other parties will become a part of the course to Downing Street.

We've easily established there's nothing difficult about AV. The hard work is left to returning officers and people who count the votes – and they're paid to do that. It will mean that election results come in much later in the day. That's a price worth paying for a move to fairer representation. What's more, the Yes campaign knows that there is still a clamour for change, despite general public disenchantment with the Lib Dems. And although introducing AV didn't feature in any of the manifestos in 2010, neither was 'business as usual' acceptable to the electorate in the cold light of day after the MPs expenses' scandal.

As Serge Lourie, AV proponent and a long-serving Richmond councillor also said at City, it's time for 'grown-up politics'. Lourie conceded that no electoral system was perfect, but the 2010 General Election was a rejection of the old politics, and the absurdities of tactical voting and MPs with 'jobs for life'. For me, if the Liberal Democrat side of the Coalition is worth anything, it's worth a push for change.

Do the gay maths...

Oh, how I love it when Melanie Phillips writes something so outrageous that my Twitter feed goes into a complete spin – or laughs it off. The beauty of social networking sites is that they can instantly make humour out of a situation.

Here's a good one:

“Marcus is going out on Friday and Saturday night, but he also has a dinner date on Tuesday, and a lunch to attend on Thursday. How many spray tans will he need? #gaymaths”

Or, more more ironically:

Q: Steven and Martin live in Bristol, and decide to book three nights away for a romantic weekend break at a small town in Cornwall. If they arrive on the Thursday afternoon, what is the likelihood (in percentage terms) that they will be returning home on Thursday evening?

A: According to the hotel's website "there are no petty restrictions, you can come and go as you like”...

Hmmm.

There are, justifiably, plenty of people writing about the wave of homophobia which has hit public life recently. It may be tempting, but I'm not going engage in a round of Melanie Phillips-bashing. She's barmy enough as it is, and probably best left in her own mad, sad little world. I'd love to think that we could “build a paywall around the Daily Mail website to keep the articles in", as David Schneider proposed, but it's never going to happen until Melanie meets her maker, or the Mail goes bankrupt.

Phillips, of course, is no stranger to this sort of controversy and nor is the Mail. But Phillips does join a hateful festival of vitriol which has been playing since Steven Preddy and Martin Hall won their court battle against the Chymorvah Hotel for its refusal to accommodate them in a double room.

Hot on the heels of Roger Helmer's ignorant outburst (and a later article on Conservative Home), we witnessed the brief appearance of a blogpost by Richard Drax MP in which he slurred the “questionable sexual standards” of gay and lesbian people in the context of Phillips' unhinged rant about gay maths.And there's a vocal cabal of Tories who are doing everything they can to undermine Cameron's new fluffy approach to LGBT issues.

In the open comments section of his blog, I asked Richard Drax what it was exactly what it was about my sexual orientation that he found so questionable. Was it the fulfilled and happy social life I enjoy with like-minded friends, some of whom also happen to be gay? Or maybe the loving and committed relationship I share with my boyfriend? A matter of hours later and the blogpost was gone, replaced by a mumbled half-apology and a restating of his not-originally-coherent views on education in schools.

It looks like Drax may have been got at by the Tory high-command, although quite how Roger Helmer got away with it, I don't know. But a new surge of homophobic sentiment seems to be creeping in from the Tory right.

I'm no fan of conspiracies, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere amongst the Tory backbenches is crying out 'please bring back Section 28'. And if they aren't, isn't it being inferred anyway?

One theory is that an increasing number of backbenchers are so incensed by the realities of the coalition that they're keen to make as much trouble for David Cameron as possible. That we know already in fact, judging by the recent rebellion over Europe. And, if you were under any further illusion that the new breed of Tory was somehow more progressively aligned, take Dominic Raab MP's tirade in the London Evening Standard today.

I hope, (and I do believe) that Cameron personally will not stand for anti-gay sentiment, but his inconsistent approach in dealing with ignorance, let alone outright homophobia in his party makes a mockery of the new, fluffy-bunny-Toryism. And Cameron is too damaged by his own past failures to let his party return to its default setting of prejudice.

Alastair Stewart and the new theatre of TV politics



Alastair Stewart, moderator of the first ever UK General Election televised debate



“The TV debates were a tipping point in how we do politics” according to Alastair Stewart, who made history as moderator of Britain's first ever televised election debate between the three main party leaders. And having experienced in the flesh the effervescence of the man himself, I couldn't think of anyone better to do so.

For Gordon Brown, there was much to fear from a new spotlight on his persona. For David Cameron, it was a chance to prove his statesman credentials. Nick Clegg would be the new boy with the clean slate, railing against the 'Labservative' duopoly. They had everything to lose, and everything to gain. For the broadcasters, the debates were a long-awaited “alignment of the planets” as according to Ric Bailey, the BBC's political adviser, previous Prime Ministers had refused their rivals an equal footing.

It would have been easy to write off the debates as presidential. But for Stewart, they were a chance to revert to “old fashioned campaigning...when TV meets people who are trying to get your vote”. And it worked. Viewing figures compared favourably with, say a Friday night episode of Coronation Street, with the first debate watched by 9.6 million – and remaining consistently high for the Sky and BBC broadcasts.

The debates came at an opportune time for parties to get their message across when public trust in politicians was at an all-time low, in the wake of a damaging expenses scandal and an enormous budget deficit. Stewart reflected the overall feedback seen afterwards in the press, and throughout on social networking sites such as Twitter. Brown came across as “ill at-ease, and made no 'killer' points”. Cameron “hadn't a clue what he was doing”, but Clegg “shone from the outset, with a natural, compelling narrative”.

“The penny dropped in enormous numbers” as the public fell for Clegg's seemingly invincible message. Joint favourites of the 2010 General Election had been the Tories and 'change' – and the result fulfilled a general desire for a hung parliament. But as Stewart said, “the real impact didn't change the outcome” - but did confirm the perception of politics as presidential...the brutal ideological battles are now struggles of the past”.

In articulating party policy, those “three to four minutes of interplay were better than reading out verbatim statements on policy” and for Stewart, from that “brash, commercial channel”, prime time viewing figures were encouraging: “We got 10 million people to watch a TV show about politics – and I'm personally very proud of that.”

Stewart's perception of the debates was unsurprising. And, like Stewart, I'm only partially in agreement with Andrew Rawnsley in that the TV debates dominated to such an extent that they 'sucked the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign'. It could be the fault of the parties themselves, for not creating enough 'real' events. Arguably the only other exciting element of campaign in 2010 was Brown's infamous encounter with Gillian Duffy, which benefited Labour ultimately as they snatched the seat from the LibDems. Might the campaign have benefited from more unscripted encounters? Maybe. “Television has to reflect the tussle that's going on” said Stewart, and, what's more, “there were lots of local candidates who were not being covered by national TV. Local TV needs to work better.”

And, having delivered his script, in true TV style this seasoned pro shuffled his papers as if signing off from the evening bulletin. I half expected the lights to go down and a rousing theme tune to play him out...

Cameron's cult of personality: a response to Simon Heffer

Simon Heffer's recent Telegraph article on David Cameron's cult of personality suggests that the recent expansion in the Prime Minister's 'vanity team' masks a massive vacuum of policy. Asking his readers whether they'd prefer he stopped holding politicians to account and offer a defence of Wagner (assuming he means the German composer and not the X Factor's unlikely contestant), Heffer criticises the decision to put 26 people on the public payroll working in roles as diverse as personal film-maker, 'web guru' and a 'behavioural insight team'. All of the above, of course, would not be out of place in the PR department of any large-ish public organisation. 

But Heffer rails against a leader whose 'court photographer' has started to give him a monarchic air – and when the monarch herself is appropriately frugal these days - it's not hard to disagree with his argument. Whereas the case for employing communications professionals in many parts of government has never been stronger – given the need to communicate a great deal of change both internally and externally - when half a million public sector workers are projected to lose their jobs, the right of the Prime Minister to employ hand-picked individuals to make him look good should be questioned.

None of this is at all surprising coming from the pen of Heffer, a man known to be deeply sceptical about the entire Cameron project, and especially since it has been somewhat blurred in league with the Liberal Democrats. And, although I share his scepticism, the subtext of his article is that an alternative Tory government, probably led by a socially conservative leader well to the right of Cameron, is infinitely preferable.

Governments need people to present their policies, and it's right that political parties spend more time and money doing so today than at any time in history. I agree with Heffer's point, but he inevitably misunderstands that brand is crucial in politics. The Prime Minister Cameron brand is six months old, but has not yet developed enough gravitas or substance in order to make a clear break from Cameron the mischievous Leader of the Opposition, to Cameron The Great Statesman. Aside from that, this brand has to jostle for space alongside that of Nick Clegg and the increasing beleaguered Liberal Democrats, although it shouldn't be too difficult to assume dominance given the electorate's rapid falling out with the Deputy Prime Minister. In a year's time we will know a great deal more about what the Prime Minister is capable of. The problem is that there just isn't any substance, because of the lack of clear mandate from a hung parliament, policies are more often or not made up on the hoof. Cameron knows this, and so in Heffer's words 'the deeper motive of survival is more likely'.

If the Coalition is to survive in the Cameron mould, he should look to Margaret Thatcher, the grandmother of Tory strategists, who would tell us that presentation comes second, and policies should be foremost. Even if you disagreed with her politics, she had a formidable presence which didn't so much need to be created, but simply tweaked to suit the television age – for example, she had lessons to lower the pitch of her voice to project more authority. Her government became quite expert in its use of propaganda and talented artistic types to present their policies, paving the way for new Labour in the 1990s.

Footnote: Cameron decided yesterday that his employment of a personal photographer and film-maker had sent a "wrong message" so it seems that general pressure from the public and the media have forced a u-turn,which means two of the so-called 'vanity' team will be placed back on the Tory party payroll.