Now that politics has returned to Britain, and the Opposition has a reasonable chance of seriously contesting the next election, it is no longer ‘a plentiful waste of time of day’, to borrow a phrase from Frank Sinatra, to take a hard look at David Cameron, the man who would be Prime Minister. But first, let me declare an interest – or several.

I have been a great admirer of Gordon Brown, as any reading of an earlier piece by me in this journal will reveal (Ethos, issue one, page 20). And I still believe that there is a possibility that his intellect will carry him through and over what the British like to call "a rough patch". It is hard to imagine that he will cling to the failed policies that have caused him so much pain.

I also felt that the Tories made a sensible decision when they chose David Cameron as their leader. When he strode onto the stage at the party conference, at which he made his bid for the leadership, I took to the pages of The Sun to say that Cameron just might herald ‘morning in Britain’, a take-off on the ‘morning in America’ speech that Ronald Reagan had used to restore a bit of cheer to an America thrown into a deep funk by Jimmy Carter’s colossal ineptitude.

Then things changed. David Cameron, the young, exuberant and optimistic politician regressed to David Cameron, the public relations practitioner. Style not only triumphed over substance; it obliterated any signs of substantive policy. The public was confronted with a young man of privileged upbringing, with a photogenic and sympathetic family, who decided to stake out a position as "the heir to Blair", by which he seemed to mean smile, wear open-neck shirts, exude geniality, change the party logo and above all dispel the notion that he and his party are "mean". Better, it seemed, to be the stupid party, as John Stuart Mill had dubbed the Tories, than the mean one. Not for Cameron any worry that his party might once again fit Benjamin Disraeli’s description as "a barren thing, this Conservatism ... the mule of politics that engenders nothing". Or so it seemed.

Flawed positioning
"The heir to Blair" position was flawed in two ways. First, it demeaned the then Prime Minister. Blair was more than his optimistic, outgoing personality. More than a parliamentary performer who knew how to find the kind or funny word that "turneth away wrath". By the time Cameron assumed the leadership of the Opposition Blair was onto a big idea: reform public services by increasing consumer choice and subjecting state-run services to competition. To assume that one could be Blair’s heir merely by displaying a similarly winning personality was to misread the state of play in British politics.

Second, Cameron took over just as the nation was thirsting for new, thoughtful policy initiatives that would: reverse the decline in its schools and its health system, relieve the burden of taxes stealthily introduced by then-Chancellor Gordon Brown, get a grip on immigration and crime, and restore a bit of civility to everyday life. Were Blair not burdened with the unpopular war in Iraq and the inability to overcome Treasury resistance to his reforms, he would have been the man for that job. But the war and Brown’s opposition meant that the position of radical reformer was vacant. The new applicant for the job of reformer-in-chief would have to display more than charisma.

Cameron didn’t. He decided to outsource policy to a variety of panels composed of some sound policy-makers and some other thinkers less connected to policies that make sense on Planet Earth. All to be integrated some day in one massive policy document by none other than Oliver Letwin, a charming intellectual/investment banker whose political nous was demonstrated during one campaign when the Tory leadership had to force him into hiding, away from the media, lest his public musings be added to their already substantial electoral woes.