Osborne: slightly less socially aware than Cameron?

As a follow up to my last 'Cameron - the mask slips' post, here's a great quote from Osborne and accompanying comment from Johann Hari

'He said recently that his school, St. Paul’s (annual fees: £30,000 a year) was “incredibly liberal. It didn't matter who your parents were. Your mother could be the head of a giant corporation - or a solicitor in Kew.” That’s his internal vision of the social spectrum in Britain, with those pauper solicitors in Kew begging at the bottom.'

Quite.

They don't get it, do they? Or at least, George doesn't...

I've warned in the past about how good David Cameron is with words. I'm big enough to admit that I may have been wrong about that....

Whoops!

I've blogged in the past about how David Cameron uses language very well, in order to mask his 'not-from-our-world' ness by using both the words and the phrases of everyday folk.

He was at it again today. Using a familiar phrase, one that his spokesman has defended by saying 'I think you will find it is a popular advert'. Cameron wasn't just trying to put down his opponent, he was also subliminally trying to send out a message to the public, 'look, I understand the language of everyday culture, I watch the TV, I even know the adverts.'

But this time (ha! ha!) he got it wrong. Patronising. Sexist. Supercilious. He sounded, to coin that phrase, less like a man who owned the place, more like a man who didn't care who owned the place. And we probably saw his true colours.

Liberal Conspiracy had a good insight into the world of David Cameron the other day (You'll have to swallow a lot of anti Nick Clegg bile, but hold your nose and have a gander anyway).

And Johann Hari (in a much longer piece about Ed Miliband) highlighted a few other examples...

'It only happens for a second – but once every few months, Cameron's spin-mask slips, and his real assumptions about Britain and its class system seep out. You could see it when he said his multimillionaire aristocratic wife is "highly unconventional" because "she went to a day school". You could see it when he called himself part of "the sharp-elbowed middle class", as if being worth £30m and getting your first job by getting the Queen's equerry to call up and demand to know why they didn't let you past the interview stage is "the middle" of British society. And it was there in a recent factory visit, when he defended the trebling of university fees to the workers he met by asking: "Do you think it's right that your taxes are going to educate my children and your boss's children?"

Think about the assumptions behind that. So nobody in that factory would have kids who go to university – but irrespective of their abilities, Cameron's kids definitely will, and so will their bosses '.

So while Cameron definitely knows what he's doing with language; and while he's very deliberately doing it to play like the man in the street (here's a few other choice examples) - you can take the boy out of Eton - but you can't take the Etonian out of the Prime Minister...

PS. Take another look at Nick Clegg's reaction to Camerons words. Straight lipped, no laughing. Good response. He could see Cameron played it wrong. He got it right.

Good is the enemy of great...

The latest Lib Dem Voice survey poses a series of adjectives and ask us which we are happy to describe ourselves as.

To be honest I was blithely ticking loads of them when suddenly I got pulled up short by one in particular.

Pragmatic.

Now I've blogged on this before. In adland we say that good is the enemy of great. That you shouldn't just settle, you should always fight for the very best.

In politics we say something rather different.

Yes, we'd rather have PR - but we'll settle for AV if that's the best on offer

Yes, we want to abolish tuition fees - but we'll settle for a fairer way of paying for tertiary education

Yes, we'd like to abandon nuclear power - but we'll settle for a mix of options that reduces our overall carbon footprint.

Now, as a result of this pragmatism, we hope that the world is a better place after we have acted than before - even if it isn't quite as good a place as we'd like it to be.

But then something else happens.

Because we settle - we get criticised.

Why are you supporting a 'miserable little compromise'?
Why did you sign a pledge against fees?
Why did you say no to nuclear - and then allow new stations to be built.

This is the conundrum all politicians face.

Be radical, pure and principled - but get little done. Indeed, when I've advocated a principled approach I've been hammered on LDV as for being impractical.

Be pragmatic, cautious and (small c) conservative, and get hammered for being a hypocrite.

Yet it's a choice all of us in politics have to make. And I find it very tough.

Which is why I still don't know if I did the right thing around that box on the survey marked 'pragmatic'.

PS Of course, it would help if all politicians didn't try and make everything into a black and white issue all the time. 'An ethical foreign policy' is an example that readily springs to mind...

Thank you Mark Pack...

..for adding me to your blog roll. Genuinely chuffed.

Scorchio.

I found these 5 great blog posts all my phone, all on my train trip home yesterday. The Lib Dem blogosphere's hot right now!

Enjoy them.

1. 'An Unexpected Inheritance' from Mark Valladares at The View from Creeting St. Peter.

While I really want the House of Lords abolished and a fully elected Upper House - I can't deny I'll miss stuff like this...

By the way - Mark - sorry, I had no idea about your blog when I named this one. Honest! ! Hope you don't feel I've been camping out on your territory.

2. 'Election for new Parliamentarian starts this week – by AV', from Mark Pack at Mark Pack's blog

Mark Pack highlights a curious election going on in..The House of lords. Who would have thought it...

3. 'Gag removed. Job Done' by John Hemming

John Hemming rights a wrong, with no help from the Speaker. Great work by him, but is this really the way democracy works? Blimey.

4. 'Will Nick Clegg now get a proper Office of the Deputy Prime Minister?' from Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.

Afraid you'll have to scroll down to find it, but worth the effort.

5. 'What is Nick Clegg trying to say about Cameron?' from Paul Cotterill on Liberal Conspiracy.

Well yes, of course its very irritating, but if you skirt over the Nick Clegg bile , what it says about Cameron is very thought provoking.

Isn't this the best opening to an article you've read all week?

'By a quirk of the calendar, the next eight days will bring two defining national events. One will give the people of Britain a chance to express themselves on the system under which the country has been run for longer than anyone can remember. And the other is the AV referendum'

Read the whole thing here. Hats off to Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian

The Mid Week Collection

The 5 best things I've run across this week...

1. From John Lewis to workers' co-ops: these Tories love wrongfooting the left.

John Harris in The Guardian. Great piece. Very thought provoking. And full of ideas we should be nicking, pronto.

2. Death of Tul Bahadur Pun
Alex Folkes on 'A Lanson Boy'. Too easy to forget the people behind the campaigns. Alex keeps it real.

3. The Lib Dems no longer have interns…they have volunteers
The Virtually Naked blog once again makes a winning point. Charlotte and the crew are on fire at the moment. They are required reading...

4. A general election this year? It's no longer impossible.

Jackie Ashley. It will make you spit. But it will make you think...

5. Larry the No 10 cat catches first mouse ... finally
The Guardians poltical correspondent with the best story of the week. Well, frankly it's more interesting than most of the AV stuff around...

And as a bonus:that Baroness Warsi car crash interview again. Sorry. I can't just see it enough times.