British politics is now about David Cameron. It is not about the Conservative party or Gordon Brown or the war or Europe or welfare reform. It is about an engaging, inexperienced, 42-year-old former public relations man who has exorcised the curse of unpopularity that lay on his four predecessors as Tory leader. The election to be held next year is his only to lose.
A long conceit of British politics is that personality is undignified. It is American or French or Russian, something below the political salt, democracy's original sin. Proper public life should be above such vanity fare, and deal in parties, manifestos, platforms and policies. When, three years ago, Cameron was elected leader and lauded as a Tory Tony Blair, his party shuddered. Had not Blair smashed his once mighty party, eviscerated its ideology and made it his private army? Would Cameron do likewise? Perish the thought, would he actually go out and court popularity?
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