To paraphrase old Rudyard, we should treat our triumphs with the same contempt that we reserve for our disasters, but it is nonetheless glorious to see Cameron slipping in the opinion polls behind Ming Campbell (credit: Paul Walter. More here). What’s more, this can’t be called a conference bounce since most of the polling was done before conference started.
Ming makes the perfectly valid point that if you compare Ashdown and Kennedy’s standings at the same point during their leaderships, they had pretty much the same ratings that he has now, and Newsnight’s decision on Tuesday to misrepresent Ming by comparing his current ratings to Kennedy’s in 2004 was an utter disgrace. It’s clear that we still have a long way to go, but Cameron and the Tories seem to be stuck in self-destruct mode.
The most striking thing about this poll is how relatively unpopular Cameron is amongst his party faithful compared to Campbell. Having a net rating of only +25 among your own supporters is cause for alarm.
My challenge to all you Tories out there reading this is, given how much you’ve crowed in the past about Campbell failing to make an impact, what possible justification do you have now to support your own leader? Isn’t it time you called for him to resign? I await your comments with enthusiasm!
UPDATE: I’m still waiting for a single Tory to explain why Cameron should continue given his unpopularity.
I had exactly this conversation with someone this evening in the Grand bar! It seems the Tories are FAR more dissatisfied with their leader and FAR more split as a party than we are right now.
Maybe the voters are finally beginning to see Cameron as he really is – a political cheap Jack.
I’m still waiting for a single Tory to explain why Cameron should continue given his unpopularity.
In the absence of any such explanations, perhaps I might proffer my own take on these figures. It is that whereas Sir Ming is a bit of a problem (in my view); in the case of Cameron, it is all the rest of his party which is the problem.
As a non-Tory perhaps they don’t want to give Brown his first Tory leader’s scalp…
Blair took enough of them, a scalp now would be too big a boost for Brown surely?