I’ve been relatively kind to Labour about their Dave the Chameleon ads. Partly because I detect that the wheels are starting to come off the Cameron bandwagon and he doesn’t appear to have a Plan B (or even a Phase II), I think the image is, on balance, damaging to little Dave. It is increasingly becoming apparent that Cameron is a mess as soon as he loses total control of the situation, and given that this is the norm in politics, this will be his undoing. And the more Tories try to subvert it, the more damage they will do to themselves (don’t expect the Chameleon Army to be around in 9 months). None of which is to deny that the ads are anything but a couple of the most breathtaking acts of hypocrisy in political history.
But Labour do need to get their story right. You can’t on the one hand attack someone for being a chameleon, and then claim that “if you vote blue, you’ll get blue.” This quote is from the hard-of-thinking Jim Murphy, but presumably he’s just giving the line he’s been told to push. What constantly undermines this campaign is Labour’s inability to stick with one line of attack or the other. Pick a side, any side. Just don’t, erm, flip-flop.
This has been a public service to the Labour Party.