...But Cameron Will Not win the Elections

David Cameron has been elected as the Head of the conservatives in the UK.

David, who's only 39, will have to face a very big hurdle: winning against labour, one of the most succesfull parties of UK history.

The election was organised through postal ballot: more or less 200.000 Tory members voted. So the first consideration is: only 200.000? It must not be true, is it?
It is and this tells a lot about the 'health' of british politics. (To have a term of comparison, Romano Prodi in Italy has been elected by 6 million voters; participation is still an important element of modern politics).

The second question is: can he win? The answer is simple: NO!
The reason is that David Cameron does not have a genuine political vision for the UK. Moreover, he doesn't have a clue about the concrete policy-implications of his view.

His manifesto is simple: he wants a modern compassionate conservative Britain. Basically, nothing new under the sun. Cameron borrows a familiar American outlook. It is unclear whether british people will be persuaded by this outlook. Especially now that the Compassionate Conservative in the US are facing troubles due to the change of public opinion on the war of Iraq.

As far as policies are concerned, Cameron has taken since long the pragmatic stance. He does not want to detail them now. He will do so in the future. But if he does not have a sound, genuine, vision of where the UK should be and why, then policies will only reflect short term concerns that are not going to carry him very far away.

Euan suggest in the post above that Cameron was the more corageous choice. Maybe. But it is the conservative party as a whole which has a long way to go. And it is unlikely that Cameron will lead the party far enough to convince British people that the moment has come to switch to conservativism.