As a schoolboy Guido used to tell girls it didn’t matter that the boy rival for her affection had a car and was older, I was smarter and funnier. They still drove off without me. Basher is in a similar position to the young Guido. He isn’t fresher, more personable, more charismatic or good at public speaking in comparison to Cameron. But he is, like most people, less posh – “I was born into Britain’s largest class”. So he is going to try to make a virtue of his back-story. The party may still go off without him. He says –
One of the things that continue to hurt Tories is the false perception that we are a party for the rich. The party needs the credibility to reach out to the cities and the suburbs where the Tory vote has shrunk in recent years and convince people that our solutions will help them. Unless the party offers hope to the hard-working urban majority, it won’t deserve to win power.
Davis has made good in an admirable way, he has shown determination and overcome his background to become successful. Cameron by comparison had every advantage in life and an easier trajectory. Davis will make this an issue, because its one of his stongest cards, but it reflects an overall weakness in him “look where I have come from” is not as good as “look where I will take you”. Cameron is stronger on the latter. We haven’t seen internecine Tory class war since the early Thatcher days. This could be fun to watch.
