Dan Quayle and the spelling of the name of an edible root; Al Gore and the invention of the Internet; Bill Clinton and “I never had sex with that woman”; Howard Dean and The Scream; John Kerry and the “Global Test”. Now: David Cameron and the Chocolate Orange Menace (gleaned from Best of the Web (last item)):
Outlining a new Tory approach to health, Mr Cameron asked why WHSmith sold chocolate oranges instead of realones. . . .
“Why? As Britain faces an obesity crisis, why does WHSmith promote half-price chocolate oranges at its check-outs instead of real oranges?
“So many consumer businesses could do more to promote healthy diets and lifestyles. It simply requires corporate responsibility to be matched by marketing creativity.”
Not only is this risible nanny state thinking, but it suggests that, for all his straining to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Englishmen, Mr. Cameron doesn’t often set foot in any outlet so plebeian as WHSmith. They aren’t the sort of places where one can “creatively” install a produce department.
When the Conservatives chose Mr. Cameron as their leader, a lot of British right-wingers were delighted. Iain Murray called him “a breath of fresh air in Tory politics, having a charisma and communication style well-suited to the early 21st century”. Once in office, he turned out also to have a natural list to port, leading Mr. Murray more recently to lament that he had not “expected that at the same time as improving the party’s PR Cameron would also junk about half of conservative thought”.
The Cameron we have seen as leader is not, it appears, the Cameron we were advertised during the leadership election. I wonder how many of the senior, genuinely conservative figures that backed him in the contest following the unfortunate defeat of Liam Fox’s bid feel the same way. If Cameron is as conservative as many of us were assured he was, he needs to make that apparent soon.
The riposte by Cameron defenders is that his tactics are the path to victory: “So Tory activists – calm down dears, its only modern politics. Don't you want to win?”
Until the chocolate oranges came up, my only answer to that question was that I define winning as putting good policies into place, not as getting jobs for the boys. Now I can add, What makes you think this scolding buffoon is going to win anything except, perhaps, a kiss on the cheek from Ralph Nader?
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