All week the Tory Party must have been praying for the cavalry ,in whatever form, to come riding over the hill to rescue them from a string of well intentioned but media un-savvy activities. They can never have imagined though that it would be George Galloway, friend of a number of unfriendly dictators past (Saddam) and present (Assad and that man in Iran) who would do the job for them by spectacularly winning the Bradford by-election, thereby taking up a good proportion of the media space which might otherwise have been filled with shock horror stuff about Granny taxes, tax cuts for the rich (reduction of Gordon Brown's 50% top tax rate), pasties hot and cold, kitchen suppers at Number 10 (no pasties there one can be sure,-but some Patsys are very likely) and filling cars and cans with petrol. Indeed the liveried footman is probably at this moment en route to Galloway's house with a case or two of the very best.
In all cases the Tories were guilty of falling into well prepared Labour tank traps which they should have seen a mile off. The Granny tax was easily justifiable but terribly presented, not at all explained and came across as a mugging. The pasties tax was fair on the owners of fish and chip shops and the like who already have to pay VAT on the same product but was easily portrayable as a direct assault on the poorest in society who are forced to live on the cheapest food fairly unattractive outlets can provide.It was a hot(with VAT)or cold(without VAT) potato not worth the candle/aggro. Like the products themselves it would been better just left alone. Greasing up to donors is a common activity by all parties so those suppers shouldn't have hit the headlines and wouldn't if the idea of the venue being kitchens didn't have rich toff overtones. Presumably these events, which are probably hated by the hosts as much as they are loved by the guests, will now move to the Bridge Cafe ,the gloomy haunt of The Apprentice's losing teams. Pasties will definately be on the menu but may have to be eaten cold outside.
The biggest and most unnecessary PR debacle though has been the call to defy Unite's tanker drivers' strike by filling up with petrol now. The idea of filling up while petrol stations could still be restocked was eminently sensible and has largely worked. If intended this way it was very clever and spiked McClusky's Easter strike guns. It has also ensured that to be effective any strike would have to be longer which makes it less attractive to the strikers themselves as they , not McClusky & Co. pay for it via lost wages. The closure of many fuel outlets since the last strike has meant a sharp reduction in the amount of fuel stored in the retailers' tanks, so it made good sense to use vehicle's petrol tanks for storage instead. Putting aside any strangely unsung government cleverness here, any sensible motorist would have filled and then kept his or her tank topped up anyway.
What was not needed and what no party leader responsible for the major strategic decisions and vision for the country should ever get into was the sight of a Prime Minister, or indeed any Minister, belittling the intelligence of his or her subjects by telling them how much and when they should be putting into their tanks and any other handy utensils. The idea of a dim witted nation sitting with its mouths open waiting for a micromanaging "Gummnt" to tell them what to do is appalling .Even if sadly true in some cases the temptation to tell them must be avoided. Weren't the Tories going to take the Nanny out of the State?
Apart from enabling Tweedle Ed and Dum Ed to trot out the "out of touch" tank trap again and find some resonance it looked just, well, out of touch.
Labour know that the past image of the Tories as the nasty party and the present one of it being the preserve of a narrowly based, detatched from reality public school(Eton in particular), Oxbridge wealthy elite is its PR Achilles' heel and could eventually be electorally fatal. To prevent this the Conservative Party must give good air time and prominence to those of its brightest younger MPs who are much more broadly based.
Naturally Labour will keep chipping away and playing the toff theme over and over again above the line and subliminally until enough people to win an election can't get it out of their heads. It's easy to do and they are very good at it. The much less media and people-savvy Tories should have clever enough streetwise communications advisors who keep the tank commanders away from the traps and the infantry away from allied banana skins. In the last fortnight, despite having the party having done some sensible and realistic things ,they have failed utterly to understand let alone do what they needed to do to succesfully communicate with the electorate. As result the "We're all in this together" theme has been seriousy compromised .
Until the Bradford result,the Eds had had a good fortnight. Then came Galloway. There should be much raising of Tory glasses to his name this weekend. He will have made Chequers, North Oxfordshire and Number 10 much happier,-and certainly relieved,-places. Now the Easter hols are upon us there should be time for everyone to forget about the past fortnight's nightmares before school reconvenes for the summer term.
Happy motoring everyone and enjoy a nice pasty for supper at the motorway service station. Don't pay to go into any kitchens though.
