Cautious and cagey: what we thought of Cameron Direct
You know those recent stories about David Cameron’s airbrushed face? They might be a little exagerrated. Going by yesterday’s Cameron Direct event at the Madejski Stadium, the Conservative leader’s face really does have an unusually smooth texture.
It’s probably designed to match his smooth manner on stage, because, well practiced at this sort of unscripted Q&A, he knew exactly how to behave in front of what was a fairly undemanding audience.
Actually, you could’ve lifted some of his moves straight from the MP’s Guide to Good Public Speaking. After opening with a quip about Reading’s cup success (he must’ve clocked John Madejski in the front row) the responses to most questions ran to a pretty standard formula:
- Strike thoughtful, hand on chin pose while listening to question (see our photos, above).
- Pay tribute to the questioner (”very good question”) while considering a response.
- Look directly back while answering, to create that “forget everyone else here” vibe.
Let’s not be overly critical though. He did turn up. We got about an hour of his time. And we could ask whatever we liked. Politicians don’t do enough of this sort of thing, and we applaud any efforts to open a dialogue with us ordinary voters. (Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, can we pencil you in? Update: actually, Clegg did hold a similar meeting in Reading in 2008.)
There was the odd bit of fawning from the party faithful; our favourite was a question which started “I’m already a Young Conservative…” (not a very well-informed one - they’re called Conservative Future these days) before drifting off into something to do with Carol Vorderman. Yes, really.
The hundred-or-so people present managed to cover a good spread of subjects. Faith schools (Cameron supports them), Afghanistan (”let’s get the whole of Whitehall on a war footing”), house prices (”housebuilding targets are wrong”) and NHS dentists all got a look in during the 20+ questions. Disappointingly, there was no argy-bargy - in fact the crowd was polite to the point of being almost deferential.
Carol Vorderman question aside, we listened to everything intently. Sadly, we don’t feel we learnt much. Barring mention of a possible new National Security Council, there was nothing new and, although keen to talk about his big themes (”bottom up” government versus “top down” was a favourite), there wasn’t much in the way of specifics.
Tellingly, when asked for his “elevator pitch”, Cameron gave a restrained, cautious, slightly negative response.
“I don’t want to promise you the shining city on the hill until I can deliver it.” “It’s going to be difficult.” “I can’t promise you I’m going to end the country’s problems quickly.”
Fair enough, tell it like you see it, but we’d really been hoping for something a bit more inspirational. This certainly wasn’t the UK equivalent of the Obama-effect. Yes we can? More like no, we probably can’t, unless we get a good following wind and a lot of luck, and even then it’s going to be dicey.
Where was the hope, the optimism and the it’s-not-great-right-now-but-we’ll-fix-it tenacity?
We’re glad we went. And we’re impressed by Cameron’s efforts to resurrect the old-fashioned public debate. More, please, from all political parties. But ultimately, we don’t feel much nearer to understanding what we’ll get if the country votes Conservative in the election.
Did you skive off work to see David Cameron at the Madejski? Leave a comment to let us know if you read it the same way as us.
January 15th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Actually, Nick Clegg has been doing it for some time now, albeit on a less glamorous scale. http://meet.nickclegg.com/
January 15th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I guess Cameron knows that he is going to win the next election simply through ’sick of the current lot’ factor, so he doesn’t have to promise anything at all.
To me, 1997 felt like an amazing moment of new hope, although Labour haven’t been a complete success of course. 2010 feels like the start of a number of years under a government I have nothing in common with and disagree with about almost everything. Bad times ahead…
January 15th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
@Simond:
Good point- apparently he visited Reading in 2008:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2037401_chance_to_meet_lib_dem_boss
Good on him. Not sure how I missed that.
January 15th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Yeah, there’s a report of the meeting here by the looks of it:
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/articles/1/5981/
January 15th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Hah, that was a frequent pose wasn’t it!
Pretty much agree with your thoughts about the session. Although I do think the “elevator pitch” question is a no-win for any politician, particularly in tough times. Realism is depressing, yet we claim to want political honesty? And regardless of what caveats are made, any hint of a plan will be treated as a firm commitment by the media. Tricky!
Glad I made the effort to go, despite feeling ill yesterday. Definitely the kind of thing we want to see more of from politicians!
Oh - according to one article there were Labour activists handing out leaflets outside who claimed they weren’t allowed in. Did anyone else see them? I certainly didn’t…
January 15th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your thoughts. I see your point about the “elevator pitch”, but to me it felt like that was his best chance to sum up what he’d do differently. If I’m honest, I came away thinking that if the next few years are going to be tough whatever, then what’s the point in voting at all?
As for the Labour activists, well, I was given a leaflet by a chap I later realised was Naz Sarkar, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Reading West. It had a list of questions to ask Cameron on it. I’ll dig it out later.
As protests go, it’s fair to say it wasn’t exactly high profile…
Cheers,
John.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
A fair perspective on the evening.
I tend to think we did learn something in the way he was evasive and utterly insubstantial on various matters. For that is the way he wants to work - we have to research the Tories ourselves if we want to be better informed about their intentions.
I apologise if I was too differential. I wasn’t there to either praise him or talk my way onto the local news in some way by some kind of frontal assault. But his answer spoke volumes, confirming Obama’s “lightweight” assessment of him.
January 16th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Good review and I agree with you about his negative tone as I blogged about myself here: http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2010/01/cameron-direct-event-in-reading-review.html
Whatever happened to “Let sunshine win the day?”!
I asked the first question(s) about his changed stance on drugs policy and he did not really answer it. I wanted to know why he had changed his mind and instead he talked about the “message” that drugs policy should send out. I expected he would have his pre-prepared response for this but it is disappointing when politicians do not properly answer questions and I felt this was the case with quite a lot of his responses.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:02 am
A very interesting review. Perhaps the floor was full of bloggers. I thought I better add mine here.
http://bracknellblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/david-cameron-direct-in-reading.html
Thanks fot the Links to Nick Clegg’s visit. Interesting reading the thought that we are going into recession back then