Why isn't Cameron 20 points ahead in the polls?

No, I’m stumped. Apart from the release of compromising photos of Gordon Brown in bed with a chihuahua, I just don’t see how things could have gone much worse for this chump during the past two and a half grisly years. 

We’ve just seen our economy destroyed: this idiot was Chancellor for a decade while this disaster formented – during which time he frittered away the Tories’ excellent economic legacy, sold off our gold reserves at a knock-down price,  and destroyed the world’s best private pension system. As a result of his lack of prudence, he has  has now landed us all with an unsustainable level of debt, and is evidently unwilling to do anything to bring it down. 

Brown was PM when the MPs’ expenses mess exploded - the worst political scandal in living memory - and he fudged and fuddled and blundered his way through it, and, in the process, covered himself in… well, it certainly wasn’t glory. He has pissed billions and billions of pounds of our hard-earned money away on Education, the NHS and the Police without any perceivable return on investment – in fact, we all know these services have actually disimproved – and he has turned the public sector into the equivalent of one of those lard mountains who have to be craned out of their bed to be cremated or taken to hospital (do we care which?). Former Labour cabinet ministers have been revealed to be sleazing around in the private sector, charging up to £5000 a day to influence government decisions (as if) – but Gordy doesn’t see the need for an inquiry.

And, from all accounts, he is a ghastly, inadequate, charmless, humourless, violent, bullying, hysterical, tantrum-throwing, semi-autistic wreck  of a human being. 

So why in the name of God aren’t the Tories out of sight in the polls?

Yes, okay, we right-wingers inevitably claim they would be, if only they espoused  sufficiently hard-line policies: an immigration ban, massive public sector cuts, no Scots MPs to vote on English matters, nurses made to do some actual nursing for a change, police made to catch some criminals, criminal justice system tilted in favour of vicitms, householders allowed to roast and eat criminals breaking into their homes, exams to be de-dumbed, university entrance on pure merit, useless teachers sacked, more prisons built, money supply ruthlessly controlled, troops given a clear mandate and the right equipment or withdraw them from Afghanistan right away, multi-cultural policies outlawed, taxes slashed, a referendum on the Lisbon treaty … that sort of stuff. 

But, while this approach would cheer people like me up immensely, it’s simply too late to start scaring the horses now – deep down, thanks mainly to the UK’s left-leaning broadcasters, and in part due to the party’s own lack of clarity, voters  still don’t haven’t really bought into the modern, cuddly, compassionate Tories. If they suddenly went all medieval now, after several years of Butskellite wetness, who’d believe them? Best stick with the “we’re nicer than you think” approach (goodness, how I hope they aren’t!)

It isn’t a lack of enthusiasm from core voters that’s the problem: the Tories could garner every BNP and UKIP vote and it wouldn’t really make that much difference. It’s the amorphous mass in the middle – the politically uncommitted –  that needs convincing.

That’s what stumps me: Cameron has “detoxified the brand” (or whatever the current bullshit marketing phrase is); he’s very personable, if not lovable; he has a decidedly fruity wife;  he’s not saying anything in the least frightening; and he has two very popular old-stagers on board, in the form of “Fatty” Clarke and “Baldy” Hague.

But the polls show that several million middle-ground voters are still looking at Gordon Brown and wondering whether he might be worth sticking with. 

Why? What’s the deal here? What’s going on in their heads? “Yes, we know he’s an unpleasant, psychologically-crippled, incompetent serial bungler who, were he to run a whelk stall, would undoubtedly spend all the money on hiring 20 staff to run it, borrow half a million to keep it afloat, and then, when it had gone into receivership, tell everyone that its failure had nothing to do with him. But still, you know, there’s just something about the man that makes it so hard not to vote for him and his terrific candidates.” 

It can’t be the company he keeps. Mandelson?  Milliband? Harriet Harman? And surely it can’t be all those silly, pernicious Labourites in the entertainment industry - or else, this nation is truly doomed.

Some pundits point to the unexpected Tory victory in 1992, when John Major, two years after talking over from Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, narrowly beat Neil Kinnock to retain power – Gordon Brown, apparently, lives in hope of “doing a Major”. After all, Major took over the leadership of his party from a consummate politician who had taken the nation to war, had had her economic ups and downs, had fallen out with her “brilliant” chancellor, and had eventually lost the support of an ungrateful party after three election victories. Sound familiar?

But many factors are markedly different this time around.

First, the personality of Major’s rival, Neil Kinnock, got right up the nose of English voters: his hoarse, self-righteous voice just set one’s teeth on edge, and that Coco the Clown hair-do and the smug face under it just invited a slapping.  Voters may not be fond of Cameron, but there’s scant evidence that they positively dislike him.

Second, while the Tories were struggling with a wobbly economy in the run-up to the 1992 election, their truly seismic economic debacle - Black Wednesday - came five months after the election. Voters had to wait another four and half years to eventually punish the Tories, but they can punish Brown right now, while we’re all still suffering the effects of his monumental incompetence.  Why are they not gagging to do so?

Third, although he had been both Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Chancellor, blame for Britain’s wobbly economy somehow bypassed Major. Apart from a few Labour diehards buying into Brown’s fantasy that he’s merely cleaning up a mess created abroad, most of us know that his stewardship of the economy – especially his Old Labour penchant for robbing the private sector to fund ludicrously unjustifiable increases in state spending - has been an unmitigated disaster. Do middle-grounders not get this?

Four, John Major seemed to be quite a nice chap: Gordon Brown evidently isn’t. Brown’s the kind of unpleasant man the British normally can’t bear.  

Five, Major might not have given Margaret Thatcher any support during her leadership crisis, but, unlike Brown, he didn’t actually wield the knife. The British traditionally despise Brown’s brand of self-serving disloyalty - why not this time?

Six, Major fought a leadership contest after Thatcher’s resignation – and won it fair and square. Unlike Brown, who has proved himself to be a vacillating coward when it comes to facing votes of any description. When did people start admiring timidity?

Seven, Major wasn’t perceived as being responsible for the deaths of British soldiers by underfunding unpopular wars. The idea that any Briton would vote for a creature who, as Chancellor,  put the lives of troops in danger by penny-pinching on the Defence budget so he could fund his client state is bizarre. Isn’t it?

So, I repeat – why isn’t this awful man dead in the water as far as voters are concerned?

The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that during the past thirteen years, the British people somehow forgot how to be British. 

Now, that really would be a shame.