Is Dave really a chameleon? Or does he really get it?

Wed 19 Apr 2006, 17:03

As we live in Cameron's constituency we have a collective and rather odd relationship to what our local MP does and think, and (perhaps) a degree of influence in shaping some of his ideas and policies. Perhaps.

So I don't know what to make of the latest Labour Party campaign against our beloved local MP and neonate Leader of the Opposition. There are so many levels to look at the cycling chameleon line from.

People around here may actually know Cameron and have some idea as to his sincerity in adopting such an environmental stance and the other shifts he is attempting with the Tory Party.

I've only heard him speak to the Canadian students the other week here in Charlbury, much too brief and public to get any sense of how truly committed he is to the climate and energy crisis that is coming our way Real Soon Now (as well as his codified backing off from the excesses of the neo-conservative lunacy of the last two and a half decades ... perhaps observing Bush's regime in the USA has had some effect as they steadily take the USA towards a disturbing form of electronically surveilled fascism).

It's notable he is adopting such an overt environmental stance. Even if the Tory Party is riven with deniers like Redwood, this is surely of some significance, one can't have a conservative/rightist political party have one facet of its leadership trying to find a way in one direction, and other significant players to whom this is conceptually impossible, and liable to erupt at any moment in outright opposition and internal strife.

I'm trying to figure out if Cameron has here the makings of a brilliant repositioning of a centre-right political opposition capable of forming a credible counter government AND having some sense of the REAL issues that are at the core of our social survival. Albeit constrained within ideologies of capitalist and market social structures (and no doubt the maintenance of the privileged oligarchy that the Torie's have always represented deep down).

But as for the Labour Party campaign - am I the only one "on the green/left" who finds personally distasteful the tone of the campaign?

On one hand the symbolism is a trivial matter but also profoundly symptomatic of a deeper malaise within the Labour Party ... err sorry, NEW Labour Party ... leadership and apparatchiks concerning environmental issues.

To wit, what's wrong with bicycles? Why choose them as an example of what defines a plonker? What sort of message is that telling us?

And secondly, I am concerned that ridculing someone for taking a stance and trying to shift a political movement like the conservative party towards some acknowledgement of environmental and resource constraints and the actions needed to respond to those constraints, is also a dangerous precedent.

It indicates that at a deep level these people in the New Labour Party don't truly "get it" with regard to the environmental necessities we are going to have to adopt if we are going to survive, either as civilised beings, or just simply ... to survive.

I'd be very interested in organising a meeting with David Campbell to discuss his environmental stance and try and probe deeper into how he and his group of advisers and influencers are going to develop this, and cope with some of the intense contradictions that a market based ideological party will confront. Would this be a "public" meeting, or a meeting between people in the constituency deeply concerned with environmental issues, a sort of weird lobbying exercise?

How could we go about setting this up for David Cameron to meet his interested constituents?

OK, over to you locals who know Mr Cameron!