Jock Bytes: David Cameron I

Off to work

Dear David

Years ago, at a Party Conference, you rescued the Conservative party from its nervous breakdown. That speech made you leader of the party.

Last year at the Party Conference you were leader of a coalition government, the first in seventy years. The country had voted for coalition. We accepted you.

Your speech next week will be the most important of your life, and perhaps of our lives. People do not want to hear the leader of a political party. They do not want to listen to a political leader of coalition government.

Shadow Fear Not me

There is a great stage play doing the rounds. Take a break; go and see it:

Three Days in May.

In 2011, seventy one years later, our country faces a great and similar existential threat. It is not now, as it was not then, merely an issue of money, machinery or resources. It is, and was, fear, despondency, lack of self-belief, that were the dangers.

Next week we want hear a leader. Just remember the title of the great office you hold:

The Queen’s Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.

You, me, Him, Her, everyone, knows the difference between an effective leader and an ineffective one. All have had our own personal experience - good schools, bad schools, good jobs, bad jobs. What separates the good from the bad is not money, or buildings, or other stuff; it is leadership.

In that first day at a new school or at new job, we all instinctively know the answers to the key questions:

Do I trust the boss – headmaster, director, doctor, prime minister, president - ?

And

Are the rules few, fair and firm?

And most important:

Does the boss trust me?

David, you understand leadership. You have seen the result of intrusive, meddling, niggling, angry, frightened leadership in our country. You have the intellect, the charisma and the emotional courage to lead, to do the right thing and to do it right. You have great gifts and you are lucky, because this country is lucky. (You will remember Napoleon’s reason for selecting a general.)

Britain has been lucky for hundreds of years. Today, yet again, we have new ideas, new knowledge, new technologies, new industries in waiting, new gas, new oil, new talented industrious people, some come here from all over the world, and also the many, clever, caring, people who have lived on this island for generations. Great Britain is lucky. We are ready to make and to take the opportunities of a new world order. This new world order will soon produce unprecedented real wealth and wellbeing for everyone on the planet.

Twentieth century bumper sticker politics, simplistic, insulting even - Left against Right, Labour against Tory, Republican against Democrat, is dead. That parrot is deceased, finito, no more. The world’s tectonic plates have shifted. We now face the economic, political and social tsunamis that arise from that shift.

However, we can survive and will prosper. We always have.

The forum next week may be just a party political conference. However your actions, not your words, will be the tipping point.

I shall write again with proposals for:

Action this day – to lead by direct and immediate example –

Economic action – to cut the Gordian knot and get Britain working and trusting itself –

Paws4Now

Jock