JohnBM:Liberal

For the last month something hasn’t seemed quite right about politics in the UK. For a while I have struggled to put my finger on what is out of place.

It started with the expenses row and crescendoed during the McBride smear e-mail story.

It was not until I saw the distorted image of  “Uncle Joe” Brown on the Number10 website, that it began to dawn on me what had been niggling in the back of my mind.

Whilst Uncle Joe was telling the amassed peoples of the world how he was going to completely reform politics with his previously undiscussed “pay-as-you-go” expenses scheme (RIP silly scheme), I cruelly chuckled at his forced grimaces. It was at this point that the penny dropped.

What I was witnessing were the last gasps of the New Labour machine trying to circumvent the old media and set the news agenda through the Number10 website.

Labour had lost control of the media and there was no going back.

Since the early 1990s the Labour Party had attempted to morph the news agenda through Mandelson, Campbell et al. Of course this had not always been fully successful but at least there was a feeling that there was someone behind the scenes massaging the shoulders of hacks, editors and producers or sticking the knife in.

On Tuesday evening last week I realised that Gordon’s grimace was a symptom of the death of the New Labour media machine. There was no longer anybody in the government or party able to tell the Dear Leader that what he was doing  was “a very bad idea”.

At no point on Budget Day did Captain Darling and the Government control “the message”. All day the “invest today” and “tax the rich” message was drowned out by the “huge debt” and “tax hikes tomorrow” story.

For about a month now, the Government has failed to seize the news agenda at any point, either in relation to the budget or any other policy announcement.

There is only one point in recent political history can I remember this occurring to the same extent.

1997 and the last days of the Major Government.

We’re in the end game and I can smell the stench of death.

During the 80s and 90s it was common to refer to Tories as Wet if they were from the left of the Conservative Party, or Dry if they were from the Thatcherite right.

It seems these days there is a missing category, the Tory Lite typified by the present Tory leadership and hangers-on.

This is glaringly obvious in economic policy where the Lib Dems and in particular Vince are widely seen as leagues ahead of the boy Osborne and the Tory frontbench. Being vaguely critical does not a policy make.

David Cameron has successfully rebranded the Tories but not in the way he would like to be viewed – Hollow and lacking in substance much like decaff coffee.