David Cameron's new friend Frederick Forsyth
The Cameron tent just got bigger, with the appointment by David Cameron of the author Frederick Forsyth to chair a Tory commission on the military covenant. They must be very pleased with his arrival in the fold - it has been a long journey - charted here through Mr Forsyth's letters to the Express and Telegraph:
May 2005 At the moment we are all being told, right across the spectrum, that Tory leadership hopeful David Cameron is "impressive". As a harmless seeker after enlightenment, could someone help me here? Apart from going to Eton (money) and Oxford (privilege) and being allocated a rocksolid constituency (patronage) without the chore of actually having to fight a hard one; and apart from writing speeches for four consecutive losers; what has Master Cameron actually done?
March 2006 I am coming to the view young David Cameron is after all not as bright as the media sycophants have been telling us.
April 2006 The killer instinct is not missing in all the Tories, just the public school chickadees of the Notting Hill set and, it would appear, the veggie-gardening leader.
August 2006 I know Master Dave has a degree in PPE, but could someone give him an arithmetic primer, a pad and a stub of pencil?
August 2006 I see the sensitive little Pollyannas at Tory Headshed have been berating Norman Tebbit. The old Chingford Strangler simply wrote an article to point out that if Call-Me-Dave went on treating the party voting bedrock with thinly-veiled disdain, they might decide to walk away at the next election. This is about as controversial as saying the sun has a tendency to rise in the east.
March 2007 Woollycardigan Dave proposes measures to cripple our airlines and flay alive harmless folk who like to fly abroad to the sun for their family hols. Even as he spoke, reports were coming in of efforts to deprive of their jobs anyone who attempted to query the new religion of "save the planet through self-crucifixion".
May 2007 I'm afraid that I blame Eton. Now, it is a brilliant place if you want to be an overeducated twit (Oliver Letwin and Boris Johnson, attenSHUN). But do they teach maths? I ask because young David seems to have a pretty sketchy grasp of basic arithmetic.
June 2007 Cameron is not in power and may never be if he cannot get a grip on what the people of this country actually want rather than what the Notting Hill set around him advise.
July 2007 I believe in fair play, which is why I will not join in the baiting of David Cameron. The past six weeks have shown several bad errors of judgment, many due to his advisers, but it is overlooked that David has worked like a Trojan for more than a year and a half doing what had to be done: rolling back the vicious propaganda of the past ten Labour years.
August 2007 I genuinely think Cameron has done a good job and one that absolutely had to be done, presenting the face of the average Conservative as a decent man (or woman) concerned for country, neighbour, county, parish, charity and the human race. Opposed to poverty, injustice, cruelty and war.
Yep. We're off on the Road to Damascus.
I've some reservations about Forsyth's involvement with the Military Covenant, there are others who may have fitted the post better, still let's see how he shapes up.
Posted by: Chuck Unsworth | 4 Mar 2008 19:24:09