David Cameron impresses me again

Dropping my children off at school one morning in 2005, I got back into the car to drive to work, and switched on the radio to the middle of an interview with a politician. His voice suggested that he was a Tory, but what he was saying stopped me in my tracks – literally. I turned the engine off, and sat outside the school gates until he had finished speaking.

 I had begun to despair of ever again being able to vote for a party that stood for the things that mattered to me: a party that believed in social justice as well as the right of parents to choose independent education for their children if they wanted; a party that supported those who have been dealt a rotten hand in life, but wanted to reduce interference by the state; a party that believed in individual freedom, as well as individual responsibility. Most of all, a party that didn’t believe it knew better than I how to run my life, but did believe in offering real help to those who were unable – for whatever reason – to help themselves.

And suddenly, there was a politician really speaking my language: I had never heard of David Cameron before that morning, I admit, but I found myself looking and listening for references to him from then on. So, when he stood for the leadership of the Party, I was one of those who hoped that he would win.

He didn’t just bring me back to the fold; it was his outlook and desire to move the Party back to the centre that first made me consider standing as a candidate.

His speech to Conference today did it again. There was no high-flown language, no recourse to periods of rhetoric, designed to have us cheering from the rafters; there was just a steely resolve, an underlying passion to put things right for the people of this country. In a masterly response to those who say that he hasn’t thought things through, he presented us, and the country, with a clear idea of what he would set out to improve, and how he would do so.

Some critics have said that his ability to speak without an autocue was merely a stunt: well, it was to be expected, as David’s deftness and mastery of his brief contrasted sharply with the laboured performance of the PM last week, relying heavily as it did on rehearsed periods and scripted reminiscenses. A clunking performance indeed.

Of course, what had me cheering loudest was the amount of time he devoted to our hard-pressed servicemen and women – unlike the contempt Mr Brown showed them last week, with his cursory pat on the head –  like Mr Grace in ‘Are You Being Served’ – “You’ve all done very well.” The Army Families’ Federation may have been saying for a number of years that the Military Covenant is being broken daily, but it gladdens our hearts when the cause is taken up by the Leader of the Opposition.

An increase in the size of the army, to take account of its operational commitments – at long last. Let us not forget that it was Gordon Brown’s squeeze on MoD spending that meant a moratorium on recruitment in 2002, which led – among other things – to the amalgamation of the Scottish Regiments. I won’t be the only Service wife giving thanks today.

Mr Cameron came across as relaxed (quite an achievement for any public speaker – I had to address members of the South Lorn Conservative Association at a lunch yesterday, and I found that my appetite had deserted me beforehand – let alone someone who has the hopes of his party riding on him, and a bank of press photographers to try to ignore) and confident; a man who knew what he wanted to achieve – within the Party and the country – and how he would do so. He looked like a PM in waiting.

Not cynical, not wooden, just believable.