Just another false alarm...

Okay, so David Cameron has obviously spooked the government more than they'd care to admit. Labour members have had two mailings in one week on the subject. Obviously Ian McCartney, with the first of them, didn't convince people to donate enough to fend off the new threat. So now we have Jo Brand writing to us to tell us to donate 6 times in one e-mail, because a 'hard-hitting' comedienne will obviously drive the message home:

Hello,

I'm Jo, a Labour supporter and you may have seen me on telly. Have you noticed the big news this week?

David Cameron (Dave to his friends), an old Etonian distantly related to the Queen, has been elected leader of the Conservative Party.

At last, it has dawned on Tory members that they need to be in touch with the reality of the modern world and the lives of the majority of British people!

As his first step, Dave is bringing back that icon of the new century William Hague to the front bench.

Biting satire...

And that's about as funny as it gets. The rest of the e-mail just points out what should be obvious to anyone, which is that behind the flashy modern veneer David Cameron is just the usual Tory scum. He's been pro-hunting, pro-privatisation, against maternity leave and against NHS spending increases. Well, none of that is terribly surprising. What's both surprising and annoying is that we're supposed to think that putting more money into the party is a good response to these facts.

Strangely, I don't think that it takes a lot of money to show that however young and flashy David Cameron is, he's still an arsehole. Surely all it takes is to remind people that he is, after all, a Tory. No, what we need is for the Labour party leadership to wake up and realise that with the Tories playing Blair's game, the net effect of 'charismatic leadership' is zero, and we should finally get back to making some vaguely left wing policies by which we could be distinguished from the Conservatives.

Of course, what will more likely happen is that the style game and the "Punch and Judy politics" will be notched up even further, while both sides cry out against it. After all, what could be better spin than denouncing spin?