Bernard Ingham: Cameron must address the alienated voters

Nobody made it harder for Obama than his own supporters and a media mesmerised by his racial breakthrough. It is no surprise that, after 12 months in the White House, his stock is falling, though I never

imagined the Democrats would lose Teddy Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts. That speaks volumes for the political disillusionment in the United States.

But with his troops fighting two unpopular wars, and the economy in a mess, Obama would be a political genius if he were riding high in the polls today.

Nobody also quite knows what to make of Cameron when his party is only an unsatisfactory 10 points ahead, given the formidable bias in favour of Labour at the polls. If there is a political consensus in Britain today, it is that, in view of Labour's proven, comprehensive incompetence, he should be leading a very unattractive Gordon Brown by a good 20 points.

Why isn't he? And does it matter?

It matters enormously that Britain rids itself of the worst and most corrupting government it has known since the Second World War.

We cannot go on like this, as the Tory posters so accurately say.

Society, as well as the economy, needs re-building and, after ruining both for 13 years, Labour is physically and morally incapable of repairing them.

It matters desperately that we avoid a hung Parliament and all the ruinous compromises that would follow.

The nation's spirits would be higher at the depths of this old-fashioned type of winter if Cameron had captured the people's imagination and left Brown for dead in the polls.

On the other hand, I am with the late Francis Pym, a former Tory Chief Whip, who got himself into Margaret Thatcher's bad books in the 1983 election by warning against a landslide majority. He had a powerful point.

A serviceable majority – say the 43 that Thatcher managed in 1979 – is all Cameron needs. It provides security of tenure while avoiding the sloppiness and inflated expectations that large majorities produce.

Once he is elected, it also helps that nobody is expecting miracles. Indeed, they will be all the more impressed the more he turns things around.

Tony Blair was a massive disappointment because he failed to justify the irrational excitement he engendered. Thatcher's leadership astounded a nation that doubted whether it was governable long before she had succeeded in shaking up Britain.

That is precisely what we require of our next Prime Minister. So why is Cameron not making sure in the polls that he can give Britain the rigorous treatment it needs?

Some, like Brown, would say it's because he is just a PR chappie – all sweet talk and no policies. Others, like that prize hypocrite, the well-connected Harriet Harman, would put it down to his Eton education. I doubt whether either really count for much with the electorate.

Nor do I accept that Cameron's rather general platform is holding him back. He knows Labour will pinch anything it thinks will be popular. Remember its rapid U-turn in response to George Osborne's popular pledge on inheritance tax.

In any case, Thatcher did not win in 1979 on a manifesto of detailed commitments. She made little of privatisation, for example, even though it went on to become an international movement.

Instead, there are two factors behind Cameron's barely adequate lead. One is his lack, unlike Thatcher, of a guiding philosophy. She came to office to end national decline on a platform of economic and political freedom through less government and more personal responsibility, with an end to abuses of power, notably by the unions.

Cameron certainly sees a need to mend a broken economy and society and regularly waves the personal responsibility flag. But what does he really stand for other than perhaps a rather trendy version of One Nation Toryism?

The other reason he is not making a splash is that Britain is out of sorts with its politicians. With good reason, it no longer trusts them. Cameron should, above all, be addressing this alienation.

It is no bad thing he has escaped Obama's disease. But it is worrying that he has not identified the central deficiency in British society – political trust – especially when Labour's middle name is untrustworthy.