Tom Richmond: Conservatives must look beyond the headlines

In recent weeks, the Tories have resembled an increasingly desperate rabble who are incapable of looking beyond the next set of headlines. And, having fallen for New Labour's charm offensive, voters have every right to be sceptical.

One Tory candidate in Yorkshire tells me that the Conservative strategy is working because all the resources are being focused on winning over the 100,000 voters who will determine the fate of the marginal seats – the constituencies where the election will be won and lost.

However, this does not excuse – or justify – the decision for the

Tories to decline the Government's invitation to have an advance look at the first phase of proposals for a new high-speed rail line.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said the multi billion-pound 200mph link proposed in a White Paper due to be published within weeks must be "above politics" if it is to succeed.

But Tories are wary of being pressured into endorsing the route drawn up by Government-owned company High Speed Two (HS2), which is certain to enrage communities in dozens of constituencies along the proposed line.

The HS2 proposals lay down a precise route for the track to within five metres of accuracy in urban areas and 25 in the countryside, cutting through Conservative heartlands in Buckinghamshire and fiercely-contested swing seats in the West Midlands.

Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers says lamely that she does not want to "close down the options". But, in doing so, she left the impression that she's happy for homes to be flattened for the new railway line – provided that they are in Labour constituencies.

This is not good enough. Governments are responsible for the whole country – and not the favoured few. Surely, it would be better for the Tories to be part of the decision-making process, even if it gives them an insight into the difficulties that they will face if they come to power?

Yet, days later, another Shadow Cabinet member, Caroline Spelman, is indicating that the Tories will speed up the planning process to ensure that the line is not subject to endless delays.

Just what is going on? And is it any wonder that people are questioning Cameron's record when his own Ministerial team appears to be giving out so many different signals?

WILLIAM Hague doesn't need to resort to political point-scoring when he's such a brilliant debater – a criticism reinforced by the Richmond MP's assertion that Gordon Brown is deliberately pushing the UK into "as much debt as possible" in an effort to make life tough for any incoming Tory government.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary's argument was nullified by an opinion poll, published at the same time as his criticisms, that the Tory lead had narrowed to six percentage points and that the electorate were becoming increasingly dubious about whether the Conservatives have the relevant experience to sort out the economy.

THE Tory difficulties on the economy still stem from the continuing inadequacies of George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor who I first labelled as "a little pipsqueak" in April 2007 – and then suggested that he be replaced with a politician of greater substance.

Since then, he has become Labour's greatest electoral asset, despite the Government's culpability over the recession. And the

term "pipsqueak" has increasingly become common currency – the Right-wing commentator Peter Hitchens is the latest to describe Osborne as such.

Presumably this explains why it was the experienced Ken Clarke, and not Osborne, who was sent to Brussels this week for talks with Jose Manuel Barroso to assure the European Commission President that the EU has nothing to fear from a prospective Conservative government.

THE debate about whether Gordon Brown is a "bully" overshadowed another serious revelation in Andrew Rawnsley's well-sourced critique of New Labour – namely the flimsiness of Jack Straw.

As Home Secretary, Straw could not impose Labour's "tough on crime" mantra on the liberal elite at the Home Office. As Foreign Secretary, he capitulated over the illegal nature of the Iraq war. And, as Justice Secretary, we learn that spineless Straw changed his mind about whether to support a plot to remove Brown as PM.

It begs one question: How has such an inadequate man, who is still recycling policy pledges that he made in 1997 about, for example, victims of crime, survived at the top of government for so long?

He's Straw by name, and straw-like by nature.

ACCORDING to the Rawnsley account, Gordon Brown went for a walk in the Downing Street garden with his soul-mate Ed Balls, the Normanton MP and Children's Secretary, when he chickened out of holding a snap election in 2007.

Not so, says Balls who recalls that he was 200 miles away in his Yorkshire constituency on the fateful day – and could not have been in Downing Street, even if he wanted to be at the time.

I HAD to chuckle when John Prescott, our esteemed former Deputy Prime Minister, contacted a journalist who had suggested that he was not fit to run the country. "I'm crap at syntax," said Prescott. "I don't even know what the word means."

YOU just have to admire Tony Benn's wit. Asked whether he had any UFO experiences and had encountered aliens, he took one puff on his pipe and said: "No, only when I met members of New Labour."