David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition, and previous darling of Middle England, is starting to see his popularity dwindle. Cameron had been doing really well in the polls when Blair was still the UK PM and many had predicted that the incoming Gordon Brown would be even less popular with his dour, Scottish demeanor. Cameron looked set to totally dominate and emerge smiling and (young) Blair-like as the next likely PM.
And then it rained in the UK. In fact it rained like never before and it seems like half the country is flooded with the other half threatened with flooding. Gordon Brown hot-foots it down to the disaster scenes, offers comfort , praise for the fire services and positive action points. Cameron on the other hand jets out to Rwanda where he is pushing his comittment to ending global poverty.
Cameron, as a result, has come in for heaps of criticism for abandoning Britain in a crisis. Now I believe in this cause as much as the next person and it is true that this trip had been organised way in advance and to cancel would have caused much grief (if not offence). He was right to stick to his committments.
What beggars belief is that he didn't front up the inevitable criticism BEFORE he went by creating a proactive media campaign explaining his reasons for going. Instead, by taking the lazy approach and letting his people speak for him, he has made a tactical error and laid himself wide open as a target. It is especially surprising that his PR people haven't been advising him better particularly in the light of the Conservative MPs recent behaviour (like a bag of cats) with some of them even calling for no-confidence votes on Cameron.
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