Cameron the Phoney

WebCameron looks smart at first glance: Cameron is comfortable in front of the camera, looks affable, and comes across as a "family man" washing the porridge bowl. And yet... Isn't that an awfully small kitchen/dining room for someone of Cameron's wealth? Doesn't it look rather cluttered? And look - here's a book and a note-pad on the kitchen table; suggesting that, once the dishes are cleared away, he uses it to work on. The poor chap can't even afford a desk. Does Old Etonian Cameron really do the washing-up? Or perhaps it is a traditional household and Samantha, the daughter of Viscountess Astor and Sir Reginald Sheffield, the 8th Baronet, does the washing-up and cleaning. Or is that a nanny or a cleaner we glimse briefly in the background? It doesn't look like the Baronet's daughter. I wonder which of their two homes this is: the one in North Kensington or the one in Chipping Norton? A window in the background appears to look out on a front lawn which stretches as far as the horizon. That doesn't seem quite to fit with their cramped quarters. But then this is a film set. It is no more real than the facade of a western town on a Hollywood studio lot. It's phoney. Of course, before the 1997 Election Blair did the same thing, inviting a film crew into his Islington home where he pretended familiariy with a vacuum cleaner; and there wasn't a nanny in sight, although there was one, later silenced by the lawyers. But when it comes to using his kids as props in party political broadcasts and photo shoots Cameron is in a class of his own. And this attempt to affect "ordinariness" is not remotely convincing.