Dan Roberts, Guardian business editor, cut a lonely figure on the panel; the sole left-wing voice defiantly open-collared amid a row of immaculate Windsor knots.
The Gorkana breakfast briefing was on the theme of the upcoming election and, as always, exquisitely organised. However, a comment I overheard on the way out of RIBA perhaps explained the right-wing bias on the panel: “you know, the people who run Gorkana are quite Tory.” Tory they might be, but the real surprise from a panel consisting of ex-Sun political editor George Pascoe-Watson, The Daily Telegraph’s assistant editor Jeremy Warner, and Iain Martin, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe (plus the aforementioned Roberts) was the tone of disappointment in their voices when discussing Cameron.
If a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience, the Sun’s adoption of Cameron four months ago was perhaps equally optimistic; as Pascoe-Watson, with the sang-froid of one who has now moved to pastures new, criticised the paper for failing to condemn Brown as equally as they support Cameron. What seemed like a simple choice back then has now become much more complex: Brown successfully fought off a coup and some of the freshness credited to any new leader has long since rubbed off Cameron. Yet Pascoe-Watson still predicted a comfortable win for the Tories; with a healthy 40-60 seat majority.
Iain Watson struck a more balanced note overall; delicately skirting around some of the issues Pascoe-Watson covered with gusto and giving a 50-50 balance to both parties’ chances. The bigger Conservative campaign chest was pitted against Labour’s greater election experience. Cameron himself was described as “a late finisher in life” as Watson pointed to Cameron’s previous tendency to triumph at the eleventh hour. Watson conveyed a quiet nervousness suggesting that the eleventh hour was rapidly ticking onto the twelfth with no rallying signs from Cameron.
“Business craves certainty” was Jeremy Warner’s opener; as he brought the discussion back to the original topic of how the election would affect business. A Labour win would mean high taxes – far more upsetting to the private sector than the prospect of a hung parliament. And although Warner had nothing directly uncomplementary to say about Cameron, his note of warning was to add that at Tory HQ, Brown is nicknamed “the Terminator” – because he can never be completely killed off.
If the panel’s right-leaning members struggled to find unequivocal praise for Cameron, so too did Dan Roberts struggle to eulogise Brown. Roberts predictably moaned that public sector debt would dominate economic debate during the election while private sector debt (which “got us into this crisis”) is ignored. Roberts argued that both parties (although clearly indicating Labour) failed to take advantage of this crisis in capitalism and articulate a new “vision” for the private sector. Thatcher and Blair both had strong economic visions which counted for more than dry policies, Roberts pointed out, and this was another recurring theme from other panel members too – that among the heaving piles of policies and recommendations, the bigger picture from both parties was being lost – particularly by Cameron’s uncoordinated comms team, whose howlers include the much-parodied “I’ve never voted Tory but...” posters.
After this less-than flattering portrait of Cameron as a man who, given numerous political gifts on a plate, has failed to scoff them down with adequate speed, panel chair Michael Wilson asked the audience for a show of hands on whether we would have a Labour, Conservative or hung parliament. The result? An overwhelming Conservative majority. Either Gorkana’s audience was as Tory as the panel, or all it takes to win an election is to slip up less than your opponent.