green Politics

The trouble with David Cameron is that sometimes you feel he needs to be given a break and sometimes, as just now, you feel he should be given a kick in the pants. The stupidity, having recently made a couple of decent speeches, of suggesting that people be charged for parking their cars at supermarkets and that the little red standby light be banned really makes you wonder. To add to this someone didn't monitor the posts to WebCameron and a flood of comments was published, bearing the full force of the public ridicule.

The truth is that there isn't much public support in green politics - particularly this brand where we are all somehow guilty or, as Jeremy Hardy neatly put it, 'telling us to use both sides of the toilet paper'. The importance, at the beginning of his time as leader, in going green was one of flavour, of general perception, enabling him to say something that wasn't about the usual Tory bugbears of immigration, tax, law & order, and dragging away some support from the Lib Dems.

Now he needs to attack the government's record and make solid new proposals on the things that matter. He could do no better than to read the Sun: this morning's leaders 'The Sun Says' are about the little girl who was savaged by a pit bull and her awful family, the victory of the Metric Martyrs 'This was not a pointless battle' and the NHS 'As Chancellor, Gordon Brown vowed not a penny would be spent without reform. Cash was spent anyway. Now he is PM and we want the reforms he promised. Without asking taxpayers for an extra cent until they are delivered.'

The Sun knows what its readers want to hear and David Cameron needs the Sun's support.