Salon (subscription or click-through advert required, sorry) has an interesting article by former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal. In the first discussion of David Cameron I’ve seen in the US press, he compares the messages that Cameron is giving out to the compassionate conservatism upbeat of one Gov. George W Bush in 2000. Cameron is saying, says Blumenthal, “I’m not New Labour, I’m just New”.
The hinted-at question in Blumenthal’s piece is whether Cameron will, as Bush did once in office, revert to party-faithful type. It’s obviously too early to tell, but one straw in the wind is the crazy decision by Cameron to pull the Tories out of the EPP – the fuzzily centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. Continuing membership of the EPP has no political price (in the country at least), and membership brings benefits, including committee chairmanships. Does this move show an ideology-driven Euroscepticism under the friendly surface? If so, are we to expect more of the same?