Distaste at class war tactics overlooks more subtle baiting

AMID the sea of top hats and slanging matches, the Crewe and Nantwich by-election is more than just class war. It is a question of leadership – David Cameron's leadership.

Forget the backbiting and speculation that Gordon Brown will be turfed out of No 10 if the Conservatives storm home to win the seat. The biggest test is for Mr Cameron.

For the Tory leader has allied himself closely with the contest, ordering his shadow cabinet to make at least three visits personally to the Cheshire constituency.

The Prime Minister has conveniently hidden behind the tradition that the PM does not campaign in by-elections, particularly handy for one as unpopular as he is proving to be.

Latest polls predict a drubbing for Labour against an acrimonious background in which the party has stooped to class warfare and dirty tactics. Harriet Harman (graduate of St Paul's Girls School) has agreed it is lamentable that activists have donned top hats and tails to poke fun at the Tory candidate, Edward Timpson, heir to the shoe-fixing empire.

Most commentators (most of them from privileged backgrounds) agree it is shocking to poke fun at that great underclass: the wealthy. But Tory talk of fighting a class war as being below the belt is, frankly, cobblers.

Anyone remember the party's activists dressed as waiters carrying trays of champagne chasing Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary? The Tories picked on him because he was wealthy and employed a butler. Funny how it was not a problem in the days before Mr Woodward defected from the Conservatives to Labour.

However, Labour's fight has misfired because Mr Timpson was not born into the landed gentry, but is the son of a self-made entrepreneur.

Mr Cameron, himself an Old Etonian, has insisted that he cannot help where he was born. Attacking him over his class is no better than attacking someone for coming from a sink estate. He says of Labour's campaign: "It smacks of desperation. It is divisive, negative, backward-looking, out of date and class war. It is very Old Labour. When they are in a hole and things are going badly, politicians reach for desperate measures."

He is right on that point. But perhaps he should show some consistency and call off the dog whistle attacks from some of his activists and colleagues on Gordon Brown for being Scottish. Surely the Tory hounds can smell enough blood seeping from other wounds without having to tear at the PM for what he, like Mr Cameron, cannot help: the place of his birth.

Since becoming leader, the Conservatives have deployed a subtle, rather than overt, attack on Mr Brown's Scottishness.

"I think Blair has been a very successful election winner. I hate the phrase 'middle England' but I think he has a natural feel for the voters' pulse. We'll see whether Gordon has that," Mr Cameron said before the chancellor moved into the top job.

In another interview, Mr Cameron said of his opponent: "He's being pushed around by everyone. He's been told he needs to look more modern, so he tells us he likes the Arctic Monkeys. Incredible. He's told he looks too Scottish, so he tells us he likes Gazza's goal against Scotland. Utterly incredible."

He has referred to Mr Brown's "McPolicies" although he has insisted it was an attempt to draw a parallel with the burger chain rather than his heritage.

At a recent press gallery lunch, Mr Cameron criticised Mr Brown's bungling of Wendy Alexander's outburst on the need for a referendum: "The one thing I thought about Gordon Brown was that he really understood Scottish Labour, he really understood Scotland and he really cared about the Union. He's now lost Scotland, is losing the Scottish Labour Party and is putting the Union at risk. It's an extraordinary set of circumstances."

Activists have urged Mr Cameron to adopt a strategy of quietly playing up Mr Brown's background by maintaining the query against Scots MPs voting on English matters; emphasising his Scottishness and the West Lothian question and highlight the hidden redistribution of money from England to Scotland.

The Conservatives have used all of the above tactics – but it still begs the question of what Mr Cameron has to offer Scotland.

There are still communities in Scotland that fear the Tories more than the Luftwaffe, given the devastation wrecked on the manufacturing industries. On becoming leader, Mr Cameron admitted that the Conservatives' representation in Scotland was "dismal".

It is difficult to see how that will be enhanced by his continued fence-sitting on issues to do with the constitution, or by blowing a dog whistle tune that suggests somehow Scots' rights in what is still the UK parliament are illegitimate.

But Mr Cameron has even bigger problems to tackle than Scottish scepticism. The latest focus groups have found that while for now Mr Cameron is preferable to Mr Brown, there is "something not quite right about him".

He was compared to that most ghastly of creatures – a Foxton's estate agent. His strong signal on cutting public spending with the view to slashing taxes at least showed some longed-for bravery.

However, there is little courage in making promises – or should that be "aspirations" without addressing how they would be paid for. Voters want more bang for their bucks – especially those in Scotland.

He would be wise to show some empathy, rather than just highlighting Labour's implosion, when he addresses his party at its conference in Ayr this weekend. His motto needs to be a little more "usque conabor" against "floreat etona". That is, "I will try my utmost" – the motto of Kirkcaldy High, Mr Brown's old school, rather than "flourish Eton", the catchcry of Mr Cameron's own alma mater.