Оглавление
Peter Snowdon. Back from the Brink: The Inside Story of the Tory Resurrection
CONTENTS
Introduction
ONE The Makings of a Landslide
TWO Lost in the Wilderness May 1997–June 2001
THREE Staring Into the Abyss June 2001–October 2003
FOUR False Dawn November 2003–May 2005
FIVE Signs of Life May–December 2005
SIX Leaving the Comfort Zone December 2005–December 2006
SEVEN The Great Escape January–October 2007
EIGHT Riding High October 2007–September 2008
NINE Crunch Time September 2008–April 2009
TEN Aiming for the Summit May–December 2009
Sources
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
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PETER SNOWDON
Back from the Brink
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As Cameron made an impression on the Prime Minister, he was making friends with someone who would become an important influence on his career. Steve Hilton had taken over Cameron’s Trade and Industry brief the previous year. The son of Hungarian parents who moved to Britain in the mid-1960s to pursue their education, Hilton was not a conventional CRD recruit. Although he and Cameron shared a public school education (Hilton at Christ’s Hospital and Cameron at Eton) and both went to Oxford (where they did not meet), their upbringing could not have been more different. After Hilton’s parents’ marriage broke down, his mother and stepfather, a builder, raised him in modest circumstances in Brighton. Cameron was the son of a stockbroker and a justice of the peace, brought up in the comfortable surroundings of an old rectory in the Berkshire village of Peasemore. Hilton’s hatred of Communism deeply informed his politics, and he found a soulmate in Cameron, who had travelled to East Germany shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. ‘Steve had clear views about the Cold War and freedom, as did David, whose trip had left a big impression on him,’ recalls a mutual friend. Learning their trade together at the CRD, they formed an enduring friendship and a shared political outlook.
They were handed a gift when Kinnock and his Shadow Chancellor, John Smith, unveiled their ‘shadow budget’ on 17 March, just six days after the start of the election campaign. Laid out in detail, Labour’s tax and spend plans became a hostage to fortune which the CRD ruthlessly exploited. The CRD, under the direction of Andrew Lansley, primed the media with briefings about how Labour’s tax increases would hit the average voter by an extra £1,000 a year. For Lansley’s protégés, the 1992 campaign would leave an indelible mark. ‘We could not afford to make mistakes,’ recalls Lansley. ‘It was a learning experience for all of them. David, in particular, learnt that an election campaign is relentless and based on rigorous research.’33 When the party launched a highly effective poster campaign, which featured a boxer under the slogan ‘Labour’s Double Whammy’, his gloves labelled ‘1. More Taxes’ and ‘2. Higher Prices’, it was clear that this was going to be a hard-hitting campaign. Designed by the party’s advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, it was one of the most successful political advertisements in modern times, and would haunt Labour for years to come. However, 1992 would be the last general election campaign for many years in which the Tory electoral machine would outshine its opponents’. On 1 April, eight days before the election date, with Labour seeming to hold a decisive lead in the polls as Major crisscrossed the country with his soapbox, Neil Kinnock took the stage at a glitzy rally in Sheffield. ‘We’re all right!’ he shouted three times, overcome by emotion. His party assumed victory; the voters had not.
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