David Cameron

What is the point of David Cameron? There must be a purpose for the leader of the Coalition, otherwise that expensive Eton education and Bullingdon Club initiation were all for nothing. (Poor Dave couldn't walk straight for weeks). Wasps, for example, are often demonised by angry picnickers and beach-goers as being utterly pointless pests that ruin humans' leisure activities. Yet without wasps no fig tree could reproduce and we would be overrun by spiders. So, does David Cameron play a vital role in the pollination of a fruiting tree? No. Does he lay eggs inside spiders, keeping their numbers in check? There's no mention of it in the leaked emails about the BSkyB takeover.

So what he is for? As the allegations swarm around both Cameron and Osborne like flies around the proverbial, there must be something in mitigation. Don't worry that he picked Andy Coulson as his communications chief, a choice only marginally less wise than Myra Hindley, don't concern yourself about those dinners with Rebekah Brooks, she of paediatrician witch hunt fame, don't fret about deals done on mobiles between James Murdoch and Jeremy Hunt, because at least the Tories have got the economy going again. They might be corrupt but they get the job done...oh...whoops. Why isn't the world working the way Hayek said it would?

Cameron considers himself born to rule; sadly he doesn't know why. On reaching the highest office in the land, no one, neither David nor the electorate, know what he's there for.  Perhaps that explains the lousy election result. Tories spin doctors call that win, in the manner of an England sports team (take your pick they are all equally pitiful) explaining why going nil-nil to the Christmas Islands was a decent result under the circumstances. In the depth of the deepest recession of all time and the worst banking crisis in centuries, facing a Labour leader who may actually have gone insane, Cameron blew it. Short of Gordon Brown being caught on camera interferring with one of the Queen's corgis, the Conservative Party leader could not have asked for a more favourable pre-election scenario.

Finding Cameron leading the country is an experience similar to anyone who used to order products from the Innovations catalogue. On the page, he looked useful, a moderate Conservative who had rebranded the Tories with an oak tree. Then he arrived, you got him out the packaging and realised he was totally useless. I had a similar experience when I ordered a de-ionsier, to purify the air in my bedroom. No one wants ions floating around in the air, do they? Take it from me, you'll get more value out of the cardboard box it came in. The Tories might well have fared better if they followed their rebranding to its logical conclusion and run with an actual oak tree as leader. Everyone, from squirrels to citizens, likes an oak: it has a solid, dependable, English reputation with a touch of the Robin Hood about it and you never need to worry about it saying the wrong thing.

But then it occurred to me, David Cameron does have a point or purpose in life. His role is to make us feel better about ourselves and our own judgement.  He came to power after a banking meltdown that devastated the UK economy and has potentially bankrupted us for generations. Any normal, average intelligence person in his position would think the first  priority of government was a wholescale reform of the banking industry. Not Dave, he didn't want to rush into things. For a man who believes in his own destiny, he should take more care about the judgement of history. Cometh the man, misseth his moment.

So in these troubled times, remember this heartwarming thought: you probably would have done a better job than this empty vessel.