LEAVE should deploy David Davis – the only person apart from Clegg to have beaten Cameron in a TV debate
No image problems like Gove, IDS or “twice sacked for dishonesty” Johnson
What’s very striking so far in the campaign is the lack of effective communication skills amongst the LEAVE team. Iain Duncan Smith once again this morning showed how right Tory MPs were to sack him in 2003 and Gove hardly comes over convincingly though his writing is better than his TV appearances.
For whatever reason the official LEAVE outfit is opposed to Farage having any role – a position that looks totally dumb. The only voice I’ve seen making a good fist of the OUT position is the Daventry Tory MP Andrea Leadsom but she is hardly well known.
A name that seems to have escaped everybody is David Davis – Cameron’s opponent in the final members run off in the October 2005 CON leadership race. That’s now a long time ago but what was striking about Davis was how effectively he dealt with Cameron in the BBC TV debate. Apart from the first debate of the 2010 campaign this was the only occasion when Cameron has come out of a TV set piece in second place.
Back in 2005 Davis was for a very long time the hot odds-on favourite to take the crown after having built a good reputation in the Commons. He’s also from a state school non-Oxbridge background and, I’d argue, is better placed to appeal to the white working class voters that LEAVE desperately needs to turnout on June 23rd.
Remember that Johnson was a key part of the Zac Goldsmith campaign and was one of the loudest voices in the Tory “smear Khan” effort that flopped. Boris judged that very badly.