It has been a very good few days for the head of state, a very bad few days for the head of government.
The current level of the adulation for the monarch is unlikely to be sustained, but a more important question for Britain right now is whether the Prime Minister can recover even some of his authority.
The last thing the UK needs at this time of growing financial crisis is a weak, confused and indecisive Government. One of the reasons why the Queen is so popular is that she simply doesn't have to make the hard choices a political leader must make. But most of David Cameron's decisions these days seem to consist of reversing earlier decisions.
The Prime Minister, once so sure-footed – remember his dignified and moving response to the Saville Report on the Bloody Sunday Londonderry shootings? – is looking more inept with each passing day. Even the Jubilee party in Downing Street was subjected to a sudden U–turn when it was moved inside because of the inclement weather.
Mr Cameron described that party as "a great Big Society occasion". All that served to do was to remind us of the almost forgotten key social concept of his administration. Of course, the architect of the Big Society idea, Steve Hilton, has left Downing Street. Mr Cameron seems increasingly bereft of key allies and supporters.
His closest political pal, the Chancellor, has been presiding over what must surely be a record stint of backtracking on Budget proposals. Mr Cameron claimed on Sunday that "nobody" thought his Government lacked grit, resolve and strength. I'm afraid these are exactly the qualities many voters think have been lost – if they were there in the first place. He also said: "Let's not keep ploughing into a brick wall." If you think about it, that phrase contains an extraordinary admission – that his Government has been ploughing into brick walls on a regular basis.
Mr Cameron and his colleagues had hoped the feeling of warmth emanating from the Queen's Jubilee would somehow stick to their administration. That clearly isn't happening. And even if the coming Olympics are an enormous success, it is unlikely the Government will benefit from that either. Perhaps the most worrying thing for Mr Cameron and his party is that the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in the Coalition, are becoming, frankly, mutinous. Till recently it was a cliché that the LibDems had to stick with the Coalition because they had nowhere else to go. With Labour now doing well in the polls, it is apparent that many senior LibDems are thinking of a future alliance with Labour – while Labour might still want them, that is. Meanwhile many senior Tory MPs are spoiling for a fight with their own leader rather than the Opposition.
Mr Cameron is clearly not presiding over a united state. He knows that if he makes high-profile interventions in the coming campaign for Scottish independence, that will do his own anti-independence cause more harm than good.
He is beginning to look ominously like Ted Heath about two years into his administration in the early 1970s. Like Mr Cameron, Mr Heath was not a natural hardliner, but early on he adopted a tough industrial posture. There was much talk about refusing to support "lame ducks" – but then he had to change track spectacularly when he was forced to nationalise Rolls-Royce. From then on his Government was noted for policy somersaults more than anything else. Eventually, cowed by militant miners, Mr Heath desperately called an unnecessary early election to answer the question: "Who governs the country?" Not you, was the voters' answer.
The irony in all this is that the Coalition Government has not governed that badly. Even the recent Budget, subject to so much retrospective tinkering, delivered a major political achievement: taking about two million people out of paying income tax. The Government has received zero credit for that, which sums up the problem. Mr Cameron cannot gather credit even when credit is due.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article