So here he is, the winner – a born winner after all. Eton really does turn them out. Looking genuinely relieved and ecstatic, David Cameron squashes his face against Sam Cam’s cheek, as she grins at the prospect of five years of proper, evil Tory power. Both seem aware of the need not to ruin their smart clothes as they cuddle deliriously – and forget the soft-Tory tie-less look: it’s time to put on the blue tie and take out the whips and handcuffs. Maggie’s boys are back in town. Cameron in this photograph is drinking the champagne of true blue victory. It’s big sex later, Samantha.
Or is this a touching photograph of a man who knows he has earned the people’s trust, sharing with his wife some of the love the electorate has given him? Even as the nausea rises in my throat after a long, wretched night of televisual masochism, I can’t help noticing that a lot of actual people out there have voted Conservative. All over the country they put down their X for Cameron’s party. “Here’s to a brighter future for everyone,” says the text that accompanies this photograph on Twitter.
A lot of people believed that, or something like it, when they were in the privacy of the voting booth. In their hearts of hearts.
The corridor where the Camerons are cuddling is brutally bare, breeze-blocked and strip-lit. Is this the actual corridor of power? Is it the secret route to the secret chamber where they keep the resuscitated head of Margaret Thatcher? Will he kiss that, too? For surely Dave and Sam are on their way to report their victory to the undead leader in her glass jar. Those eyes will open and glare proudly.
The Camerons are cuddling history in this picture. He has not only survived but shattered the left, and the left of centre, and the centre. “Here’s to a brighter future for everyone” – does he mean me? No, he means the “everyone” who voted Conservative. What’s left of the left? Not much.
This picture tells us some of the relatively banal reasons for Cameron’s victory. To Labour, Liberal and SNP voters it may be the most sickening sight possible on this morning of miserable bitching breakfasts (“I told you Miliband was shit”). But the results so far of the election and the forecasted Tory win suggest that for many voters this is an attractive image of an attractive couple. It is of a piece with so many other images of Cameron, relaxing on holiday, slumbering on a bed before a wedding, or – yes – sitting patiently with that six-year-old school pupil, her head flopping on to the table. They are images that are aspirational and sympathetic for many – pictures of a normal decent chap.
I find it exhausting to hate Cameron. The fact is that I don’t dislike him at all, as a human being. Sorry. But what’s wrong with this picture, after all? A nice and successful – very successful – couple who love each other. Labour overestimated the power of class hate and part of me is glad it did. I don’t want to live in a bitter, vengeful country. I went to comprehensive school, I’m common as dirt, but is it healthy therefore to loathe all toffs? Class war is no basis for a Labour victory.
Nor was Ed Miliband. This picture captures the night because it was truly Cameron’s night, as an individual. This tweeted snog says it all. For amid all the arguments that will drag on about the discrepancy between opinion polls during the campaign and the actual result, one fact stands out. However close the parties were in those polls, Cameron’s lead over Miliband personally never really wavered. Sure, the electorate saw that Miliband could stand up and talk like a natural man. But Cameron’s ratings for trust and prime ministerial qualities have always been far higher. That, surely, is the truth of this victory. Many of us hate the Conservatives. But a lot of people rather like Cameron.
The prime minister deserves this moment of sickening triumph.
