Is Cameron's background relevant? It is to Sky's Kay Burley!

Sky News's rather annoying Kay Burley asked Cameron in Sky's self-styled panel of experts interview due to be screened tonight at 8pm whether Cameron can relate to people who are struggling during these hard economic times given his privileged background - she even described him as a Toff.

I just can't see the relevance of these questions, and neither can the majority of the public (see my earlier posting on MORI's findings about what voters look for in their leaders).

Why is it relevant? Do we need to experience everything for ourselves to know what is best needed to remedy the situation? For example, does a minister or civil servant devising schemes to help drug addicts have to actually become a drug adict so they can experience the needs of a drug addict for the themselves? No, its preposterous!

Furthermore, why is this stupid question not asked of Gordon Brown? On his £188k salary as PM, I don't suppose he knows from experience how people are currently struggling - but that does not make him unqualified for the job (there are plenty of other reasons for that), and nor does it David Cameron.

Labour would be making a mistake with an anti-Toff electoral strategy

Two slides from Ipsos MORI below indicate that Labour would be making a mistake if it tried to make capital from David Cameron's priviledged background.

The first slide features the question: What people dislike about Cameron / Brown. One of the answers is 'too posh'. But only 5 percent of those surveyed said they disliked Cameron for being too posh. Interestingly, Brown also scored exactly the same!

And the second slide asks: What kind of leader would you prefer? The overwhelming majority (71 percent) say they want someone better qualified than themselves in terms of background and experience as opposed to 24 percent who say they want someone similar to them in terms of background and experience.

The two slides seem to indicate that the electorate is not perplexed by the 'class' of its leaders. The class warriors like the Ed Balls's of this world ought to think again if they wish to make Cameron's background a feature of the next general election.

As the Crewe and Nantwich by-election showed us, old-style class politics has had its day.