David Cameron, on the back of a fightback which has seen him rein in Gordon Brown despite the best efforts of his own party, has just shot himself in the foot again by unveiling the results of a survey into 'green' stuff from John Gummer, probably the most uncharismatic ex-minister ever, and Zac Goldsmith, the late Jimmy's son.
Now Princess Diana look-alike Zac is a classic (old Etonian) trust fund boy who seeks to lecture the rest of us on how we can save money by turning off the light. And, in the most damaging leak from the report, suggesting that we should be charged for driving to the supermarket.
As the lordly Stephen Glover, our best political commentator from the right, pointed out today in the Mail (13.9.07), young Zac has probably never visited a supermarket in his life. And if he did it was probably Waitrose, which he would have found a bit common.
So not only has Cameron enlisted a toff who doesn't know how the rest of us live (thereby highlighting the way the Camerons don't live the way the rest of us live) but also a Goldsmith!
Hacks hate Goldsmiths. 30 years ago Jimmy Goldsmith tried to put Private Eye out of business by not just suing the magazine for libel but also suing the printers, distributors, messengers and anyone else he could think of.
This was bullying on a classic scale and it almost worked. But editor Richard Ingrams launched the 'Goldenballs' fund and Goldsmith was seen off.
Around the same time Goldsmith, thwarted in his ambitions to take over the Daily Express, launched a new magazine called Now!, based on the French magazine L'Express which he then owned.
Now! hired lots of scribblers at fancy rates, failed to get an audience and then folded suddenly amid scenes of chaos as the remaining hacks lugged their groovy new computers into taxis (on expenses of course).
Jimmy Goldsmith slunk away to start his own political party, which didn't work either, and maybe this arrogant man eventually realized that money couldn't buy everything (apart from his cronies in Annabel's and the Clermont Club, like the unfortunate Lord Lucan).
Zac, clearly, is hewn from the same stone. As such, there are lots of hacks with long memories who will give him equally short shrift. Mr Glover being one.
David Cameron needs to find a common touch, in a hurry. He could do worse than buy one in, as Tony Blair did with John Prescott. The trouble is, Tory backwoodsmen (like Anne Widdecombe) remind the voters why they've voted for somebody else this past decade.
Memo to Dave: dump Zac (and all those other old Etonians), get a life.