Skipper

In my pantheon of rightwing hate figures Peter Hitchens has usually featured fairly highly. He has the same arrogance as his brother, Christopher- with whom he does not communicate- with none of the latter's disarming charm. I should also mention his disturbingly mobile political ideas; he has been a Trotskyist and a member of the Labour Party. He now purports to be a 'moral and cultural' Conservative but last night his Despatches programme was effectively an hour long party political broadcast for that party to which he once belonged beginning with an 'L'.

Iain Dale was apparently invited to be involved but spotted it as a 'hatchet job' and declined. He was right: it was. And a very effective one it was too. Starting with Cameron's former boss at the Conservative Research Department, we learnt that Cameron had no discernible political position when he worked for the party and was self evidently an 'opportunist'; when a candidate in 1997 his manifesto was indistinguishable from any journeyman Tory trying to toe the party line; and in 2005, of course, he penned Howard's less than centrist manifesto.

In the absence of Dale, it was Michael Gove who had to face the brutally cynical questions of The Hitch and came up predictably unconvincing. Hitchens nailed down the accusation that Cameron had speedily invented his liberal 'Compassionate Conservatism' when the media plus his psephologically literate friends, suggested he might be in for the main chance.

Whilst on those friends Hitch put Gove on the backfoot too over all those Etonians milling around the 'ordinary bloke' Dave not to mention his investigation of the aristocratic pretending Bullingdon Dining Club(dedicated to drinking themselves insensible and then trashing restaurants while in fancy dress), which, it was alleged, occupied the major part of the future Conservative leader's time whilst at Oxford. The above picture reveals Cameron(second from left) in his true colours: a privileged toff, surrounded by confreres of the same ilk- note the blond mop of Boris Johnson in the front row(see here for the full run down of toffs now working in the City).

I'm not sure if The Hitch convinced many Conservatives that Cameron is a lightweight opportunist who is slavishly following the Blairite route to power, but he sure as hell convinced me. Labour's attack dogs will have greedily feasted on this useful programme for future use. And it was revealing how many of Dave's enemies the programme managed to flush out- they clearly are not limited to that ageing old head-banger Norman Tebbitt, though he was in it too.