Tonight's seen the rumoured reintroduction of Ken Clarke to frontline politics ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5512085.ece ) with David Cameron giving him the chance to shadow Peter Mandelson at the snazily renamed DBERR.
It's hoped that Clarke will bring much-needed gravitas to the Tories who have floundered in the face of recent economic crises. An equally important subtext, though, is how this affects George Osbourne -whose nasal snipes have almost matched Alistair Darling's (admittedly planned) failure to capture the public imagination.
One thing that strikes me is how economic crisis has undone years of PR spade work. Cameron fought the extremities of his party tirelessly (on tax cuts, Europe, public services) to cleanse the Tory brand and repeatedly resisted the temptation to regress to 1990's Conservatism. The "credit crunch" has reopened these divides. We now know that the next Tory government will cut taxes. It's perhaps revealing that in a time of crisis they've reverted not only to Major's policies but also his Chancellor...
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