Cameron the opportunist

On the reading the Guardian's interview with Sharon Shoesmith yesterday, it becomes clearer how two politicians - Ed Balls and David Cameron - used the huge media fuss over the issue of Baby P for political purposes.

Shoesmith feels she was forced out by politicians responding to intense press hysteria, and accuses Balls of 'breathtaking recklessness' by insisting on her sacking, saying Haringey social services' work had been hampered by the upheaval.

I am still inclined to think that Balls did the right thing, though he may not have had much choice. Powerful newspapers like the Sun, which delivered a 1.2m-signature petition to Downing Street demanding Shoesmith's dismissal, would have settled for nothing less. Politically, Balls would have found it impossible to take a more conciliatory line.

But what about David Cameron? At that fateful PMQs he decried the "raft of excuses and not one apology … the buck has got to stop somewhere". But Shoesmith had already apologised several times on national television.

SInce becoming Tory leader, Cameron has been pretty successful at painting Brown as an opportunistic political tactician on a range of issues: the election fiasco of late summer 2007, 10p tax, 42 days, Heathrow's third runway. Although Brown levelled the very same accusation at Cameron on many of these issues, it never really stuck.

Brown ended up on the wrong side of the argument on 10p, 42 days, the third runway. It looked like he was trying to outflank the Tories on the right for the sake of popularity. This was probably exactly what he was trying to do. Cameron was able to ride the tide of opinion building up against the government on all these issues.

Meanwhile, the Tory leader successfully concentrated on strategy while Brown got tactically bogged down. Husky dogs, 'let sunshine rule the day' and nice noises about Polly Toynbee were all famous examples of him giving the impression of centrism without any actual policies to match. All very vacuous - but at least it didn't involve cosying up to narrow sectional interests like BAA or the Police.

But on Baby P, Cameron seems to have jumped straight on the bandwagon for narrow tactical reasons. That's an ok thing to do if your overall strategy is right. However, the economic crisis - as Steve Richards showed in the Independent this week - may have brought Cameron's first strategic missteps.