Hill+Knowlton Strategies

The iconography of 1997 has set the standard for all political parties.

Tony Blair asking the carefully coordinated crowd of Labour supporters and the Royal festival Hall at 5 am on the morning after the ’97 landslide and saying “A new day has dawned has it not.” Him walking down Downing Street shaking hands with a similarly coordinated group of supporters waving Union jacks.

The problem with those who have tried to emulate that is that they haven’t quite ever had the landslide behind it. In the Scottish election in 2007, Alex Salmond landed by helicopter on a lawn in Edinburgh on a bright, sunny afternoon. He was only one seat ahead of Labour and had no majority.

And so this week, David Cameron didn’t want his prime ministership to be remembered for the speech he made on a dark, and unseasonally nippy night when he walked through the door of Number Ten for the first time.

And so to the rose garden and his love-in with Nick Clegg on a sunny afternoon. Tone was everything.

Yes, the two could not have been closer. But has their iconic moment set a bar that they will struggle to reach in the months and years ahead?

The two standing behind lecturns was reminiscent of the tv debates – except in this round one of the contestants had been voted off and there were two politicians not three.

The bonhomie was remarkable. The body language warm. But the promise of new politics?

Tony Blair’s stated aim of being ‘whiter than white’ came to haunt him, first with the Bernie Ecclestone affair, then the Iraq War, then ‘cash for honours’. Of course , subsequent events discredited those words.

And of course, new governments have to be ambitious. But as the first question they received from Channel Four’s Political Editor Gary Gibbons pointed out, they sounded as though this coalition government was a new dawn they had both sought rather than a difficult solution to an awkward situation.

Had I been advising in Number Ten, I would have suggested a different tone.

The public finances are in a parlous state. Radical action will have to be taken and it will be painful. In those circumstances – and with a hung parliament – the two leaders needed to bury their differences and come up with a credible stable plan in the national interest.

The message should have been that this will be tough, but that they jointly have resolve to see it through.

Instead the overriding message was that this is a new politics, a new era and that there was no difference between them.

It is a difficult message for the public to understand. A few weeks ago Nick Clegg said that David Cameron formed coalitions with ‘nutters’ in the European Parliament. Now they are best mates.

The public verdict on May 6 was unclear – other than they didn’t want Gordon Brown’s Labour Party in government.

I am not sure they voted for a ‘new politics’. I am not sure they would have believed anyone who said that was the plan.

Cleggmania vanished as quickly as it appeared. Cameron couldn’t seal the deal with the public even with his dire threats of a hung parliament.

The Prime Minister admitted that it will be possible to find splits between individual LibDem and Tory MPs.

The decision he and his advisers must have taken ahead of the press conference was that the impact of those splits would be negated by this appearance of being united. I fear they may be enhanced by the contrast of the press conference and spats to come.

Grit and determination might have been better. Two men doing their best for a nation in difficult times in a difficult political situation.

An election result which neither of them desired, they now say has led to a conclusion they have both long desired. Mmmm. Careful now, or new politics will look like old spin.

Lets see how this iconic press conference looks in six months time.