Cambo is at his best, you might say, when surrounded by not-wildly-interested-looking students at a college in Cornwall (one of whom then egged him). He is Extremely Upbeat. He couldn’t be less interested in the polls (ha ha). I’ve seen them go up and down, he says. I’ve been ten points ahead, ten points behind. What I really care about is the poll on 6 May, he sweatily grins.
I like the idea of Cambo swatting new polls away with a careless flick, glass of Pimms in one hand and the new Ian McEwan in the other. “I don’t give a monkeys, Andy, ” he might say, as Coulson gnashes his teeth.
Back to reality, and Cambo took a lot of entirely unscripted, spontaneous and not-planted-by-a-Tory-party-official questions from the Cornwall lot, including things like, “How is Labour rubbish?” and “How are you going to make everything brilliant?” (minor translations).
Guff emerged along the way, as it will. I particularly liked the subtle rebranding that has been taking place. “How do you get real change?” Cambo demanded of his audience, vote Tory being the expected reply. You’ve got to pity the guy: how do you differentiate yourself from those darn interfering interlopers, the Lib Dems, who nicked the “change” line. I know, thinks Cambo! We’ll offer “real change”! Not fake, Clegg-shaped change which has been knocked off a production line in a Chinese factory (ooh, China, that’ll scare them). So there we have it. If you want change, vote Lib Dem. If you want REAL change, it’s Cambo all the way.
There’s something else Cambo does a lot. Numbers. No, not the economy, not jobs, not taxes. More like, the number of times he’s been to Afghanistan (four). The number of times he’s met the Israeli prime minister (four or five). The number of times he’s met the president of the Palestinian National Authority (many, many). There he is, counting away. Look at me! Look how many times I do things!
Number of times Cambo’s been egged on the campaign trail. Just the once so far.
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