LIKE SAFIRE ON CLINTON:

Poise and style, wisdom and wit - yes, Cameron has left me starstruck: The Conservative leader has achieved things I once thought impossible, and sooner or later he will surely be prime minister (Max Hastings, May 30, 2006, The Guardian)

The highlights of Brown's early premiership will be supervision of a more or less ignominious retreat from Iraq, further increases in taxation, pressures on public spending and - if Brown is foolish - a lurch back to "old Labour values". Leave morality out of this. As Blair always understood and the left never does, there are not enough poor people in Britain to elect a government. The majority of "haves" will always care more about what happens to them than about compassion for the less fortunate.

Yet even if circumstances are shining wondrously upon Cameron, that does not diminish the scale of his achievement in the past six months. He has done more than many of us thought possible to make a Conservative government again plausible. He is, of course, playing Blair's 1990s game, by distancing himself from his unpopular old guard. Every time a neanderthal columnist attacks the Tory leader in a rightwing newspaper, I find myself wondering how much the Cameron camp paid for the privilege. "Norman Tebbit compares me to Pol Pot," says Cameron, gleefully, "and that's when things are going well!"

The struggle to force through his priority list of candidates, which includes a phalanx of women and gay people, has dismayed many local Conservative associations. Yet Cameron tells them the unpalatable truth: "If we want to govern this country, we have to reflect its make-up and its concerns. If we go on with the old system we might have, say, 10 more women MPs after the next election - and that's not good enough."

He refuses to commit a Tory government to abolishing inheritance tax, or to cutting taxes at all. He declares that the Tories were wrong to oppose university top-up fees. He acknowledges that devolution is "here to stay", though he wants "English votes to decide English law". When criticised for not attacking the government sufficiently vigorously, he says: "I don't wake up in the morning asking myself: 'What can I do to destroy the Labour party?' They're doing that themselves. I ask myself: 'What can I do to show people what a Conservative government will be like?'"

He refuses to get rough with Blair about Iraq or Afghanistan, saying that the public is thoroughly aware that the Tories supported the government in initiating both. "We are partly responsible for what has happened. I don't think people will respect us if we quibble endlessly." He says without apology that he sees no reason to commit his party to explicit policies until he must, and would not carry conviction with voters if he did.

Beyond thus gaining points for honesty, Cameron is in the happy position of not needing to say or do anything about Iraq and Afghanistan. The executive decisions, the further grief that lies ahead, are the exclusive responsibility of this government. He can leave the electorate to draw its own conclusions. Such an attitude represents wisdom, not wetness.

If I sound somewhat starstruck, so I am.