Some distinctly French advice

David Curry: mais oui

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Bastille Day used to mark the great getaway when French cities were abandoned to tourists and the traders intent on helping them to part with their money.

But as mid-August came and went attention focused on la rentrée — the great resumption of normal life. At least it had some panache — the French treated it as a happening in its own right: the tourist tide flowed up the beach and now it flowed back out.

Neither the mass migration nor la rentrée are what they used to be. Economic hard times and the 35-hour week have between them put paid to the traditional French way of doing summer. But there is certainly a British political rentrée as the party conference season beckons and, beyond it, the electoral cycle of 2009.

I suspect that Gordon Brown's private lament is: 'why can't they understand?' He would argue that the fundamental job of government is to make Britain as competitive as possible in a global economy that takes no hostages and from which you can't opt out, but to provide real help for those who lose out. The prime minister claims to have a solid track record in helping the worst-off, notably pensioners, and to be driven by the need to offer opportunity for all.

The accepted wisdom is that Mr Brown has difficulty stitching this together in a 'narrative'. But a narrative about what? The 10p tax rate debacle has compromised his claims to be the friend of the low paid and financially vulnerable while wanting to deliver opportunity for all. It is hardly a unique selling point — is there anyone who really campaigns on opportunity for a few? And messages about globalisation fall on the stony ground of rising energy and food prices.

One thing that would help the government would be to put a stop to the chaff of inconsequential political initiatives which demonstrate activity rather than action. The irony is that there are signs that the government is showing a bit more confidence — the discussion on social care for an aging population and welfare reform do matter. Alistair Darling, somewhat belatedly understanding the public mood, has read the riot act to colleagues on sticking to their budgets. Presumably another fight-back is planned. It had better be more convincing than the umpteen failed offensives up to now which have felt more like parody than politics.

David Cameron has also been gaining in confidence — enough to float the possibility of his leading a tax-raising government, a well-timed precautionary shot across the bows of the party's tax-cutting tendency from a leader on a political high. His message, of course, is that there is a huge mountain to climb.

The party must stick relentlessly to the mainstream on issues like health, the relief of poverty and the environment while showing greater responsiveness than the government to the public concern over the economy. Above all, he is keen to proclaim the message of radical social action to heal "Britain's broken society" with a fairly heterogeneous mixture of policies including support for the family, promoting social mobility, welfare reform (there won't be much clear blue water for the Tories here if work and pensions secretary James Purnell has his way) and busting the municipal monopoly on secondary schools.

With a party conference ready to eat out of his hand and a couple of juicy elections next May and June, Mr Cameron's rentrée will be full of promise.

Not so for the great Liberal Democrats wooer, Nick '30-something' Clegg. He knows that if Mr Cameron is to form a government he will need to wipe out about a third of the Lib Dem strength in the Commons. This may be something to do with Mr Clegg's bid to occupy the territory of tax cutting while simultaneously challenging for Labour votes in the north and the Midlands.
 
The truth is once the Tories got fed up with sitting in icy, but unrewarding, purity of the mountain tops with only themselves for company and tracked back down, suitably decontaminated, into the richly inhabited valleys of Middle England, the Lib Dems were always going to be in trouble. 
 
La rentrée for Mr Clegg will be fraught, with opportunity too often overshadowed by menace. Hey-ho, here we go again. Vive la rentrée!