Cameron takes on the “headless chickens” of government

Seems like Cameron’s debuted a new riposte to Brown’s “do-nothing” charge – accusing the government of behaving like “headless chickens”.  Here’s the Tory leader in his interview with the FT today:

“The Tory leader’s anger with the prime minister appears genuine. Mr Cameron has been stung by Mr Brown’s lampooning of the Tories’ ‘do-nothing’ approach to the recession. Accusing the government of behaving like ‘headless chickens . . . confusing activity with action’, he insisted that his party had been ‘pretty fast out of the box’ in adapting its economic strategy to reflect the downturn.”

Could it stick?  Well, here’s a revealing little snippet in Philip Stephens’ article, elsewhere in the FT, that may at least back up the claim:

“A Whitehall friend tells me that the atmosphere in Mr Brown’s Downing Street ‘war room’ is captured in the constant cry of: ‘Do something … do anything … do everything.; The big Whitehall departments are bombarded daily with demands for initiatives to be bundled up into the ‘New Deal’.”

Surely one of the greatest problems that Brown faces at the moment is how to prevent his Government appearing powerless and ineffective.  Yet the more he appears to do, the weaker he may well seem as the recession drags on through 2009 and, possibly, beyond.