David Cameron: intellectual?

Has Prospect's July cover story, "Gordon Brown: intellectual," started a mini-trend for attributing intellectual depths to politicians? In Monday's Independent, Bruce Anderson claimed that David Cameron, too, is an intellectual. "He has read and thought a great deal about politics and about the human condition," Anderson writes. Other evidence for the proposition? "It must be remembered that Mr Cameron got a first at Oxford without being a slave to his books."

Reading between the lines, we can see a contrast being implied between two intellectual types: on the one hand the bookish, "clunking" and "solipsistic" son of the manse; on the other the well-bred "son of the old rectory" who, in the best traditions of English upper-class effortlessness, breezed through Oxford, barely troubling to read a book, and still emerged with a first. But there is a big difference between being clever and being an intellectual. Cameron may be the first—but is he the second? Even Anderson seems to half-acknowledge that his case is pretty weak. His final sentence reads: "Mr Cameron must prove that he has intellectual weight."