During his first term as vice president of the United States, George Bush flew into London to speak at an American embassy lunch. It was a memorable occasion. During the meal itself, the noise of workmen assembling a portable podium prevented casual conversation. When the construction was complete, the vice president entertained his audience with a brief selection of his favourite platitudes. Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wondered, sotto voce, if such large preparation had ever before produced so small a result. When the ambassador announced that the vice president was willing to answer three questions, Denis Healey cried: "Good, I have three questions to ask." The first concerned the moral propriety of a superpower imposing its form of government on small nations. The concept was too complicated for Bush to comprehend. So Healey made the same point in less cerebral language. "When a man has electrodes fastened to his genitals, he is not consoled by the thought of an election in 10 year's time."  Some of the lunch guests disapproved of Healey's descent into the harsh realities of counter-insurgency. But everyone agreed that George Bush's address had been an embarrassment. Last Friday evening, watching the Republican convention on television, it was clear to me that the genes - augmented by what George W Bush had learnt at his father's knee - were working well. There was only one fundamental difference between George Bush's embassy address and the speech with which his son accepted the Republican nomination. Dad was better.  While George Bush was adjudged a catastrophe, George W was congratulated on a triumph - even by newspapers that should be more discriminating. It goes to show that, in the 20 years which separate the two events, life has changed. These days, politicians are expected to rely on vacuous generalities, and they win applause for anodyne assurances that are calculated not to cause offence. They are no longer judged on the courage of their convictions or the relevance of their policies.  Likely winners are good. Potential losers are bad. The encomiums that George W received were not for delivery or content. He did well because he said nothing to prejudice his opinion poll lead.  That is the only explanation for the praise which has been lavished on a speech that promised "a new beginning", the certain winner of the Cliche of the Century Competition. And it got worse. George W believes that "prosperity can be a tool in our hands used to build and better our country" - a stern reproof to anyone who believes that prosperity is a disaster that good presidents avoid. He went on to promise tax cuts "for everyone in every bracket", an undertaking so recklessly unattainable (without a massive penalty imposed on those who rely on state spending) that even the Conservative party has abandoned it. Not even William Hague at his worst would have intoned "The night is passing, we are awaiting for the day to dawn."  George W Bush is offering Americans the politics of nothingness. That must be a fraudulent prospectus. For Americans have the politics of nothingness already. And it looks as if Al Gore will follow in President Clinton's tradition. I give George W credit for planning to face the great issues. But he will deal with the needs of the poor and the demands of the minorities in a way that depresses rather than improves their condition. He cannot admit that now, because to do so would sacrifice the support of enlightened America as well as the votes of the minorities themselves. All credit to the country for that. But only odium for the candidate who, fearing the decent impulse, hides behind banalities.  No sensible person could have listened to the speech that George W Bush made in Philadelphia last week without realising what a tawdry manifesto he offers. It was delivered in the monotone of a man who had arrived too late to read the text in private before the public performance. Yet the style was superior to the substance. For it represented what the ad-men regard as the apotheosis (and decent people dismiss as the nadir) of new politics. It was the clear product of focus groups and opinion polls. But it made a nod to virtue by denouncing reliance on focus groups and opinion polls.  Perhaps the demand for "a bipartisan approach to governing" makes more sense in American politics than it does in Britain. But the commitment to "extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of the country" is clearly inconsistent with the aspirations of a presidential candidate who is a hostage to big business. It all adds up to stock market politics - the endorsement of a second-rate product as long as it is likely to provide the speculators with short-term dividends.