I have never been shy of saying that families are the cornerstone of our society, the rocks upon which our lives are built.

And on this day, the first Father’s Day since my own father died, I want to acknowledge just how important dads are to laying those foundations ...

My dad, who was disabled, also taught me about optimism – that no matter how bad things are, you can overcome them if you have the right frame of mind.

Indeed, if there’s one gift my father gave me that I cannot thank him enough for, it was his ability to always look on the bright side of life ...

From my mother ...

Dave claims to have learned from his mother ...

... an enduring sense of community and obligation. It may be unfashionable to talk about public service, but she taught me life was about more than making money.

This gem made me think of Sir Fred Goodwin, once-upon-a-time CEO at the Royal Bank of Scotland; Mr Adam Applegarth, late CEO of Northern Rock, and many others over the last few years who failed to demonstrate "an enduring sense of community, obligation and public service".

Your party has spent over thirty years destroying these values, Dave, and replacing them with the values of the market.

Since you are stuck in a fifties time warp, Dave, let me explain it to you in greater detail.

Since 1953 the, er, 'culture' of corporate consumerism - on which your government hopes to drive the recovery - has consumed not only monetary goals, but also social goals.

Relationships are now seen through the prism of the Hollywood A-list: the celebrity culture of envy-driven bogus 'needs' in which not only do clothes go in and out of fashion, so do partners.

This corporate-driven dystopia makes no impact on your fantasy world, Dave, because you are a set of walking platitudes, and the one about life being about more than making money is actually a denial of everything your party stands for.

Tel  19 June 2011

NHS changes: Critics 'not invited' to PM's meeting

Some of the fiercest critics of the planned NHS reforms in England say they have not been invited to a meeting about the changes with David Cameron.

The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing, which want the bill to be withdrawn, say they have not been asked to Monday's event ...

The Royal College of GPs also says it is not invited ...

BBC NEWS  18 Feb 2012    NHS 'Reforms'

David Cameron to launch attack on Britain's 'boozing scandal'

The Prime Minister will attack the “scandal of our society” caused by Britain’s drinking culture which costs the NHS more than £2.7 billion annually.

He will suggest that “innovative solutions” such as the US-inspired drunk tanks, more police on patrol in A&E departments and “booze buses” — vehicles staffed with paramedics who help intoxicated revellers — be supported by the Government.

Drunk tanks, popular in America, are prisons used to “house” drunk people overnight until they sober up, avoiding the need for them to be formally arrested and charged or taken to hospital.

Mr Cameron will say that responsible drinking needs to “become a reality” as he prepares to unveil curbs on excessive consumption of alcohol.

Next month, the Government publishes its alcohol strategy ...

Tel  15 Feb 2012    Do less, make it seem like more

Where Is Britain's New Alcohol Strategy?

Cameron To Tackle 'Scandalous' Alcohol Abuse

Cameron To Hold Racism In Football Summit

David Cameron: stop the madness of Europe red tape

'Mighty mouth' wants more precarity ... all workers should be on the same conditions as China's iPad workers

"Europe's lack of competitiveness is its Achilles heel."

He said: "In the name of social protection, the EU has promoted unnecessary measures that impose burdens on businesses and governments, and can destroy jobs.

"The Agency Workers Directive, the Pregnant Workers Directive, the Working Time Directive. The list goes on and on.

"And then there’s the proposal for a Financial Transactions Tax...

"Even to be considering this at a time when we are struggling to get our economies growing is quite simply madness." ...

Tel  26 Jan 2012    Coalition Log    Economic Democracy

Agency Workers    Are we on the same planet?

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad

Cameron moves to water down new EU job laws

Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore

Precarity

David Cameron will call for 'popular capitalism'

WTF are you drivelling on about now, Mr C?

I believe you got a first in PPE at Oxford, yet either you know nothing about capitalism, or you are pretending to a gullible public that you have the power, and the will, to roll out some UK version of West German Ordoliberalism, which existed before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and was driven out by the Washington Consensus.

The current version of capitalism confirms Marx dictum that competition leads to monopoly, which is in fact what is happening as any page on mergers and acquisitions will confirm.

SMEs represent real capitalism, Dave, but you and your Bullingdon Club friends are only interested in jobs in the corporate sector when you get tired of politics, or the voters - God help us - switch to the other corporate state party, jokingly known as the Labour Party.

As another blogger has correctly stated on here, what we have now is the corporate state, minus Mussolini's brand of nationalism.

It's the worst of all possible worlds.

David Cameron will set out his vision in a speech that is due to call for reforms to make capitalism more responsible.

He will argue that the Conservative agenda is well-placed to usher in a new era of moral capitalism.

The Prime Minister will say that the Tories are naturally opposed to monopolies and favour transparency in business as the best way to root out unacceptable practices.

Though he will promise to act to ensure excessive pay is tackled, he will insist on the benefits of free markets.

His address in London will come after Goldman Sachs disclosed that its staff pay and bonuses for 2011 totalled almost £8 billion.

Tel  19 Jan 2012

Cameron sets out vision for 'popular capitalism'

Dave's call for 'popular capitalism' is full of oxymorons ... "fair and free" ... and downright untruths ...

"That's the vision of a better, more worthwhile economy that we're building."

"We won't build a better economy by turning our back on the free market. We'll do it by making sure that the market is fair as well as free." ...

"I want these difficult economic times to achieve more than just paying down the deficit and encouraging growth. I want them to lead to a socially responsible and genuinely popular capitalism. One in which the power of the market and the obligations of responsibility come together. One in which we improve the market by making it fair as well as free, and in which many more people get a stake in the economy and share in the rewards of success. That's the vision of a better, more worthwhile economy that we're building." ...

"I believe that open markets and free enterprise are the best imaginable force for improving human wealth and happiness," said Mr Cameron. They are the engine of progress, generating the enterprise and innovation that lifts people out of poverty and gives people opportunity. And I would go further: where they work properly, open markets and free enterprise can actually promote morality ...

Ind  19 Jan 2012    Is Capitalism the only game in town?

Cameron is coming for the crony capitalists – whoever they are

Responsible Capitalism: Even the MoS is 'on message'.

David Cameron to anger City with plans to make shareholder remuneration votes mandatory

... the The Telegraph can reveal that Stephen Hester, the chief executive of the largely publicly owned Royal Bank of Scotland, is in line for a multi-million pound bonus this year.

Although a final decision has not been made, senior figures close to the situation have revealed that the board believe that Mr Hester deserves to be paid "the market rate" for his job.

Senior figures said that at present Mr Hester was being paid "very much in the bottom quartile" whereas the difficulty of the job re-organising the bank was "very much in the top quartile".

Last year, Mr Hester's package totalled £7.89m, comprising his £1.22m salary, a £2.04m annual share-based performance bonus, a £4.2m grant of stock under a long-term incentive plan, a £420,000 cash contribution to his personal pension scheme, and £8,000 in other benefits ...

Tel  07 Jan 2011

Greedy bankers to face prison ...

David Cameron: my vision for a fair Britain

In the interview, Mr Cameron outlined ...

A major reform of executive pay that would rein in what he called “crony capitalism”, where underperforming executives were seen to “fill their boots”.

Shareholders would have to approve salary packages and, crucially, pay-offs, instead of simply having advisory votes as at present ...

The measures on executive pay, which will be the subject of a consultation to be announced shortly by Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, represent the most significant moves yet on the issue.

They come as a new analysis from the IPPR think tank shows that chief executives in 87 of the FTSE 100 companies took home £5.1?million in basic pay, bonuses, share incentives and pension contributions in 2010-11.

However, there was not a corresponding rise in the value of their companies ...

Tel  07 Jan 2011

Labour urges 'responsible capitalism' in executive pay

Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said on Saturday that increasing transparency was the key to ensuring executives were not perversely rewarded for poor performance ...

Umunna called for simplified pay packages and the creation of a league table showing how much more chief executives earn than their staff.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that excessive executive pay was "systematic" of the "kind of capitalism that has grown up in the country over the last 30 years" ...

The Labour MP said that while there was not a "magic pill" to solve the problem a variety of measures, including increased transparency, simplified remuneration packages and the publication of pay ratios, would help create a better pay culture ...

Gdn  07 Jan 2012    A 'Greed is good' Wealth Log    Do less ...    Ed Miliband    George Osborne

David Cameron to anger City ...

David Cameron: the Church must shape our values

The Sermon on the Mount, or the Sermon on the Mound?

Mr Cameron said: "Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong. 'Live and let live' has too often become 'do what you please'.

"Bad choices have too often been defended as just different lifestyles. To be confident in saying something is wrong, is not a sign of weakness, it's a strength.

"One of the biggest lessons of the riots last summer is that we've got to stand up for our values if we are to confront the slow–motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations."

The Prime Minister said that Christian values were central to Britain and they should be "treasured", including responsibility, hard work, compassion and humility ...

The Prime Minister said that faith helped people to "have a moral code" and that it was correct to pass judgment on others ...

Tel  17 Dec 2011

Cameron calls for return to Christian values

Cameron told Church of England clergy gathered in Oxford that a return to Christian values could counter the country's "moral collapse" and blamed a "passive tolerance" of immoral behaviour for this summer's riots, Islamic extremism, City excess and Westminster scandals ...

Gdn  16 Dec 2011

'Economic justice is the number one moral issue in the Bible'

Tax avoidance trade puts Square Mile in spotlight again

Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions

The Sermon on the Mound

The Mote and the Beam

Nick Clegg must now face up to the true nature of his Coalition partner

An intriguing article. Both Cameron and Clegg emerge in a poor light.

Just as 'green' Dave has turned out to be brown, so EU-friendly-Dave is now 'on message' with the UKIP wing of his party.

Clegg emerges as naive, a man more anxious to please Cameron than the more astute members of his own party.

Both men emerge as ideologically vacuous. Or, if you refer, plain vacuous!

Cameron's period in government, and indeed his reaction to the 2008 economic crisis when he was still in opposition, show that in policy terms he is a child of Thatcher, unable to break free from her outdated spell while knowing he must give the impression that he has.

He was trying his best in the Commons yesterday to pull off this agonising contortion once more – the considerate, polite, constructive wrecker of Britain's relationship with Europe ...

On matters ranging from the spending cuts to NHS reforms, the Lib Dems have conflicting views. On Europe, they are united.

A coalition cannot be an end in itself even for ardent advocates of pluralist politics. The ends must relate to policy.

When does acute discomfort move towards an exit strategy? The answer I get from them all in government is that 2015 is still the date.

I suspect that in some form or other it will be earlier. At least it should be.

Ind  13 Dec 2011    Coalition Log    Losing Democracy Log    Nick Clegg: Orange Book Neoliberal

EU Summit Is Another Failure for ‘Austerity’

Dave Cameron's Incredible Journey

David Cameron says parents should take children to work during strikes

Will the teachers be on strike at Eton?

Asked about whether they were considering changes to the law, No 10 aides said “We are not at that stage,” adding: “It is never off the table.”

The source also indicated that No 10 staff could be among those who were able to bring their children to work.

She said: “Downing Street would be one of the places where if you want to bring your children, that could be arranged.”

Tel  23 Nov 2011

We shall shame schools that 'muddle through’

Dave's Daily Drivel: Today it's schools, tomorrow ... who knows?

... free schools ... revolutionising education ... what’s happening is fantastic ... shock troops of innovation ... smash through complacency ... relentless about combating entrenched failure ... sort out league tables ... toughening up exams ... freedom to make their own choices ...

Tel  14 Nov 2011    Education Log    Tory Education 'reform'

David Cameron goes to war on Britain's 'coasting schools'

Cameron seeks to push one million workers out of the public sector

With little fanfare, services across the country are being quietly taken over by private equity ...

With little fanfare, services across the country are being quietly taken over by their own staff – state funded but run independently.

The Prime Minister claims the number of services that adopt the scheme will be a key test of his Big Society vision ...

At least 45,000 health workers have already left the public sector under the programme, including 10,000 nurses ...

Julian Le Grand, Tony Blair's radical policy adviser who advocated introducing the market to the public sector, is heading the Government's mutuals task force ...

Ind  13 Nov 2011    Coalition Log    Outsourcing

John Lewis it is absolutely not

Care may suffer, admits private company taking over NHS hospital

David Cameron says ECB must act now

Cameron's rant-of-the-day is directed against that alleged source of all our troubles: the EU

Cameron said that the crisis had prompted the British government to prepare for a possible breakup of the eurozone.

"We meet at an alarming time for the global economy. Markets are incredibly volatile. The eurozone is in crisis.

"It is not in our interests for the eurozone to break up – for countries to leave the eurozone.

"We have to keep the British economy safe, to take the British economy through this storm. That means preparing for all eventualities." ...

Gdn  10 Nov 2011    Coalition Log

Brussels is stifling City of London, Cameron claims

'We’re sick of you telling us what to do'

Eurozone crisis is a handy excuse for faltering UK economy

Brussels is stifling City of London, Cameron claims

Dave is trying to ride several horses at once, and not necessarily in the same direction.

First off, he wants to protect the bankocracy - aka the City of London - since it's the only economy we've got.

Second, he wants to play to the UKIP Tendency within the Tory Party, but without actually holding a referendum.

Third, he wants to suggest to the voters - the ones that pick up the tab every time a bank screws up - that he shares the general concern about 'fat cat' greed

Option one, is the only show in town, since Dave's wants (a) to run the EU, and (b) pick and choose which EU rules Britain obeys.

Among the directives that have alarmed ministers are proposed new rules for hedge funds and limits on the scope of the work undertaken by the largest accountancy firms.

The eurozone members agreed in Brussels this week to press ahead with closer fiscal integration and to hold regular summits.

Britain accepts the logic of the moves, but has also stressed that it will challenge any attempt by the group to act as a caucus to champion solely its members' interests.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, agreed yesterday that some of the planned EU proposals on City regulation affected Britain "disproportionately".

He added: "We want to make sure there is a proper open level playing field for the City of London and for all British businesses in all sectors."

The prospect of new clashes over the City's future came as Mr Cameron condemned the excessive salary increases for senior executives ...

Ind  29 Oct 2011    Bankocracy Log    EU Log    Whither Britain? Log

Whitehall officials urgently review Britain's EU membership

St Paul's showdown: lawyers act to clear Occupy London camp

"Blessed are the peacemakers ... ...

Lawyers will serve notice on activists camped out around St Paul's Cathedral as early as Monday, as police also finalise plans to forcibly remove them if senior officers are convinced they are causing disruption ...

The prime minister said: "I'm all in favour of the freedom to demonstrate, but I don't quite see how the freedom to demonstrate has to include the freedom to pitch a tent almost anywhere you want to in London.

"These tents, whether they are in Parliament Square or St Paul's, I don't think it is the right way forward." ...

Gdn  28 Oct 2011    Bankocracy Log    Corporate State Log    Gordon Gekko    Third Meltdown Log

'Inarticulate protests'

Europe: the plates are shifting – and David Cameron risks being stranded

Fraser Nelson of the Spectator pens an insightful piece on Dave's European dilemma, and his backbench dilemma ...

One especially significant change is that principle has returned to the Commons.

Adam Holloway, who gave up his Government job to vote with the rebels, spoke for many when he talked of “a duty not to rebel against my constituents”.

MPs say this sort of thing all the time, but No 10 is starting to realise – with some alarm – that its new crop might actually mean it.

“David and George don’t understand how people can sacrifice their career for principle,” says one minister.

“For them, their career has been their principle.” ...

If Cameron’s choice is between a renegotiated membership, or leaving the EU entirely, he should be able to make common cause with Nick Clegg.

No friend of Europe can deny the need for radical reform. Der Spiegel recently put the problem succinctly.

The single currency, the magazine said, has not just pitted north against south, but political elites against the people they purport to represent.

Last week, Tory MPs made clear where their loyalties lie.

Cameron must now either defend the old order, or negotiate a settlement that the British public will accept.

The Prime Minister may not want this battle, but it is one he has no choice but to fight.

Tel  27 Oct 2011    George Osborne    Whither Britain? Log    

David Cameron: London is under constant attack from Europe

Tory revolt and the precariat

William Hague: 'we must repatriate laws from EU'

Nicolas Sarkozy tells David Cameron: 'We’re sick of you telling us what to do'

Semi-detached of Downing Street tells neighbours to get their act together

William Hague: 'we must repatriate laws from EU'

Hague and Cameron advocate traditional Tory 'have-it-both-ways' policy on Europe

Mr Hague, who vehemently argued against Britain's membership of the Euro while in opposition, has turned into the bloc's defender, warning that the proposed referendum would hurt Britain's economy.

Mr Cameron had suggested that if the eurozone countries sought greater integration in order to resolve the problems of the single currency - which would require the unanimous support of all 27 member states - the UK would "exact a price".

Asked whether he wanted to repatriate powers to the UK, Mr Hague said: "That is my position, that is the Prime Minister's position, it is the Conservative Party's position, that is not the agreed position of the coalition." ...

Tel  24 Oct 2011

David Cameron vows to reclaim EU powers amid looming Tory rebellion

The Prime Minister is to demand more British control over employment and social laws in return for supporting a new European treaty to shore up the single currency.

Although British taxpayers’ money will not be used for the new multi-trillion euro bail-out, it is expected to require a rewriting of EU treaties, which needs Britain’s backing and may prompt a referendum in this country.

Mr Cameron’s “repatriation of powers” offer came as the Conservative leadership was making a last-ditch attempt to stop at least 60 Tory MPs voting for a referendum on leaving the European Union in the Commons today ...

Tel  23 Oct 2011    Coalition Log    EU Log    

David Cameron, captain of a hostile team

Sarkozy tells Cameron: 'We’re sick of you telling us what to do'

Eurozone crisis is a handy excuse for faltering UK economy

Sarkozy tells Cameron to 'shut up' in euro clash

A more important stand-off, this time between France and Germany, over how to increase the fire-power of Euroland's dwindling €440bn bail-out fund, was resolved yesterday on German terms.

However, leaders of the 17 Eurozone nations called for more detailed study of two possible "models" for boosting the value of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to at least one trillion euros.

These included inviting other countries, or private investors, including China, to invest in a new fund to insure, or guarantee, the debts of larger EU nations such as Italy or Spain ...

Ind  24 Oct 2011    Bankocracy Log    China    EU Log

“Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money”

David Cameron warns that UK must not be frozen out of economic decisions

Facing a sizeable 'UKIP' block within his own party, and a largely sceptical media, Cameron has a very weak hand made, worse by his tendency to try and face both ways.

Explaining to the British people that Britain needs Europe more than Europe needs Britain is an agenda Cameron is unqualified to undertake.

At the EU summit in Brussels to discuss the eurozone crisis, the Prime Minister will warn that the euro's 17 members must not dictate policies for the 10 countries, including Britain, that have not joined the single currency.

His intervention reflects growing fears among British ministers that the 10 could be virtually frozen out of decisions that would have a huge impact on their economies – such as the single market, bank regulation and EU directives affecting small and large businesses ...

Ind  22 Oct 2011

Banks should accept a bigger loss on Greek debt

The report from Greece's international debt inspectors, which formed the basis for discussions at the finance ministers' meeting on Friday, says that in order to keep rescue loans from the eurozone to the €109 billion foreseen under a second bailout deal tentatively reached in July, Greece's debt would have to be cut by 60 percent ...

Ind  22 Oct 2011    Coalition Log    EU Log

Italy vs France

Cameron's fury at plan to curb rich backers

David Cameron has intervened directly in an independent inquiry into political funding to demand a more favourable outcome for the Conservatives and a severe clampdown on Labour's trade union donations.

The Independent has learnt that the Committee on Standards in Public Life is to propose a £10,000 cap on donations to parties by individuals and organisations to "take the big money out of politics" ...

Mr Cameron has made a last-minute appeal to the committee to revise its draft proposals.

The Tories, who have more rich donors than other parties, favour a £50,000 cap.

"Cameron has thrown his toys out of the pram," one independent source said. "We had a consensus and were ready to publish, and this has delayed it." ...

Ind  22 Oct 2011    Westminster Sleaze

Party Funding    Oliver Cromwell

Dinner with David Cameron reaps Tories £5m

Gas prices will continue to rise, industry bosses warn

Dave's latest "do less make it seem like more" initiative falls flatter than Pancake Tuesday

Phil Bentley, the managing director of British Gas, said ... that the “inconvenient truth” is that energy prices will continue to rise.

“In my opinion unit prices will only go one way unless someone discovers huge amounts of gas and imports it into the UK.

"The international price for gas, I am afraid, is going up,” he told the BBC ...

Tel  17 Oct 2011    Coalition Log    Energy Policy    

Huhne calls for consumers to switch energy suppliers

David Cameron to demand energy companies cut household bills

Government sets out plans to tackle rising energy costs

Cameron appoints Louise Casey to lead government response to riots

'Respect' meets Riots, meets the 'Big Society', which needs to be organised from Whitehall.

Perhaps Mary Portas could help when she has finished reporting on the High Street?

One of [Louise Casey’s] first tasks will be to ensure that all three departments work together to produce a programme that is tangible, and yet protects the localist agenda the Tories have advocated ...

More practically, she will have to assess quickly the extent to which organised gangs were a central force behind the riots ...

She will also need to handle the calls for parents of children found breaking the law to lose access to social housing or child benefit.

Behind the scenes there has been a Whitehall battle on whether magistrates courts should be able to dock the benefits of a parent if a child is found guilty of an offence.

Casey is currently the victims' commissioner, and has previously undertaken work from the Cabinet Office on public alienation from the closed world of the criminal justice system.

She has long been an advocate of greater rights for victims, and less tolerance of perpetrators of antisocial behaviour ...

Gdn  12 Oct 2011    Plato v Illich    Riots    The 'Big Society' Con    Tory Localism    

Police got it wrong on riots, says new Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe

Louise Casey appointed as Victims' Commissioner

TV's Mary Portas to head high street shops review

Too late for mere 'respect'

Anger at respect tsar's day of 'insults'

Cameron urges 'big bazooka' to stem eurozone crisis

More fiat dosh should get it sorted, Dave tells Merkel and Sarkozy ...

He said member countries of the euro had a "collective responsibility" to avert economic disaster and called on France and Germany to put aside their differences about pumping more cash into the region's banks ...

Tel  10 Oct 2011

David Cameron's 'big bazooka' idea leaves big questions unanswered

For leverage, read fiat money, read borrowing to pay off debts ...

It's worrying that Merkel and Sarkozy still seem to be stuck on bank recaps and a rewriting of the Greek bailout terms.

Those are widely agreed to be necessary conditions to unclog the crisis but Italy is the real worry since very little will be achieved by recapitalising Europe's banks if Italian sovereign bonds are still treated with deep suspicion by investors.

This is the territory where the big bazooka is most needed. Cranking up the EFSF from €440bn (£380bn) to, say, €1.5tn would certainly qualify as a big move.

It is probably impossible to raise such sums with up-front cash (the member states couldn't bear the strain) so leverage is the only option ...

Gdn  10 Oct 2011    Bankocracy Log    Eu Log

A Faustian Pact 3

The burden on Belgian and French taxpayers

So, just what's so great about David Cameron?

Is PR enough, Dave?

Are party shindigs too dear?

Lobbying firms spent thousands of pounds accrediting interns to "bum-sit" on the best seats in conference hotels for meetings between executives and MPs. Young staffers were accredited for party conferences just to reserve seating in hotel lobbies.

The disclosure will fuel calls for the party conference season to be scrapped as it has been overtaken by private companies and lobbyists. Some 7,000 out of the 11,000 passes sent out for the Tory conference were for journalists or lobbyists.

Last Sunday, a joint party held by the backbench 1922 Committee and the influential ConservativeHome website was sponsored by Peugeot. Party-goers had to listen to a 10-minute speech by a director of the car manufacturer before Defence Secretary Liam Fox addressed guests.

Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, has calculated that ordinary party activists are priced out of attending. He said: "It costs the average person £722 to attend Tory conference. When we went to places like Blackpool people could stay in B&Bs for £20 a night, but Manchester is twice, three, four times the amount and that is not affordable for the average member."

Ind  09 Oct 2011    A 'modern and compassionate party'

After cheap political point scoring comes an expensive reality

Quantitative easing is printing money by another name and is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.

Not my words, but those of George Osborne in early 2009 when he was still only shadow chancellor.

David Cameron, the then leader of the opposition, was also highly sceptical about quantitative easing ...

Speaking to the Conservative party conference of 2009, he warned:

"Sometime soon it will have to stop because in the end printing money leads to inflation."

That was then.

Now, with Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England warning that we face perhaps the greatest financial crisis in history, the time for cheap political point-scoring and comparisons with banana republics is over ...

Gdn  06 Oct 2011

David Cameron: better days lie ahead

Platitudes R Us
Cameron has become the political equivalent of the 'happy clappy' vicar ... all he needs now is a guitar accompaniment

David Cameron has insisted that “better days” lay ahead for Britain but that the nation would have to “show the world some fight” to emerge from the economic turmoil.

The Prime Minister said that the “time of challenge” could be turned into a “time of opportunity” as he compared the plight of Britain to that the country overcame following the end of the empire.

He called on Britons to show “spirit” and “confound the sceptics” and promised to help lead the country into recovery by harnessing the nation’s “can-do optimism”.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog,” the Prime Minister said.

Tel  05 Oct 2011

David Cameron calls for 'can-do' optimism

'Green' Dave has finally disappeared from view: he has zero awareness of peak oil - like nearly all politicians.

"Our plan is right. Our plan will work.

"I know that you can't see it or feel it right now. But think of it like this. The new economy we're building: it's like building a house. The most important part is the part you can't see - the foundations.

"Slowly, but surely, we're laying the foundations for a stronger future. But the vital point is this; if we don't stick with it, it won't work."

Mr Cameron rejected accusations that the Government has no plan for growth, insisting:

"Whatever it takes to help our businesses take on the world, we'll do it." Deficit reduction was "line one, clause one of our plan for growth" but the Government was ready to cut regulations, get credit flowing, invest and intervene to help business.

He cited firms producing Formula One cars, jumbo jet parts and information technology as the kind of businesses that would drive Britain's "new economy".

Ind  05 Oct 2011

David Cameron beats a hasty retreat

David Cameron embarked on a hasty rewrite of his speech to the Conservative conference on Wednesday after Downing Street took fright at overnight reports that he would instruct voters to pay off their credit card bills ...

Cameron was due to say:

"The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the credit card and store card bills." ...

In his speech, the prime minister ended up saying:

"The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That's why households are paying down their credit card and store card bills.

"It means banks getting their books in order. And it means governments, all over the world, cutting spending and living within their means."

Gdn  05 Oct 2011

Breezy optimism in the political bubble

... the vast crack in his rhetoric was self-evident: in effect, he was approximating the nothing-to-fear approach of Roosevelt, while extolling the fiscal stupidities of Herbert Hoover.

"So many of our communities are thriving – let's make the rest like them," he implored, as if mere derring-do could turn South Shields into Cambridge, and Nottingham into Notting Hill.

His pop at "can't-do sogginess" surely amounted to the grim spectacle of silver-spooned millionaire telling the rest of us to awaken an optimism completely contradicted by events ...

Gdn  05 Oct 2011    David Cameron Home Page

David Cameron: the digested speech

For want of a plan for tomorrow the Tories go back to yesterday

People who have seen drafts of his speech tell me that he will offer his empathy to voters who are suffering and suggest that he understands how cold it is for those shivering in the bitter winds of austerity.

His message will be: "I feel your pain."

This worked for Bill Clinton, but at the time he was running for office, not occupying it.

It is hard to convince voters that you feel their pain when you are leading the government which is presiding over it.

It is even harder when you cannot give them a convincing answer – because you simply don't know yourself – when the pain might start to ease.

It is tougher still when many voters don't regard you as one of them and suspect that you can't truly relate to their daily struggles ...

Gdn  01 Oct 2011    Coalition Log    

Working for nothing – the truth about low pay in the UK

Sharp rise in demand for food handouts

An ethical economy?

New Right piles the pressure on Cameron and Osborne

Europe has six weeks to find debt crisis solution, warns Chancellor George Osborne

"And if you don't get it sorted, I'm sending the Bullingdon Club round to throw flower pots through your windows!"

Speaking at the IMF meeting on Friday, UK Chancellor George Osborne ratcheted up the pressure on European leaders to solve the crisis by calling on them to bolster the European bail-out fund and declaring they have just six weeks to find solutions.

"Patience is running out in the international community... More needs to be done to avoid a disorderly outcome," he said, before referring to the next G20 meeting in Cannes on November 3 and 4.

"The eurozone has six weeks to resolve its political crisis." ...

steveinaustria
Europe's leaders must be shaking in their boots now that George has given them six weeks to find a solution to the debt crisis.

I suppose that means its bound to be fixed because if they don't sort it out in six weeks George is going to be very, very angry indeed and they wouldn't want to face that.

Tel  24 Sept 2011

Mr Cameron should be wary of strutting the world stage

Has Blair mentioned Iran to Dave?

It must have given David Cameron a great sense of occasion as he addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time yesterday evening, seeking to impress upon them the importance of showing the world's disapproval of brutal dictators through sanctions and military action.

Many will see it as more evidence that the Prime Minister is morphing into Tony Blair, who spoke in Chicago in 1999 about his belief in a "just war" in which the international community acted to stop genocide ...

For Blair, read Cameron, for Kosovo read Libya ...

Ind  23 Sept 2011    Cameron's Libya Resolution        

Cameron 'desperate' for Middle East peace

Dave lectures UN

Blair's secret Chequers talks with Cameron

David Cameron: I promise to protect the countryside

The word 'sustainable' means absolutely nothing to Cameron

The Prime Minister’s views on the Government’s controversial planning reforms are disclosed for the first time in a letter sent last night by Mr Cameron to the National Trust ...

A copy of Mr Cameron’s letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, reads:

“Let me say at the outset that I absolutely share and admire your commitment to the countryside, and wholeheartedly agree that policy-makers have an enormous responsibility to our environment.

“Both as Prime Minister, as a rural constituency MP, and as an individual, I have always believed that our beautiful British landscape is a national treasure.

“We should cherish and protect it for everyone’s benefit.”

Ministers are pushing through plans to replace more than 1,000 pages of planning regulations with just 52 in the National Planning Policy Framework.

The change is controversial because it writes into the rules a “presumption in favour of sustainable development” ...

Tel  20 Sept 2011    Coalition Log    Tory Planning 'Reform'    

Blair's secret Chequers talks with Cameron

Two peas out of the same pod ...

David Cameron is secretly receiving political advice on foreign affairs from Tony Blair – most recently on how to resolve the international deadlock over Palestinian statehood, The Independent has learnt.

Mr Cameron has buried party political loyalties and privately invited the former Labour Prime Minister to Chequers to discuss the impasse, according to Foreign Office sources.

The two men have since stayed in regular touch on the issue, as the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, prepares to submit a formal application to the United Nations for membership this week.

The Chequers meeting was set up at the request of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ...

Ind  20 Sept 2011

Friends in high places

Every year a very grand lunch is given by the Conservative Friends of Israel at a central London hotel. Anyone who is anyone in the Conservative party makes it their business to be there. It is normally addressed by the party leader.

This year's event took place in June, with the main speech by David Cameron, and the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, in attendance.

The dominant event of the previous 12 months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

We were shocked Cameron made no reference in his speech to the massive destruction it caused, or the 1,370 deaths that resulted, or for that matter the invasion itself.

Indeed, our likely future prime minister went out of his way to praise Israel because it "strives to protect innocent life" ...

This remark was not intended satirically ...     [Gdn]

Middle East Peace Process    Tony Blair    

The Politics of Anti-Semitism

Labour Friends of Israel

Pro-Israel lobby group bankrolling Tories, film claims

"I am proud ... to be ... a Conservative Friend of Israel"

CFI

Revealed: secret government plans to win back women

Vouchers to start with maternity??

Downing Street is considering cutting the school summer holiday ...

Other measures raised include:

• Front-loading child benefit to help parents struggling with childcare and lost earnings in their children's first years.

• Working towards a "proper" ban on advertising to children.

• Introducing new personal budgets for maternity services to allow women to shop around for the services that meet their needs.

• Developing a new strategy – "including possible cross-party work" – to ensure there are more female candidates for mayoral posts, elected police commissions and local enterprise partnerships.

• Changing plans for the new universal credit to give it to women as a default, instead of allowing the applicant to nominate a household member.

• Setting up a new website to allow women to anonymously disclose and compare their salaries with others in their industry.

• Criminalising forced marriage because the "signals sent out by opting not to criminalise is a bad one".

• Holding a No 10 summit for women in business. "We haven't had one yet," it acknowledges ...

Gdn  13 Sept 2011    Coalition Log    

David Cameron in push to dilute ICB ring-fence reforms

'Reform' will be of the "light touch" variety - like Gordon Brown's presumably!

'Divi' and his Chancellor clearly believe - as the planning 'reforms' confirm - that the country is stuck with housing bubbles - financed by fiat currency - as a substitute for rebalancing the economy away from the City.

Senior Whitehall sources have revealed that the Prime Minister believes he will now have to "take over" the banking debate and explain why he believes economic growth should come ahead of more regulatory upheaval.

The sources have made it clear that it is not just about delaying any reforms but that the reforms themselves need to be fundamentally re-thought.

The Prime Minister wants to focus on what has been achieved on bonuses, lending and other banking reforms and make it clear to the markets that the Government backs the UK's banks.

Although there will still be some form of ring-fencing, which the Chancellor has already backed, it will be of a "light-touch" variety ...

Tel  03 Sept 2011    Banking Commission    Bankocracy Log    Coalition Log

Fresh hope for banks as David Cameron takes charge

Ring-fencing banks is not the answer

Cameron aims to extend citizen service scheme in aftermath of riots

Cameron said the riots had made him reconsider his plans.

"Before the riots we were already looking to roll this out across the country, with up to 30,000 teenagers taking part next year, but after the riots, I feel our ambitions weren't big enough," he said.

"I want the national citizen service to be available to every teenager after GCSEs.

"I want them to learn that they can make a difference in their communities and that real fulfilment comes not from trashing things or being selfish but by building things and working with others."

Cameron's idea is likely to be popular.

According to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, 77% of people would support national citizen service being compulsory for young people.

Cameron said he wanted the police to be more visible on the streets.

"We need a stronger police presence on the streets, deterring crime and catching criminals instead of filling in forms or wasting time on phony targets.

"That is what people want." ...

Gdn  21 Aug 2011

Acevo sceptical over David Cameron's proposal to extend National Citizen Service

Peter Kyle, deputy chief executive of Acevo, told Third Sector:

"It seems crazy that a part of the solution would lie in a programme that will benefit teenagers in the shires as it will those in Brixton and Tottenham.

"The riots happened in different places for different reasons, and although it is tempting for the government to respond with a centralised programme, this should be avoided." ...

Kyle said charity chief executives briefly discussed government funding cuts at the meeting and were likely to raise the issue in further talks about how the sector can respond to the riots.

He stressed, however, that their first priority was helping to address the social problems that lay behind the riots.

Bubb’s letter also calls for "evidence-based policy making" and a willingness to understand the socio-economic context in which the riots took place ...

ThirdSector  17 Aug 2011    Big Society    Riots    

Human Rights In My Sights

Mandelson 'Eyeing up £8M Property'

Afghanistan suicide bomb

They escaped unhurt but were said to be traumatised by the horrific assault, which coincided with a public holiday marking Afghanistan's independence from Britain in 1919.

Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the "vicious and cowardly attack" and said the "tragic loss of life" would not stop Britain carrying out its work in Afghanistan ...

The British Council is a partly government-funded agency which runs mainly cultural programmes.

Tel  19 August 2011    War on Terror Log

Sailor ... jailed for seven months

British Council attack exposes weakness of Afghan security transition strategy

Kabul attack will not stop British effort in Afghanistan

David Cameron: 'vital work in Afghanistan comes at high price'

Cameron uses riots to target 'feckless'

... the welfare bill, as a percentage of GDP, is roughly the same as when Labour took power in 1997 – despite a recession, inevitable higher unemployment and the spluttering economy.

But to convince voters that Britain is broken, the prime minister is pushing social policy based on ideology rather than evidence.

It is a belief system that will do little to help the people who need it.

Gdn  16 Aug 2011    Riots    Welfare 'Reform'    

Atos doctors could be struck off

UK banks fund deadly cluster-bomb industry

David Cameron confronts Britain's 'moral collapse'

More froth on the 'broken society' from Thatcher Mark V. The Tory combo of feudalism and neoliberalism is exactly what corporate capital requires: a docile workforce, backed up by workfare, with the permanent threat of dropping from the workforce layer to the workfare layer if you cannot cope with precarity.

Meanwhile, in the top layer - the global 'players' - it's snouts in the trough.

Lectures on the 'moral collapse' are strictly for the serfs.

Mr Cameron will say today that the riots have been a “wake-up call” for Britain after decades in which social problems have been allowed to “fester”.

The riots were the result of a litany of social and cultural problems, he will say, blaming irresponsibility and selfishness that lead some people to behave “as if your choices have no consequences”.

Mr Cameron will also blame “children without fathers; schools without discipline; reward without effort; crime without punishment; rights without responsibilities; communities without control”.

Mending that “broken society”, Mr Cameron will say, is his fundamental aim in politics.

“Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations,” he will ask.

“Do we have the determination to confront all this and turn it around?

“I have the very strong sense that the responsible majority of people in this country not only have that determination; they are crying out for their government to act upon it. And I can assure you, I will not be found wanting.” ...

Tel  15 Aug 2011    Riots    FYB Log

Cameron vows to 'turn around' 120,000 troubled families by 2015

UK riots: relations between police and ministers sink to new low

Riots: the political battle lines are drawn

Thinking the unthinkable

Brilliant blue skies? Or bonkers? Steve Hilton, the prime minister's thinker-in-chief, is a bit of both.

Perhaps the UK could just ignore EU regulations on temporary workers, suggested the T-shirt-clad head of strategy? ...

How about abolishing all government press officers and replacing them with a single blogger per department?

Abolish all consumer rights?

Close all Job Centres?

Then the most toxic: abolish maternity leave in order to encourage employers to take on more women (follow the logic?).

And, finally everyone's favourite: use technology to separate the clouds and bring in more sunshine ...

... there is one gaping flaw in the Government's understanding of the new wave of tech-based entrepreneurialism.

Facebook and Twitter embrace not just this new mood but also a more pronounced sense of equity.

And it is this that is so lacking in Cameron's approach to economic austerity.

The supine bailout of the bankers and the servility towards the Murdochs proved that we are not all in it together.

The pain has been shared out, in varying degrees, among the mainstream population, but not among the very wealthy and the obscenely wealthy.

The reason Hilton's reported remarks about abolishing maternity leave strikes such a nerve is that it reinforces a view that the wealthy can dictate the terms and that deregulation is designed solely for this purpose ...

Ind  29 July 2011    Coalition Log    'We're all in it togther'    

Cameron's blue-sky thinker has his head in the clouds

The dangers of ranging too widely

It is easy to see where David Cameron is going with this inquiry: the matter of 'losing focus' will be wholely intentional.

The real issues - media plurality and diversity of ownership - will not be touched upon.

The press must remain the tool of corporate interests, and the BBC must get another hammering.

The Leveson inquiry is already in danger of losing its focus.

David Cameron announced to Parliament yesterday that the remit of Lord Justice Leveson's investigation of the press will be extended to include the BBC and social media.

It is difficult to see what this expansion will accomplish, except to bog down the inquiry and to make its recommendations less focused than they would otherwise have been ...

Ind  22 July 2011    Corporate Media    Losing Democracy    

Why tabloid journalism matters

The Leveson Inquiry: A Last Chance?

Phone hacking inquiry panel

Lord Justice Leveson

Ed Llewellyn: The old school chum in trouble for not communicating

Yesterday was a good day to slip out the news that David Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, is one of three special advisers working in Downing Street on a salary of £140,000 a year ...

... Mr Cameron's old school chum ... is now doubly in the line of fire after John Yates ... revealed that Mr Llewellyn was the Downing Street official who asked him not to talk to Mr Cameron about phone hacking.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that Mr Llewellyn's name has entered the phone-hacking saga.

It has also emerged that The Guardian's deputy editor, Ian Katz, passed a warning about the News of the World ex-editor Andy Coulson to Mr Cameron's adviser Steve Hilton, who passed it on to Mr Llewellyn.

Under Mr Coulson's editorship, he was told, the NOTW had hired a private detective with a criminal record.

Mr Llewellyn apparently did not pass the message on – and Mr Coulson was hired to be Mr Cameron's top spin doctor ...

Ind  20 July 2011    Andy Coulson    Corporate State Log    Losing Democracy

Latest Updates on Phone Hacking Scandal

The Commons Home Affairs Committee "deplores" ...

10 questions from the Guardian to Downing Street

Hacking crisis edges closer to Cameron

Chief of staff at Downing Street 'rejected the offer of Scotland Yard briefing'

David Cameron under fire over Andy Coulson's visit to Chequers

Number 10 disclosed Coulson's visit to Chequers as it published details of all of Cameron's contacts with media proprietors and executives since the election ...

Gdn  15 July 2011    Andy Coulson    Corporate State Log    Losing Democracy

Corporate Media    Rupert Murdoch        

The great Murdoch conspiracy

Cameron's 26 meetings in 15 months with Murdoch chiefs

Cameron fails to solve his Coulson problem New Statesman 08 July 2011
Coulson arrested over tabloid scandal blnz.com 07 July 2011
David Cameron: Andy Coulson should be prosecuted if he lied over phone hacking Telegraph 13 July 2011
Cameron's defence on Coulson: the 'second chance' Guardian 08 July 2011
Rusbridger: 'I warned David Cameron over Coulson link' BBC NEWS 08 July 2011
Cameron defends Andy Coulson Guardian 05 October 2010
Coulson taints Cameron - 050910 Independent 05 September 2010
Tories reject call to axe Coulson BBC NEWS 10 July 2009
Andy Coulson, Holding court with Cameron PR Week 03 July 2008
The right man for the job Guardian 01 June 2007

David Cameron under fire over Andy Coulson's visit to Chequers

Number 10 disclosed Coulson's visit to Chequers as it published details of all of Cameron's contacts with media proprietors and executives since the election ...

Gdn  15 July 2011    Andy Coulson    Corporate State Log    Losing Democracy

Corporate Media    Rupert Murdoch        

The great Murdoch conspiracy

Cameron's 26 meetings in 15 months with Murdoch chiefs Independent 16 July 2011
Cameron fails to solve his Coulson problem New Statesman 08 July 2011
Coulson arrested over tabloid scandal blnz.com 07 July 2011
David Cameron: Andy Coulson should be prosecuted if he lied over phone hacking Telegraph 13 July 2011
Cameron's defence on Coulson: the 'second chance' Guardian 08 July 2011
Rusbridger: 'I warned David Cameron over Coulson link' BBC NEWS 08 July 2011
Cameron defends Andy Coulson Guardian 05 October 2010
Coulson taints Cameron - 050910 Independent 05 September 2010
Tories reject call to axe Coulson BBC NEWS 10 July 2009
Andy Coulson, Holding court with Cameron PR Week 03 July 2008
The right man for the job Guardian 01 June 2007

David Cameron is not out of the sewer yet

I can reveal exactly how Cameron was, against his better judgment, drawn into Murdoch’s inner circle – thus building a range of associations that have brought disgrace to 10 Downing Street, the British government and Mr Cameron himself ...

... when Osborne threw his 40th birthday party at Dorneywood several weeks ago, the place was apparently knee deep in News International figures ...

Only last weekend Matthew Freud, the PR tycoon who is married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, threw a party in his Cotswold home.

Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey – both semi-detached members of the Chipping Norton set – were both in attendance.

Showing characteristic lack of judgment, Vaizey was reportedly seen at this party deep in conversation with James Murdoch ...

There are members of the Cameron circle who have always warned against the consequences of the Murdoch alliance ...

Another sceptic has been Nick Clegg ... who sadly has been too weak to speak up ...

Tel  08 July 2011    Ed Miliband    Losing Democracy    Tony Blair        

David Cameron: allegations of Milly Dowler phone hacking are 'truly dreadful'

Mr Cameron seems to have forgotten that he appointed a key figure from News International as his press officer.

He also seems unaware of the fact that ADC John Yates, a senior figure in our 'independent' police ...

... lunched with the NOTW's former deputy editor, Neil Wallis, in February, shortly after the new inquiry into the illegal accessing of voicemails by the paper began on 26 January ... [Ind]

Mr Cameron told a news conference ...

“What I have read in the papers is quite, quite shocking ...

“There is a police investigation into hacking allegations. The police in our country are quite rightly independent.

“But they should feel they should investigate this without any fear, without any favour, without any worry about where the evidence should lead them.

“They should pursue this in the most vigorous way that they can in order to get to the truth of what happened.

“I think that is the absolute priority as a police investigation.” ...

I'm sure he has Rupert Murdoch's full backing.

Tel  05 July 2011

Andy Coulson    Corporate Media    Rupert Murdoch

Soham families contacted by police

Time for a public inquiry?

'There's no reason to join the Tories ... '

Is it that the coalition is not right wing enough? Surely the LibDems would get the blame for that. So there must be other reasons for The Dacre to turn on Cameron. Perhaps they want him replaced by someone less like Tony Blair? I'm only guessing here, but the fact that Cameron is on the receiving of three attacks in the same paper is more than interesting.

Most will be made - for obvious reasons - of the reported attack by his constituency chairman, Christopher Shale (RIP) :

In a strategy document seen by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Shale admits that at present there’s ‘no reason to join. Lots of reasons not to’.

The paper, of which Cameron is aware, presents a scathing assessment of the social skills and fundraising efforts of his association ...

The plan is brutally frank about the failings of the constituency party. Shale writes that ‘collectively we are not always an appealing proposition’.

He slams the association’s fundraising efforts, saying: ‘Over the years we have come across as graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take.’ ...     [MoS]

This piece by an 'anonymous Tory MP' paints a picture of a nasty Machiavellian bully surrounded by toadies:

I hoped the biggest intake of Conservative MPs in many years would cleanse Parliament, bringing new blood to make the Commons a better place.

But for many established MPs, there was a niggling doubt. Historically, it was a source of pride to me that anyone from any walk of life or social background could become a Tory MP.

The last Election was very different. David Cameron and George Osborne cynically manipulated the list of candidates to ensure constituencies had a much narrower range to choose from.

Top of the list were their friends who went to the same school or moved in the same social circle. Or women with degrees from smart universities who could glide through the Tory death-by-canapé drinks parties with flawless received pronunciation ...

Speeches Cameron made before the Election about a new politics gave us great hope.

But before too long, the less appealing side to his character became clear as he displayed an immature tendency to poke fun at certain individuals or groups of MPs ...

When the expenses furore exploded in 2009, Cameron launched a hypocritical and appalling attack on veteran Conservative MP Bill Cash ...

He said Cash had ‘questions to answer’. He didn’t. He was clean as a whistle and threatened Cameron with legal action to prove it ...

Last week, things took a nasty turn as Mark Pritchard, MP for The Wrekin, brought forward a motion to ban live animals from circuses ...

First, Mark was offered incentives to drop his motion. Then it got ugly as No 10 telephoned, threatened and bullied him ...

When Mark used the debate in the Commons on Thursday to expose how the whips and No 10 had behaved, it was instructive to watch the body language of some of the ‘gissa job’ Tory MPs from the 2010 intake ...

Cameron’s quasi-Machiavellian later response, laughing off accusations of bullying and dismissing the debate as a storm in a tea cup, is a mark of his contempt for MPs and the public ...     [MoS]

Finally, there's Peter Hitchens, irrascible as ever, attacking Dave's Afghanistan policies ...

As Dave ‘does the talking’, war dead are sneaked out of the back gate The flag-wrapped coffins of dead servicemen are to be driven out of the back gate of RAF Brize Norton when it takes over from Lyneham (a few weeks from now) as the arrival point for the fallen.

They will then be routed down side roads to avoid nearby Carterton – a town almost exactly the same size as Wootton Bassett – and make their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford along A-roads and bypasses.

There’ll be a small guard of honour near the hospital entrance (there already is) but somehow or other the cortege won’t go down any High Streets ...

And despite the Prime Minister’s oily award of the title ‘Royal’ to Wootton Bassett, you can bet that he’d much rather the public scenes of grief and remembrance in that place had never happened, and that nobody noticed the frequent deaths his weakness and political cowardice are causing.

In the same way, the Defence Ministry has almost completely succeeded in covering up the appalling numbers of men who have been gravely injured in Afghanistan because the Government hasn’t the guts to quit this meaningless war.

We hardly ever see them.

Were they all to be assembled in one photograph, the nation would demand instant withdrawal and probably get it ...     [MoS]

The lasting impression created by these three articles is that News International has had enough of Cameron, but has not yet decided who replaces him, or how that is to be done.

For now it seems to be enough just to destabilise him.

   

Tory's death sparks debate among members

£10bn 'black hole' means new defence cuts loom

The financial “mismatch” is larger than all the defence cuts announced in last year’s Spending Review, and has raised fears of another round of painful reductions in the Armed Forces.

The MoD’s budget, £33.8 billion this year, is being cut by 8 per cent over four years.

The department has concluded that those cuts will still not be enough to balance the budget, meaning that unless the Treasury increases defence spending to fill the gap, more cuts will be required.

The shortfall concerns the MoD’s budget from 2015, but sources said that without a promise of more money now, ministers will soon have to start cutting and cancelling programmes due to be delivered later ...

Tel  24 June 2011    Coalition    Dave's Libya Resolution    

RAF chief Sir Simon Bryant in warning over Libya

The RAF's ability to deal with future emergencies is under threat if British intervention in Libya continues beyond September, MPs have been warned ...

[Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant] ... the RAF's second in command, said morale among airmen was "fragile" and their fighting spirit was being threatened by being over-worked ...

According to the briefing paper, ACM Bryant warned MPs in May that many areas of the RAF were "running hot", while servicemen's sense that the nation valued their efforts was being undermined by the coalition's defence cuts.

He said the air force was also finding it difficult to recruit staff, with many specialist posts up to a quarter understaffed and recruitment to RAF reservists at a nine-year low ...

BBC NEWS  21 June 2011    Coalition    Dave's Libya Resolution

Prolonged Libya effort unsustainable, warns Navy chief

Prolonged Libya effort unsustainable, warns Navy chief

The head of the Royal Navy has warned that the fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise.

Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, said the navy had planned for a six-month commitment but that the government would have to make "challenging decisions" about what it wanted to do thereafter.

Stanhope also conceded that if the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets had not been mothballed last year, they would have been deployed to the Mediterranean.

This would have been cheaper – and made operations more reactive – than flying planes from the Italian base at Gioia del Colle ...

Gdn  13 June 2011    Coalition Log

Dave's Libya Resolution

Vaccine funds

Money no object if it makes Dave look like a philanthropic world statesman

At the Gavi pledging conference on Monday, the UK and the Gates foundation emerged as its top donors. Who are Gavi's leading benefactors, past and present? ...

JoelGill
13 June 2011 4:47PM

The increased funding from the UK and all involved to combat deaths as a result of diarrhoeal diseases and pneumonia should be welcomed.

However the vaccination to reduce the number of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases is only for those cases caused as a result of the rotavirus, accounting for on average 39% of childhood hospitalisations as a result of diarrhoeal diseases.

In order to fully address the problem of diarrhoeal diseases there also needs to be significant investment in, and political prioritisation of access to clean and safe water, improved sanitation and more hygiene promotion (WASH).

Simple measures such as increasing handwashing can reduce the number of deaths by anything between 33-44% – but this requires investment in sanitation facilities, community hygiene workers and education programmes.

Investment in clean water supplies is also fundamental to reducing the risk of disease. Oral rehydration cannot be done without clean and safe water and dirty water carries bacteria and viruses, which can result in serious disease and adverse effects on health.

Funding for immunisation programmes should go alongside funding for this important sector, in order to most effectively and efficiently combat diarrhoeal diseases.

Joel Gill
Geology for Global Development

Gdn  13 June 2011    Aid

GAVI Alliance

Gavi Alliance

U turn if you like ...

In the latest of a series of interventions by the Prime Minister, he ordered Mr Clarke to abandon his much criticised plan to allow a 50 per cent reduction in sentences in return for guilty pleas.

The move threatens to throw the Justice Department’s budget into chaos, as shorter sentences are crucial for meeting the demands of a tough spending round, which saw Mr Clarke agree to make 40 per cent cuts ...

Tel 08 June 2011

Follow the money

Kenneth Clarke: out of touch with Tory instinct for tough sentences

The Patients Association, hearing hundreds of stories from people complaining of delayed and cancelled operations, put in freedom of information requests to every acute NHS Trust in England in January, asking about nine common surgical procedures including hip and knee replacements. Among the 62 Trusts that replied, it concluded, 10,757 patients had not received an operation because they were unfortunate enough to need it in 2010 instead of 2009 ...

Gdn 08 June 2011

NHS waiting times for diagnostic tests increase despite Cameron's pledge

David Cameron: 'NHS waiting times will not go up'

David Cameron’s Five Pledges To Save NHS

Cameron says G8 nations have not met aid promises

"The UK will not balance its books on the backs of the poorest"

Speaking at the G8 summit in France, the UK prime minister said there was a $19bn gap between what had been pledged and what had been delivered.

He vowed to be "tough" on world leaders over the issue and to continue to make the argument to the British people that foreign aid was vital to UK interests.

"The UK will not balance its books on the backs of the poorest," he said.

He was speaking after the UK pledged £110m in additional support for Egypt and Tunisia as part of a £20bn package of economic aid for countries in North Africa which have embraced political reform in the "Arab Spring" uprisings ...

BBC NEWS  27 May 2011

'We're all in it together

TV's Mary Portas to head high street shops review

Have you got Tesco onside, Dave?

Prime Minister David Cameron said high streets had to become more "vibrant and diverse" in an effort to survive ...

Ms Portas will present her report to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the aim being "to identify what government, local authorities and businesses can do to promote the development of more prosperous and diverse high streets" ...

BBC NEWS  17 May 2011    Coalition Log

G8 summit: UK offers Egypt and Tunisia £110m to boost democracy

He's quite a generous guy with the borrowed stuff, is our Dave ...

Britain is to set aside £110m over the next four years to foster democracy and economic growth in Tunisia and Egypt as part of a wider international package to show support for the Arab spring.

David Cameron, speaking on the opening day of the G8 summit of leading economies in Deauville, Normandy, argued that if Britain did not help the fledgling democracies of north Africa the result would be poisonous extremism and waves of illegal immigration into the UK ...

Gdn  26 May 2011    War on Terror Log        

G8 summit: aid package for Arab spring tops agenda

Cameron pledges £40m for polio vaccines at Davos

TV's Mary Portas to head high street shops review

Prime Minister David Cameron said high streets had to become more "vibrant and diverse" in an effort to survive ...

Ms Portas will present her report to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the aim being "to identify what government, local authorities and businesses can do to promote the development of more prosperous and diverse high streets" ...

Mr Cameron said: "The high street should be at the very heart of every community, bringing people together, providing essential services and creating jobs and investment; so it is vital that we do all that we can to ensure they thrive.

"That is why I am delighted that Mary Portas has agreed to take on this review and I am confident that her straight-talking, no-nonsense approach will help us to create vibrant and diverse town centres and bring back the bustle to our high streets." ...

BBC NEWS  17 May 2011    Coalition Log

PM vows to stop 'cherry picking' of NHS

Private providers of NHS care are likely to face a "training levy" to help ensure they do not "cherry pick" patients in ways that will destabilise existing hospitals, David Cameron ... said on Monday ...

Mr Cameron promised that, while there will be more choice and competition in the revised NHS, "we must have a system the encourages integration and collaboration and integrates pathways of care rather than breaking them up."

FT  16 May 2011    Coalition Log

NHS 'Reforms'    

NHS reforms: get ready for Plan B

Porritt attacks Cameron's 'green' record

Jonathon Porritt, former chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, warned that policies which would have enabled the Government to deliver its green pledges are being delayed, watered down or abandoned.

The commission was abolished in March and there is now no official body taking stock of the Government's record on the environment ...

Ind  07 May 2011

Is the coalition eco-friendly?    The Carbon Plan    Where's green Dave now?

How well has the coalition done on the environment?

Green failure for the UK is on the way

Sustainable development, RIP

Businesses and campaigners attack coalition's environmental record

Five years ago this week, Cameron's photogenic husky ride across the snowy Norwegian island of Spitzbergen was intended to give voters a glimpse of a different kind of Tory leader and was part of his strategy of detoxifying the brand.

And just three days after forming the coalition he declared that he would be the "fourth minister" at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, adding: "I mean that from the bottom of my heart."

In that speech he said that the government would back green industries to drive economic growth, adding that the UK needed to "make sure we have our share of the industries of the future".

Now, though, many of the business leaders and investors whom the government is relying on to deliver that growth are becoming increasingly frustrated ...

Jonathon Porritt, whose Sustainable Development Commission was axed within months of the coalition coming to power, described government performance on green issues as "really thin" ...

Gdn  22 Apr 2011

How well has the coalition done on the environment?

UK slips down global green investment rankings

The new, green economy falls to the old politics

Disabled charity that helped Cameron's son loses out in cuts

David Cameron's commitment to protecting disabled services in the UK has been criticised after a charity of which he is a patron had its funding cut by £250,000.

The Kids charity helped the Prime Minister look after his son but has had its support reduced as a result of local government funding cuts.

Last night, Mr Cameron faced further criticism after it emerged that an £800m grant for disabled services announced in December could be spent on other projects ...

The charity, which also boasts Sir Elton John and Cherie Booth as patrons, has had its funding cut by four local councils after their budgets from central government were slashed. An £80,000 project to help 28 children enjoy leisure activities in Blackburn and Darwen has been scrapped, as has a £78,000 project in Wigan.

A £72,000 scheme for more than 100 under-fives in East Yorkshire also faces the axe. All the councils blamed the scrapping of the schemes on funding cuts from central government.

A spokesman for No 10 said Mr Cameron was still committed to top quality disability care and blamed the decisions on individual councils.

Ind  19 Apr 2011

Dave in an oxymoron over immigration

It's not only a matter of the Prime Minister jumping into bed with the BNP - and the English Defence League - which is so deplorable, it's also the 'jump on any passing bandwagon' routine - which has been a constant feature of his politics from day one - his very loose acquaintance with facts; and the blithe lack of concern for the oxymorons involved, that raise questions over both his intellect, and his contempt for the voters.

His latest oxymoron concerns immigrants. According to the Guardian ...

David Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a "kind of discomfort and disjointedness" which has disrupted communities across Britain ...    [Gdn]

On the same date the Guardian reported that ...

... teachers of English said new rules, devised by the coalition government, would mean far fewer immigrants could afford to learn basic English. From autumn this year, the government will only fund classes in basic English to immigrants on jobseeker's allowance and employability skills allowance. Those claiming income support and other benefits will no longer be able to attend classes for free ...     [Gdn] 14 Apr 2011

Dave-in-a-strop with Oxford University

Immigration speech was a dog-whistle for the right

Like the good PR man he is, David Cameron has made great efforts to convince the country that his party reflects and celebrates modern, multicultural Britain.

While in opposition there was the carefully stage-managed promotion of non-white Tory candidates; during the pre-election leaders' debates he spoke of his conversation with "a 40-year-old black man" to add credibility to his views on immigration – and just last week he criticised Oxford University for failing to admit enough black students.

But on Thursday Cameron showed that he is happy to invoke the rhetoric of Enoch Powell when it suits him, railing against the threat to society posed by the "largest influx" of immigrants in British history.

In his speech, delivered to Conservative party members in Hampshire, Cameron declares he wants to "cut through the extremes" of the debate on immigration ...

This is an utterly hypocritical position to take when the government is about to make harsh cuts to teaching of English for speakers of other languages.

In 2007, Labour restricted free English lessons to people on benefits; now, these will only be available to those on "active benefits" such as jobseeker's allowance. Low-paid workers on income support, asylum seekers and spouses – the very people Cameron devotes his attention to in his speech – will no longer be eligible ...

Gdn  14 Apr 2011

Top

Peer attacks Cameron over Oxford race comments

Cross-bencher Baroness Deech described the Prime Minister's claims that only one black undergraduate was admitted by Oxford last year as "damaging and ill-informed".

The peer was the latest person to hit back at the Prime Minister after the university accused Mr Cameron of using "highly misleading" figures.

Mr Cameron caused outrage when he told an audience in Harrogate, North Yorkshire on Monday:

"I saw figures the other day that showed that only one black person went to Oxford last year.

"I think that is disgraceful, we have got to do better than that."

Aides to the Prime Minister later accepted that Mr Cameron should have said "one black Caribbean undergraduate" after the university challenged him over the figures, but insisted Oxford was "missing the point" because the total number of black undergraduates admitted was just 27.

Tel  13 Apr 2011

Top

David Cameron brands 'all white' Oxford University a disgrace

On a visit to the north of England, the Prime Minister singled out Oxford for criticism when he accused elite institutions of having a "terrible record" of enrolling teenagers from state schools.

Senior officials at the university described the figure as "highly misleading" as it related only to British students who described themselves as black Caribbean. They said Oxford admitted another 27 students who described themselves as black African and another 14 who were mixed race.

The university also said that only 452 black students across the country had even achieved the A-level results demanded by Oxford to meet its minimum entry requirements for the 2009-10 academic year.

Leading academics and MPs said Mr Cameron risked undermining the ancient institution with his "ignorant", "absurd" and "mind boggling" comments ...

The latest fallout will add to growing controversy that the Coalition is attempting to "socially engineer" university admissions by asking top institutions to set targets for recruiting students from state schools, poor backgrounds and ethnic minorities ...

Tel  11 Apr 2011

Top

Row over research funding and David Cameron's Big Society

Your comment 3 April 2011 8:44AM

Perhaps they could undertake some research on how a man who takes an axe to defence spending, and then starts a war got to be Prime Minister.

Obs  03 Apr 2011

Top

I admire Nick Clegg more than David Cameron, says Norman Tebbit

Your comment 2 April 2011 1:30PM

rayjon 2 April 2011 11:04AM He is already being found wanting across the board. He is just a slimmer Gordon Brown.

Wouldn't even rate him that highly. Cameron is a spin doctor in search of some spin. The fact that he is comfortable with (a) cutting the armed services, and (b) rushing off to war like some latter-day Palmerston, tells us much that we need to know about this vacuous little man.

Gdn  02 Apr 2011

Top

Libya: Shifting sands

Your comment 21 March 2011 11:42AM

The bottom line is the fact that Cameron is pursuing his imagined Falklands Moment. In doing so he is continuing the seamless thread running through British foreign policy since Palmerston sent a gunboat to bombard the port of Athens to keep 'the dagos' in order. His concern for Libyan civilians is entirely bogus, since no such concern has been shown for victims of the Bahrain royal family or the Yemeni president. Mr Cameron should confine his concern for other people's suffering to people on these islands who are having to seek the help of food banks to avoid the consequences of his economic policies.

Gdn 21 Mar 2011

Top

David Cameron scores personal triumph on Libya as he learns from Tony Blair before burying his legacy

Your comment 19 March 2011 7:55AM

A Cameron triumph? A triumph of spin over content. Where is the Ark Royal? Yes, I known it should be offshore Japan helping deliver supplies to tsunami victims, but it's not even available to be offshore Banghazi. Cameron has no defence policy but, like Blair, the forces are a convenient prop when in search of a Falklands moment.

Gdn  18 Mar 2011

Top

Green investment bank 'must operate commercially'

Your comment 11 March 2011 1:14PM

'Divi' Dave: the man who wants the private sector to deliver growth, while Huhne wants to wean the country off it's addiction to oil.

'Divi' Dave: the man who wants to scrap Nimrod and go for a 'no fly' zone over Libya.

'Divi' Dave: the man who wants both healthier children and cuts in school sports.

'Divi' Dave: the man who's cool about bank bonuses, and tax dodges, but who needs to cut the public sector like a drunk with a chain saw, because ratings agency Moody's might downgrade the UK's AAA rating.

'Disaster' Dave - who posed as 'Green' Dave when there appeared to be some votes in it - but backed off when the Treasury - run by his Bullingdon Club mate Gideon - decided that cutting the deficit is far more important than Peak Oil, Peak Food, Peak Water, Peak Copper, peak - you name it.

I thought Tony Blair was a con merchant, but you've left him standing at the starting gate, Dave!

Gdn  11 Mar 2011

Top

Online petition plan for Parliament to go ahead

Under the plans, petitions that receive a certain level of support - probably 100,000 signatures - would be debated.

The government intends to shut down the e-petitions part of the Number 10 website - which has been suspended since the general election - and open a similar facility on the Directgov website.

The new site would be more closely moderated than the old, with petitions checked closely for "eligibility".

Petitioners would have to be on the electoral roll, and Parliamentary time might also be refused if a topic had been recently debated ...

BBC NEWS  27 Dec 2010    

Public to choose policies as coalition gets the X Factor

Dave's latest bandwagon is the wellbeing agenda, or 'happiness index'!   [Gdn]

Whether or not Dave has discussed this with President Sarkozy and/or Joseph Stiglitz - TNMWB - is unclear, perhaps the matter of the Irish bailout has intervened, but it seems unlikely.

Stiglitz would have challeneged the core of the coalition's policies: cutting the deficit in order to pursue the goal of the, er, 'utopian' small state.

Were Dave to be genuinely concerned about wellbeing he might have reached the conclusion that John Rawls' Original position dictated, namely that:

' ... the social contract is constructed to help the least well off members ... '

True Tories, however, line up with Robert Nozick's Entitlement Theory:

... a strong system of private property and a free-market economy. The only just transaction is a voluntary one. Taxation of the rich to support social programs for the poor are unjust because the state is acquiring money by force instead of through a voluntary transaction ... [ET]

If Dave's concern for wellbeing were genuine he would start by upping the Minimum Wage to match the Minimum Income Standard.

Next he might consider calling Murdoch into Number Ten and suggesting that members of the Reserve Army are, from a purely capitalist point of view, helping to keep up profits and need rewarding for their efforts under the terms of Rawls' theory.

So no more persecution in the Murdoch press, thanks very much!

It's all a fantasy, of course.

For the fact is that the Tories are the only people fooled by Dave's third face of power strategy.

For the rest of us, the nasty party is back, and it's planning to privatise community service orders.

It's already started to privatise the hospitals .

Top

David Cameron tells China:
embrace freedom and the rule of law

Can we look forward to the Chinese lecturing Dave
about the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion?

"The rise in economic freedom in China has been hugely beneficial to China and to the world.

"I hope in time this will lead to a greater political opening because I am convinced that the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together."

Guardian  10 Nov 2010    China

When Dave has looked into the plight of the likes of the garment workers, as revealed on C4 Dispatches,

and beefed-up prosecutions for failure to pay the minimum wage,

and beefed-up the minimum wage to a living wage,

and cut out attacks on the unemployed and the sick,

and brought the troops home from Afghanistan,

and separated retail and investment banking,

then, and only then, he might start to earn the right to attack another country's failings.

Top

David Cameron sets stage for eventual UK withdrawal from Afghanistan as he visits Kabul

British and US troops need to move 'further and faster' in stabilising the country, prime minister says in press conference with Hamid Karzai ...

Cameron announced a series of measures to help stabilise the country and to strengthen the British military effort to hasten the withdrawal:

• A doubling of the number of teams, from 10 to 20, dealing with improvised explosive devices. This will cost £67m and will be paid for from the Treasury reserve.

• An extra £200m to be diverted to Afghanistan from the existing international development budget.

• More efforts to inform people in Britain of progress. There will be quarterly reports to parliament by the foreign secretary, William Hague, or the defence secretary, Liam Fox.

• A declaration that further deployments of British troops are "not remotely" on the agenda.

Speaking alongside Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Cameron said that Afghanistan was Britain's "most important foreign policy issue, the most important national security issue facing our country, and it is that national security approach I want to stress here today ... "

Guardian  10 June 2010

The Whitehall mandarins who set up the bloodiest mission since Korea

'David Cameron slates business
for putting profit before society'

Dave's been consorting with Philip 'Red Tory' Blond again.  [PB]

Dave appears not to realise that businesses are in it for a profit, indeed, rewarding shareholders is their sole legal duty, so without altering the rules of incorporation - which Britain could not carry out on its own - the notion is a non-starter.

But this technicality misses the basic point about Dave: if he has any strongly felt views about economics, politics and society, he has hidden them very carefully in an effort to create a wider appeal for the 'nasty party'.

Gerald Warner's blog - posted before the last election - perhaps confirms this view:

In anything approaching normal circumstances, the Conservative poll lead would have been 30 points.

It would have been that under Thatcher ...

But the “modernised” Conservative Party is a synthetic, alien, Heath-Robinson construct that is already falling apart.

The dictatorial imposition of six A-List candidates, composed of women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals, on constituency associations was the last straw.

The majority of the Tory Party hates Cameron and cannot wait to see him crash and burn ... [Tel] 26 Mar 2010

Top

David Cameron says he will create 'fairer, safer, green country'

The Conservative leader David Cameron said he aimed "to create a fairer, safer, green country where opportunity is more equal" in a major speech on Saturday, marking the start of the General Election campaign ...

(Cameron) said he would "fight back against the root causes of deprivation – drug addiction, alcoholism, indebtedness, failing prisons".

He said: "It's because we are progressives that we will support responsibility and strong families so we help mend our broken society and tackle the crime and misery it brings.

"A decade of big government and blunt, bureaucratic control has undermined responsibility and made our social problems worse, not better.

"We are determined to forge a new direction. We will use the state to help remake society by encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves and for one another." ...

Tel  02 Jan 2010

Progressive Conservatism will mean a fairer, greener society

Top

David Cameron tells China:
embrace freedom and the rule of law

Can we look forward to the Chinese lecturing Dave
about the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion?

"The rise in economic freedom in China has been hugely beneficial to China and to the world.

"I hope in time this will lead to a greater political opening because I am convinced that the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together."

Guardian  10 Nov 2010    China

When Dave has looked into the plight of the likes of the garment workers, as revealed on C4 Dispatches,

and beefed-up prosecutions for failure to pay the minimum wage,

and beefed-up the minimum wage to a living wage,

and cut out attacks on the unemployed and the sick,

and brought the troops home from Afghanistan,

and separated retail and investment banking,

then, and only then, he might start to earn the right to attack another country's failings.

Top

Cameron promises to protect children from 'inappropriate sexualisation'

Cameron should get up to speed on 'commodification' and ask himself who promotes it, and who gains from it.

Unbelievably, the interview took place at a leader in the field of commodification: GMTV.

Unveiling a range of party measures aimed at giving children back their childhood, Mr Cameron told GMTV: ''We all know as parents, I have got two young children and there will be many watching this programme, that you do your best as parents but there is a lot of pester power going on.

''What we are saying is that you can't cut children off from the commercial world, of course you can't, but we should be able to help parents more in terms of trying to make sure that our children get a childhood and that they are not subject to unnecessary and inappropriate commercialisation and sexualisation too young. This is what this should be about.''

Mr Cameron outlined proposals for punitive measures against firms found flouting rules against targeting youngsters ...

Telegraph  18 Feb 2010

Don't blame advertisers ...

Sexualisation of Children

A tide of bland imagery tells girls that sexy is everything

Sexy kids

Girls just need to be young

The truth about Tweens

Commodification

Top

Dave Cameron's Incredible Journey

David Cameron is a child of the media. He spent much of his early career as a PR man for a TV company and advising top Tories on presentation.

Most politicians become leader and then get themselves a spin doctor. Cameron went from spinning to leading ...

When he grabbed the leadership as the outsider with his famous speech at the Conservative conference at Blackpool in 2005 - he had told the party faithful:

"Come with me it will be an incredible journey."

He turned out to be right: it has been a remarkable rollercoaster ride for Cameron and his camera-shy media guru, Steve Hilton.

"Steve is a pint-sized Rasputin who is never far from Dave's side," says Tara Hamilton-Miller, who knows Cameron and Hilton well from working with them in Conservative party HQ.

The two men modelled their transformation of the Tory party on the Blair/Mandelson/Campbell blue-print for New Labour.

Hilton and Cameron agreed that if the Tories were to win back power - everything about the party would have to change; and Cameron himself would be the iconic symbol of that change.

To attract mainstream voters, he deliberately stopped talking about traditional Tory issues - like immigration, Europe and cutting taxes - and he started talking about education and health and especially the environment.

Hilton came up with a classic political rebranding slogan: 'Vote blue, go green' ...

As Brown and Cameron faced their party conferences last September - it looked as if the Tory leader's incredible journey was about to end in a horrible train crash.

It seemed that Brown, who was over 10% ahead in the opinion polls, was about to call a snap election - with a Labour landslide predicted.

Cameron knew that he had to make the speech of a lifetime to give the Tories a bounce in the polls and make Brown think again about the election.

Team Cameron worked round the clock on the leader's speech.

He took the risky decision that he would make it wandering around the stage without a script or autocue.

A single speech transformed the party's fortunes

Cameron also had another unlikely secret for oratorical success: he had picked it up from watching a film I made ten years ago about the best Tory public speaker of his time - Enoch Powell.

I said to Powell that I had heard he always liked to make a big speech on a full bladder:

"Absolutely", he replied, "you should do nothing to decrease the tension before making a big speech - if anything you should seek to increase it."

Cameron specifically refrained from using the loo before going onto the stage make his hour long speech.

The speech was seen as a triumph ...

BBC NEWS  20 Dec 2007

Top

 

---

Back to top      Home Page