Cameron shows his true colours with his "fat speech"

....Well, apparently Cameron has confided to intimates: "I suppose it will always be known as the "fat speech" now" - so who am I to disappoint him?

The Sunday Times sees the speech as the "third great moment" of his leadership of the Conservative party.

On the other hand, Jon Cruddas has an article in the Sunday Mirror entitled: "Cam shows his true colours":

I give him credit for saying what he really thinks. The point, however, is that this week the veil slipped - the real David Cameron stepped up. To me it undermined a lot of the positive work he had been doing over the last year or so.

Part of my anger is undoubtedly because of his background.

David Cameron went to a school where the fee alone is more than double what someone on the minimum wage gets for a year of graft.

It's a lot easier to stay healthy and in work when you're born into that kind of money, so he should be a bit careful lecturing the rest of us. He has no real knowledge of generational poverty or poor public services that you have to rely on... on the numbing effects of a chronic lack of social mobility and real opportunity... nor the day-to-day grind and struggle to make ends meet But it isn't about Cameron himself.

The big problem with Cameron's views isn't that they stick in the throat coming from him. It's that they are plain wrong.

I don't buy the idea that people living on the minimum wage or less are there because they deserve it, while people like Cameron are rich because they tried harder. It seems that he's going back to Thatcher's idea that "there's no such thing as society". The Tory view is that you fend for yourself, and if you fall down, well, it's sad, but it's your own fault.

I take the opposite view - we're stronger when we work together than we are on our own. That's why I have always been in a trade union, but it's also the principle behind local community groups, and ultimately it's what government is for too. And it is no surprise that David Cameron wants to cut back on the role of the government in terms of health, education, tax credits and other benefits.

Take family values for example.

Cameron says he's for them. But if you're a mum working 40-odd hours in a shop, you need the flexibility to take a few days off if your kid has stressful exams or is ill. A good parent wants to help their kid revise or get well again - but at the moment only parents with decent jobs and good wages can afford to take the time off. Cameron's Tories would scream blue murder about red tape, but to me that's what real family values are about.

Inequality is the fundamental issue. The richer someone is, the longer they are likely to live - it's poverty that's the real killer.

Behind Cameron's repackaging of the Tories is the same old brutal right-wing dogma.

The penny dropped for me this week.

Clegg lays into Cameron's "responsibility" speech

Nick Clegg has laid into David Cameron for his speech earlier this week when he (Cameron) told the "poor and fat" to take responsibility for their lives. Speaking in Glasgow East, Clegg said:

David Cameron claimed here on Monday that you were the example of everything that is wrong with this country and that your problems are all your own fault.

He should apologise for that disgraceful slur on the real people who struggle hard every day to make a good life for their family in a place that has been brutally neglected by Labour and Conservative politicians for decades.

I have been lucky enough to have had opportunities in my life. But I believe there is no place in politics for those who have been lucky or privileged to show such contempt for the poor and the forgotten.

There is a simple choice in this by-election. Labour offer the politics of neglect. The SNP offer the politics of opportunism. The Conservatives offer the politics of contempt. Only the Liberal Democrats offer the politics of hope.

Has Cameron connected with the British public?

A Lanson Boy and Wit and Wisdom have written very interestingly about the latest phase of Cameroonism. The latter writes:

Perhaps its time for us to put the endless policy reviews and votes on goldfish on hold for a few years and do a bit more selling of the excellent policies we have.

I agree with that. I am not sure that Cameron has "connected" with the public, though. He has benefitted from a disastrously regarded Prime Minister and a bit of a wobble on the economy. He has managed to erase the bad image of the Tories - but has been helped by the passage of years and failing memories.

Cameron's lead in the polls just seems a lot more flimsy and ungrounded than Blair's was when he was in opposition. The Cameron balloon will burst but probably only once he is in power, in which case it will burst all over the British public. If Cameron does win the next election (unless something happens to suddenly make him more serious and profound before then) it will be a remarkable victory for hot air.

Is Cameron getting over-confident?

Mike Smithson has written an excellent piece on Political Betting about Cameron's "responsibilty" speech yesterday. He quotes the Times headline: "Cameron tells fat and poor: Take responsibility" and uses the caption: "How will the poor takes lessons on their plight from an Old-Etonian?".

Incidentally, it is odd that this Cameron coverage coincides with a Tim Montgomery Comment is Free article saying that the Tories are "A new party for the poor". However, it could be said that the Tories are making themselves the party to tell the poor to get off their behinds.

Mike Smithson comments:

A day after Gordon Brown was lecturing us about not wasting food the Times is splashing Cameron’s speech yesterday when he said that some of those “who are poor, fat or addicted to alcohol or drugs have only themselves to blame.”

Just reading the article you can see this approach appealing to the core Tory vote - but what about others? And Cameron himself is getting onto pretty thin ice when he talks about poverty.

In the hard world of politics there are enough things in the speech for his opponents to latch onto which when separated from the overall theme might not look so defensible.

I just wonder whether the appalling spate of bad news and poor ratings for Brown and Labour has made the Tory leader a bit too confident. Dangerous.

Cameron ditches "hug a hoodie"

On November 2nd 2006 David Cameron famously said of youth offenders:

We have to show a lot more love.

Announcing a "responsibility agenda" today he says:

We as a society have been far too sensitive.

It's always good when the Tories return to being Tories, isn't it?

A nightmare for Cameron - today's papers

If I were David Cameron today I would skip the Sunday papers and slope off down the pub to drown my sorrows. Little Georgie Osbourne was on Sunday AM but had to spend two-thirds of his interview gamely defending the Tories against allegations about Boris/Ray Lewis and sleaze.

The papers are full to bursting with stuff about Ray Lewis - that he did know about his suspension from ministering in the Church of England and a whole raft of new allegations. I think they should stop kicking Lewis but not Boris. An aide to Boris, Nick Boles, admits that the appointment of Lewis was done "in a bit of a rush".

There's also a whole pile of Tory sleaze allegations:

Observer: It emerged that the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, received a fee of £5,000-£10,000 for a speech to Jersey businessmen, despite Tory rules that shadow ministers should not be paid for speeches linked to their portfolios.

Mail on Sunday: Cameron lands in trouble over free flights from businessman

Sunday Mirror: Five top Tories in sleaze claims" - allegations about Osbourne, Grieve, Michael Gove, Andrew Mitchell and Tim Loughton. Some of these claims are a little feeble, it has to be said.

'Boris: The Wheels are falling off already" - Mail

Mind you, it's only two months since they said that Boris was having the "last laugh".

Apparently not:

The Tories suffered an embarrassing setback last night after Boris Johnson was forced to sack his deputy for lying about his past.
Ray Lewis, a charismatic community leader, was dumped after what looked like a catastrophic misjudgment by the new London mayor.
A torrent of allegations about Mr Lewis, covering sexual misconduct, financial wheeler- dealing and physical abuse of pupils threatened to tarnish the Tory success story.
Mr Johnson had tried to defend his deputy, but was forced to backtrack after it emerged that Mr Lewis had wrongly passed himself off as a magistrate.
The announcement capped a day of chaos that was in danger of tainting David Cameron, following lurid tales of Mr Lewis's time as an Anglican-priest.
The Tories had hoped that Mr Johnson had shed his reputation for blunders, and had become a serious politician committed to the responsibilities of his office.
But the controversy over Mr Lewis will revive fears among MPs that Mr Johnson is a liability who could derail what was beginning to look like the Tory leader's triumphant march to power.
Just two months ago, Mr Cameron embraced Mr Johnson as a symbol of the newfound popularity of the Conservatives.
Critics pointed out that Mr Cameron was also an enthusiastic backer of Mr Lewis' work as a community leader, praising him as an 'inspirational leader'.
But there were signs that his office intervened to end the crisis after the Ministry of Justice said it had no record of Mr Lewis as a magistrate.
Last night Mr Johnson's reputation for taking risks was seen as a growing liability among Tories uneasy about the way he is running his administration.
His decision to call a press conference on Thursday with Mr Lewis was seen to have backfired, after it became clear he was not aware of the scale of the charges against his deputy.

Cameron dazzles us by opening his bare cupboard

The Times challenged David Cameron to set out his alternative plans for government.

Today, Cameron has replied. He doesn't start in a promising way. The first 268 words of his 886 word article are expended in waffle and moaning about Brown.

Then he tells us that it really is terrible that Labour are obsessed with measuring the NHS. So Cameron's Conservatives will.........er.........measure the NHS. Only outcomes rather than processes. Glad that's cleared up.

...our policies won't be governed by what makes a good headline.

Oh dear! Stomach hurts! This PR Man from a cruddy ITV company, who has behaved like a PR man as Tory leader, wants us to believe he will suddenly change his spots as he slams the door of Number 10 behind him. That's a good one!

He then starts pronouncing what I suppose he thinks are firm and detailed policies:

....sharing the proceeds of growth

Oh for goodness sake. He doesn't say how much he will share and when he will share it. It's a tepid aspiration which Labour could just as easily say they have achieved through a 20 pence basic rate of income tax - which was once the Tory Holy Grail.

...putting rocket boosters behind renewable energy

This man should go onto the stage. Who said Music Hall was dead?! Max Wall eat your heart out. Rocket boosters on renewable energy. I don't think there are many rocket boosters which don't let off about ten trillion tonnes of carbon when they go off - which would somewhat defeat the object of the renewable energy exercise. Presumably the rocket boosters will be provided by the man Cameron has put in charge of his renewable energy policy - Alan Duncan, a man who is one of the world's experts in making money out of energy which is....er....not renewable - namely oil.

...having a border police force.

In other words, Village People cops to satisfy Daily Mail readers. All butch uniforms and swaggering.

...the importance of wellbeing and quality-of-life issues.

Oh yes, He's told us how important it is to be like him and live the millionaire's Notting Hill lifestyle. Muesli and Blueberries at 5 pence a pop. But what the Sam Hill is he going to do to give us wellbeing and quality of life? The square root of diddly squat - that's what.

But we are not just setting the agenda today - we have an inspiring vision for tomorrow too. The aim of the Conservative Party is nothing short of building the good society. We will be as radical in social reform as Margaret Thatcher was in economic reform.

More honey-coated waffles in other words. He doesn't actually say what he will do in social reform. Cobblers and double cobblers.

Oh sorry. Stop Press. He's made a commitment. One of the next tasks of the Conservative government will be "lifting up society". No details of how this will be done and, indeed, what in the name of Holy Mackerel it actually means. Will he get Kwikfit to put society on one of their car lift thingeys that they use to lift your car up to change the tyres?

Tackling joblessness, getting people off drugs, putting children on the straight and narrow

How? How? HOW?!!

...And answer came there none.

We will give parents the power to set up new schools. Once parents are more closely involved in how their child's school is run, they will take more responsibility for making sure it is a success...

Like the last Conservative government did and the current Labour government did, eh?

That will drive standards up and provide our society with the economic and social security that a skilled workforce brings.

What complete and unmitigated tosh! Giving a bit of more power to parents (which they often have anyway through governing bodies) is not going to do all that! This man is to policy-making what Julian Clery is to spot-welding.

And welfare reform? How is he going to do that? Give a bit more responsibilty to charities, that's what. Ah yes! That'll work wonders. Nye Bevan had nothing on this coming historic millennial Cameron Welfare revolution!

And the success of these charities "will mean more people moving from long-term poverty to long-term employment". Of course it will David - a positive sea-change will result! (Nurse - the screens!)

Cameron finishes by declaring that the Tories have:

....a coherent vision and a focused set of priorities

Ah yes. "Let sunshine win the day!"

Cameron the Trojan horse - by the editor of Esquire

This article by Jeremy Langmead (the editor of Esquire magazine) in this week's Observer is worth a read. It is rather frivolous and anecdotal, but enjoyable none the less. He uses the phrase "Trojan horse" to describe David Cameron, which seems rather apposite.

Tory MPs call for Spelman to be sacked amid new revelations

Michael Portillo (cue: Knives in back) has called for Caroline Spelman to be sacked as Tory chairman, according to be BBC News 24 (or is it called something else these days?).

Michael Crick says that "a number of Conservative MPs" have approached the 1922 committee with similar requests. (That could mean two MPs, by the way).

Newsnight has now reported further revelations based around Sally Hammond, who, as Spelman's secretary, "shopped" her to the Chief Whip in 1999 about secretarial expenses:

Mrs Hammond could not understand why the MP had so little money available for office expenditure. She was shocked to find that much of the annual Commons allowance was being paid to Mrs Spelman's nanny, Tina Haynes.

As far as she knew, Ms Haynes did little or no secretarial work to justify this.

Mrs Hammond took her complaint to Peter Ainsworth - then, as now, a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet, and for whom Mrs Hammond had once worked.

Sally Hammond is the wife of Tory front-bencher Stephen Hammond which makes this even more embarrassing for Cameron.

Spelman and Conservative Central Office's account of where her (Spelman's) constituency office was in the late 1990s has also started to unravel:

Mrs Spelman's claim that there was no other constituency office was challenged, since documentation shows that her current constituency office over the border in Solihull has always been listed as her office in official directories.

Separately, Janet Parry told Newsnight that when she did a stint of work experience over the summer of 1997, administration work was already being handled by the Solihull office at 2 Manor Road in Solihull.

The Telegraph today headline this story: Caroline Spelman: 'Nannygate' scandal threatens Conservative rift

What I find extraordinary is the defence, laid out by Pauline Neville-Jones on Question Time last night that the money involved is "quite a small amount". You'd think that Conservative politicians would have a little alarm going off in their head when their mouths start forming those sorts of words. "Reality warning" ought to be the message from the brain.

£25,000. A Tory front-bencher calls this "quite a small amount".

Perhaps as well as the price of milk, petrol, bread etc, future Tory spokespeople ought to have something else written down in front of them when they speak publicly. I would suggest:

"£25,000 = a ****ing huge amount of money = winning the lottery for most people"

Cameron's "worst yet" PMQs performance

I don't watch Prime Minister's Questions. I've got a life and all that. So many thanks to Stephen Tall on LibDem Voice for supplying this little nugget from this week's PMQs:

...the last couple of weeks have seen surprisingly weak performances from David Cameron, who has perhaps been more discomfited by David Davis’s resignation than he would care to admit. Tories may claim this is some cunning attempt to keep Gordon Brown in Number 10: they wish. He seems to have been knocked off his stride, and it’s not gone unnoticed.

Politics Home is a new one on me - run by Shakepeare's sister apparently. They described this week's Cameron PMQ performance as his "worst...yet" and say that Brown has entered a "purple patch" fo PMQ-ery. Clegg did better than Cameron this week, according to their panel.

Why has Cameron chosen Alan Duncan as the man to prove the Tories are green ?

If David Cameron wanted to show us that he might be serious on green issues, perhaps it would have been a good idea not to do it standing next to Alan "Mr Oil" Duncan.

Mr Duncan's register of interests shows him as "Owner of Harcourt Consultants advisers on oil and gas matters" and as a guest of the Sultan of Oman. Also, he owes his considerable wealth to a career in the oil industry starting with Royal Dutch Shell.

If Cameron wants to show us how green/blue/torquoise he is, I can think of hundreds of other people who would be better to have sitting next to him at the press conference. Mr Cameron is asking Duncan to call the government to account on Marine Renewables. A strange choice.

I am willing to give the guy a break and see how he does. But it is not an auspicious start for Cameron's green re-launch.

Times: Cameron looks like a prat

The Cameron hairstyle, from left, February 2007, yesterday, March 2007

It's a long time ago. But I remember when I started losing my hair....just.

I think the rot started when I was in the sixth form. No radical skull space showed, but I could see I was slowly going the way of my father, grandfathers, uncles, great uncles, great...(you get the picture).

So I went the way of many sixth-formers: it was brush it that way, brush it right, brush it left, part it in the middle, sweep it back, sweep it forward, gel it, cut it, grow it....anything to delay the desperate day (which, in the event, turned out to be a gloriously liberating day) when I finally gave up and admitted to myself that testosterone and/or genetics had made me a slaphead. Or "Daddy made me a Baldy" if you prefer a somewhat more psychotic version. (About 15 years later some kids came past me in a car and yelled out "Slaphead". I really don't know what planet they were living on - I had got used to it about 13 years previously).

Well, David Cameron is doing those sixth form combing tricks a bit late. It is rather puerile.

Ann Treneman in the Times says that Dave's new middle parting completely over-shadowed reaction to PMQs yesterday. She commented on the new coiffure as follows:

Think of Billy Bunter goes to Eton.....The Prime Minister may be unpopular but at least he doesn't look like a prat.

By the way, he's making a habit of this ridiculous hair changing thing. He carried out a similar stunt in March 2007.

So, in the absence of anything other than a couple policies, Cameron silently announces a third policy: "I will change my hair style every year".

Vacuous or what?!

A word about Gordon Brown. Treneman describes him shambling into the Commons yesterday:

He's arrived looking chaotic, clutching a thousand pages of notes. His delivery was at times faltering and on auto-pilot. The stammer was back. He seemed about as bouncy as a flat tyre.

It seems Gordon needs some personal re-shaping advice. He should realise that it is very difficult for him to get any lower. So he's got nothing to lose. He should just chill out, clear his diary a bit, have some personal time, eat better, exercise more, spend more time on his appearance (no, he shouldn't get a new parting - but at least he should do up his blinking tie properly - so often it's five inches adrift from his collar) and enjoy himself.

Paul Weller lays into Cameron

In The Sun no less:

PAUL WELLER has hit out at Conservative leader DAVID CAMERON for saying he liked his old band THE JAM.
The Modfather turned 50 last week but is clearly not mellowing at all.
He raged: “What was that about? Was he not listening to the lyrics? Is he thick?
“He probably thinks Eton Rifles is a song about him and his mates at school.”

A beaut from Mr Clegg

In the Telegraph today, Nick Clegg says that Tory policy makes as much sense as a Turner prize entry and that the Tories are "elevating policy evasion to an art form":

Cameron cries crocodile tears for the poor families affected by the doubling of the 10p tax rate, but his one and only tax policy is to cut inheritance tax for the richest six per cent of people. He has supported calls for "food security" - code for protectionism - but also lectured the World Trade Organisation on the importance of free trade. He tells us to "go green", but won't commit to specific policies to help us. He has preached about personal privacy, but wants to abolish Data Protection laws. Like Labour, he promises to decentralise, but steers clear of explaining how or when.Tory policy makes about as much sense as a Turner prize entry.

Currently, this incoherence is the Tory party's greatest strength: they can't be pinned to anything people don't like. But it's no serious programme for government. It offers nothing to people concerned about knife crime, or worried about higher fuel bills. The public has been promised the moon on a stick by Mr Cameron. Soon they will start to ask how he'll get it for them - and a gleaming smile won't be enough.

Politics is about choices between competing ideas, not just agreeing with everyone. It's because we understand this that the Liberal Democrats speak in detail about how we would deliver a more liberal Britain. We are the only party committed to cutting taxes for low and middle income families at the next election. We're committed to fair pensions for women, and the immediate restoration of the earnings link - while the other parties just talk about doing something for pensioners, possibly, some day.

What David Cameron doesn't want us to focus on

I've got a feeling that the NUT strike today will stay as a grievance in the memories of many voters, long after they have forgotten about the chicanery of the 10p tax rate compensation, which was the talk of the Westminister Village, via PMQs, yesterday.

It is a sharp example of the contrast of the real world v the Westminster Bubble.

In the real world, parents have had to rush round to make sure their children are looked after today. Then there is the worry that 11 year olds are about to take SATs and older children are about to take they GCSEs and A levels.

In the Westminster bubble there was a load of hot air about something that didn't happen. I've just read Roy Jenkins' biography of Gladstone. In the 19th Century there were these sorts of parliamentary wrangles all the time on a much larger scale - the parties hardly ever voted as one, there were break-off groups all over the shop, legislation was brought in, then pulled back, modified and tried again - often with intervening dissolutions or government resignations, with Queen Victoria sometimes seeing potential Prime Ministers on a taxi rank basis until she found one who stuck.

I think we have become too sensitive to political debate, and the adjustment of proposals.

To hear David Cameron bleating on about poverty is pathetic.

The truth is that Gordon Brown, in his last budget, dealt a major blow to the Conservatives. He lowered the basic rate of income tax to 20 pence. This is a sort of Holy Grail for the Tories, which they have been trying to get to for years. Gordon Brown has "shot their fox" by introducing the 20 pence rate himself, leaving the Tories with very little else to offer on the tax front. Brown has left the Tories a bit flat footed. No wonder David Cameron is trying to divert attention from this by blowing up the 10p tax rate compensation debate out of complete proportion.

David Cameron's ridiculous speaking habits

I think it was ITV's Headcases which first highlighted to me David Cameron's overuse of alliteration and repetition. It is now getting to the point where Cameron is sounding ridiculous.

Take this section of his remarks from today's PMQs:

It is always about politics, not policy. It is always about calculation, not conviction. It is always about his self-interest, not the national interest.

It's pathetic. He's forcing his speech to be alliterative and, in the case of the last sentence, repetitive.

Along with his annoyingly strained, posh, clever dick sixth form prefect voice he sounds ludicrous and is losing, if he ever had, any seriousness due to his light-weight smarmy delivery.

If he actually just lowered his voice, calmed down a bit and used a couple of reasonably sensible sentences, without trying to find a soundbite, he would do himself a lot more good.

Cameron admits he's too posh to win votes in the North

The Mirror reports:

David Cameron has given up on voters in the North to focus his election battle on winnable seats in the South.

The Tory leader's posh background is a big turn-off in Labour's heartlands, private polls by his own party reveal.

His inner circle have now drawn up a secret "core seat" strategy to snub voters in the North of England where the party holds just 19 councils and has 17 MPs. In Scotland it holds no councils and has just one MP.

A senior Tory source said: "David's team has decided it's simply not worth fighting a losing battle to win lots of seats in the North in the general and local elections.

"There may be a couple of visits by David, but he will be focusing his energies on seats in the South and Midlands where he is more popular. He can't even command support from some of our own people in places like Yorkshire where he's seen as a 'soft Southerner'."

More on Cameron's cycling problems

On the new format BBC News Online, Clive James offers a few whimsical thoughts on David Cameron's cycling deficiencies.

Police to give Cameron cycle safety advice

Boris Johnson yesterday said there should be "zero tolerance" of cyclists who break the rules of the road. When asked about his own boss' cycling mishaps, he blustered, saying: "Show me the evidence !". Obviously, Boris doesn't bother to read the press before he ventures out in the morning.

The Mirror reports today:

Bike menace David Cameron faces a humiliating lecture from police safety bosses over his hazardous cycling.

Met chiefs called him "very stupid" after the Mirror filmed him breaking four road laws - including going past a red light - in 22 minutes.

They will send a cycling expert to give clueless Cam safety tips. But Tory London mayor hopeful Boris Johnson had no sympathy for him and declared:

"We should have zero tolerance of cyclists when they break the rules."

Senior officers say they plan to give Calamity Cam, 41, a lecture on his haphazard riding "to save him from an inevitable trip to A&E in the back of an ambulance".

A trip to A&E in the back of an ambulance for David Cameron ? Perish the thought! We can't have that! It is in all our interests that David Cameron is taught to obey the Highway Code with all possible urgency. I would suggest that he joins a Cycling Proficiency Class for nine-year-olds at a local primary school. The future of the country is at stake.