Forget Murdoch Saga, Cameron’s Policy Failure List Is Huge
Lisbon Treaty, Climate Change, NHS, Libya, Turkey, Israel, Immigration, Clegg, Grammar Schools, Human Rights Act, Grandstanding Foreign Aid with borrowed money, the list goes on
“this list isn’t exhaustive, and doesn’t include the predictable clanger of hiring some oik from the gutter press to handle the media”.
The time has come to find a successor to Prime Minister David Cameron. The Prime Minister has protected himself by making sure that the Tory party leadership is almost bereft of worthy challengers.
There is one prime candidate though. Forget George Osborne, who wanted to share the proceeds of the growth of Gordon Brown’s bloated welfare state. William Hague has lost his Conservative mojo. Liam Fox or Theresa May are not up to it. But there is a top notch challenger; Michael Gove. This charming, articulate and relentlessly right-wing Tory has been a huge success in his job as Education Secretary, bravely pushing through a truly radical set of ideas to finally strip schools of the tired, counterproductive, ambition-free status quo which has ruined many a young life. Gove’s term in the cabinet is the antithesis of Cameron’s – standing up for principle, not being afraid of ruthless and personal criticism, being clear about the goal and relentlessly going for it.
But as we await the end of Cameron’s disastrous term as party leader and Prime Minister, there are still some Conservatives out there who support this charming but vacuous leader. Before the axe can be wielded, waverers (and there are some who still cling to the idea of Cameron because he isn’t Gordon Brown) need to be reminded about Cameron’s uselessness.
When you look at the things he has supported (or failed to back) it is truly amazing that he could ever have been leader of a confident Conservative Party for more than ten minutes, which wants small government and lower taxes. But Cameron’s trick was to instill a feeble lack of confidence into the party, using ludicrous notions like Ms May’s “nasty party” to drive through his idea that Conservatives didn’t dare to be conservative. He ruthlessly imposed his ideas on the prospective candidate list, making sure it consisted mainly of hand-wringers who would embrace even the stand-for-nothing LibDems if that guaranteed power.
Top ten
A poll from ConservativeHome.com, just published, rates Cameron’s top 10 policy transgressions as perceived by Tory party members, some of which hark back to the election campaign, where Cameron failed to achieve a conclusive victory over the most contemptible and incompetent government in modern British history –
- Reneging on the commitment to a Lisbon Treaty referendum
- Supporting climate change policies that will increase energy bills
- U-turn on NHS reforms
- Making the creation of a Big Society central to Tory policy
- Flirting with softer prisons and sentencing policies before U-turning
- Opposing grammar schools
- Agreement to Nick Clegg’s participation in the election debates
- Not making defence spending a priority
- Not campaigning on immigration
10. Weak economics, including a pledge to match Labour spending
Failure on any one of the above would seem to be a serious reason to dump the guy, but Cameron has led a charmed life so far. Don’t forget that Cameron won the leadership based on lies. He ran as a “Compassionate” Conservative, invoking associations with U.S. president George W Bush. After winning the leadership he revealed his hostility to Grammar Schools, (I quit because of this) and much else that party members believe passionately in. If he’d admitted these beliefs during the leadership campaign he would have been toast. In health care, real conservatives would be finding ways of improving health services to the level of insurance-based German, French, or American systems. But Cameron is too cowardly to tackle this issue head on and is happy to tinker with our current failed system. It would take real political courage to try and solve this one.
The list of asinine decisions taking by Cameron is huge. I’m sure that this list isn’t exhaustive, and doesn’t include the predictable clanger of hiring some oik from the gutter press to handle the media. (Hasn’t this dummy heard of Reuters?)
He allowed the LibDems to have their pointless AV referendum, with callous disregard for the consequences of losing. He started a war on Libya with French President Sarkozy for purely grandstanding purposes. (Grandstanding is a big theme in the Cameron CV). He allowed the foreign aid budget to balloon, when British children are facing huge costs for university education, again so he could grandstand on the foreign political stage. He threatened to throw out the Muslim maniacs at Hizb ut-Tahrir. They’re still here.
“A Conservative Government would replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of Rights which, while incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights, would ensure that rights are better balanced against responsibilities,” Cameron said. Nothing more needed to be added there.
Grandstanding
Cameron supported Turkey’s membership of the European Union knowing it will never happen because Germany and France have already decided against. (Thank goodness we British can at least rely on some European politicians to demonstrate leadership backbone and moral fibre). Cameron was simply grandstanding, trying to curry favour with Turkey and the Muslim world. Cameron attacked Israel, saying Gaza was a prison camp and implying this was Israel’s fault. Does this guy ever do more than read newspaper headlines? Gaza is in the state it’s in because its government refuses to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, and allows residents to fire rockets at Israel. Cameron knows that Israel is a shining light for democracy in the Middle East, but for his own selfish political purposes, he chooses to grandstand (again) rather than take principled positions.
I was first aware of Cameron when he was being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 and he talked about how he wanted to detoxify the Tory Brand. Brand! Cameron thinks the Tory party can be sold like some kind of soap powder. Well we’ve seen where that led us. Let’s have an end to this directionless, unprincipled leadership now. Michael Gove, step forward please!
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