There is scope for a little book to be called Cameron-tripe.
The best example of the past few days I noticed in the Mail on Sunday. The new leader of the Conservative Party said:
"The real respect agenda must be based on optimism about the ability of people and communities to create civilised lives for themselves, rather than a pesssimistic view of human nature."
Why must a 'real respect' agenda be based on this 'optimism'? No reason appears to have been given.
Who suggested it should be based on 'pessimism'? No one is cited.
And would it not be better to base any policy on realism?
Incidentally, what is the policy?
It is all spin and totally devoid of any serious content.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Politics
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What Cameron does is say something inoffensive, but with the implication that someone else - usually his own party - believed the exact opposite.
More worryingly when he applies this to policy announcements he tends to Labour's job for them. For example, when announcing his change of education policy he insists this change means it's for the many not the few, which implies that the old policy based on choice was for the few...
Posted by: James Hellyer at January 10, 2006 10:20 AM
I'm thinking that we need a darn good, hard recession. Economic collapse would do wonders for peoples' perceptions of political reality.
Posted by: Alec Hodgson at January 10, 2006 11:18 AM
Alec, I know what you mean. It's about time the loonies were brought back down to reality with a bump. In many ways, much of the public seem to be suffering from the same sort of self-delusion as Gordon Brown: that everything is ok and that equality of outcome is the ideal to strive toward.
We can also now, following his remarks on the NHS and education, quite safely add David Cameron (or at least his words) to the same category.
Posted by: Rory at January 10, 2006 03:17 PM
I too have found the Tory's obsession with being "positive" and "optimistic" extremely irritating. The bottom line, in my opinion, is that unless we face up to the challenges, i.e. problems, in our society then no amount of optimism and positive energy will fix things. Grrr... By all means make love to the voters Mr Cameron, but please please please start making the case for significant reform... your media honeymoon will be over very soon, and then you won't be able to say the radical things that need saying.
Posted by: Rory at January 12, 2006 12:20 PM
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Yes, but what choice has he got ?
It's like your thesis. It's got a lot of sense in it, but you won't ever get it through. It's like Pension Reform - it has to happen but it is politically unacceptable.
This Government appears to have convinced people you can have Jam today more or less indefinitely and they won't believe otherwise until economic reality smacks them in the face a la Winter of Discontent.
The reality is : we need a bonfire of the welfare state, and a bonfire of the quangoracies ; the two things that have "succeeded" under Blairism (shades of 1979 !).
The reality also is that the population is dim enough to vote for the guy offering the sweeties over the guy offering the toothpaste, and will rationalise away the damage done to teeth.
Posted by: Paul at January 10, 2006 09:57 AM