Let's see more of Patrick Mercer

Fred

Good for Patrick. It will also be nice if there were some independent MPs, even with a conservative govnt. One of the most sickening things about Blair and Brown is that everyone is a "minister", paid extra to ensure devotion to the Great Leader.

Austin Barry

"Quite often you see people ... who accomplished great things in the outside world, but who just don't shine in Westminster."

Well, of course not. Westminister is the planet where roam strange, unaccomplished oddities like Brown, the Milipedes, Harman, Straw and others whose connection with the real world is tenuous, myopic and generally contemptuous.

'In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.'
- Napoleon

Mahatma Coat

This little tale demonstrates everything that's wrong with out current political system. It also illustrates just why so many people are alienated and abstain from voting. It is just seen as a grotesque game played out with our lives and money by the political/media classes, who are the only ones to benefit.

Verity

The viciousness and self-glorifying agenda of David Cameron when he went after Patrick Mercer confirmed what I suspected: Cameron isn't a leader.

However, Mr Mercer bore his dismissal with grace and his skills, experience and ability to think fast, as a military leader must, should not be wasted on the back bench. He should be in charge of Defence when David Davis or John Redwood becomes PM.

I follow your reasoning, Fraser, but I think this time your analytical skill has taken you in the wrong direction. The electorate wants to see strength, not invertebrates.

simon

I'm sure he was very brave when in the army. But you don't have to be the brain of Britain to have seen what Brown's goat offer was all about.

Verity

Austin Barry - I didn't know Napoleon had said that! How very astute of him. But I don't like his Code.

Tariq

Whatever their merits, Mercer's comments risked making him and his party seem out of touch with the larger public, which doesn't see the military's attitudes as having much bearing on civilian life. Cameron demoted him in recognition of this fact.

Kevyn Bodman

Cameron made an outrageously bad decision when he sacked Mercer.
And it was easy to see that at the time.
It was such a bad judgement that, for me, it still casts a shadow over Cameron's leadership of the Conservatives.

jennywren

'Flair, hard work and ingenuity don't always count for much. Tribalism, schmoozing and self-promotion tend to be the skills needed in politics.'
Yes, how true....I wish someone had told me that before I became a Conservative councillor

Diswiss

Verity you're deluded to think J.Redwood would appeal to the electorate. You say it tongue-in-cheek I'm sure.

DC will make a great PM.

ALso Verity- Michelle...the carpet....

Verity

Kevyn Bodman - I have voiced the same opinion on this blog several times.

It was a critical error of judgement and it verified all the doubts I had harboured about Cameron: shallow, pr-oriented (as in, "I'm not scared to fire a military man" - the ignorant twit), and a lack of ability to grasp the realities. Or his judgement was flawed by his eagerness to be seen to be decisive. It was enough that Mercer, despite his completely honourable record of promoting black people who were worthy of promotion, had made some off the cuff remarks about black soldiers. Cameron jumped to a dangerous conclusion because he hadn't read, or hadn't understood, what Mercer had said - either way, a hazaradous flaw in the leader of a political party.

After this huge error, there was no way back for Cameron as far as I am concerned. God knows what his next decision would be, if he were ever in power. That was just too much extemporaneous and over-eager showboating for my taste.

Callie

I must admit it was not DC's finest hour when he sacked Mercer.

Matt

Verity, I don't comment very often, but let me just say that you neither have a monopoly on "true" conservatism, nor do you speak for the Conservative party as a whole. You have some good things to say, and I enjoy your contributions- as they are astute and thought provoking.

However, Conservatism does not equal Thatcherism, de facto and de jure. I long for a Conservative government but I do not take my inspiration from Thatcher, but rather Baldwin (a much maligned man), Disraeli and Macmillan. The One Nation tradition is alive and well, (I am 28), and frankly neither Redwood nor Davis is someone I would want to see as PM. In the Cabinet maybe, but they are unelectable as PM. Get out on the streets of the UK, talk to people, get beyond the blogosphere or whoever you usually consult about UK politics from your home overseas.

This isn't a dig, by the way, but over the last few weeks I have begun to think that you have truly misread popular opinion in Britain. Popular opinion, by the way, doesn't have to be right (or Right), but it does win elections- and, right now, it is going to win an election for Cameron simply because Labour are hated. You might not like that, but it is going to happen.

Verity

Diswiss - and I fear that you are deluded to think the Tory electorate don't know what's good for them. Unlike Labour voters, the Tories don't fear high intelligence.

Cameron will make a disastrou PM if he ever gets in, and God willing, he will not.

Am baffled by your final "point". Verity- Michelle ... the carpet. Michelle Obama? The carpet? Care to provide some clues, or do you enjoy a rich fantasy life?

Alfred T Mahan

Cameron's treatment of Patrick Mercer was spineless in the extreme. If he had really wanted to make a stand against empty, gesture politics and pc nonsense, that was his moment, and he blew it. Mercer is absolutely no racist - his father was a bishop, so he's not just a son of a soldier - and the attack on him was unfair and should have been condemned as such.

I doubt very much if Cameron will forgive Mercer - it's not human nature to forgive others who've allowed you to make an ass of yourself.

TGF UKIP

Come, come guys and gals, let's be fair to Dave. When he sacked Mercer he was almost certainly "only obeying orders."

Lest he should offend the metropolitan, pc liberal vote he was almost certainly instructed by The Shaven Headed One to dismiss Mercer forthwith.

Heaven forfend that the Leader of this "Conservative" Party should ever be thought to have principles or, even worse, to be considered a conservative.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Verity

"I have voiced the same opinion on this blog several times".

Yes, we know, we know...

Verity

Matt, I don't think I have ever implied that I have a "monopoly on true Conservatism" and nor am I daft enough to think I speak for the Conservative Party as a whole!

Like you, I voice my opinions.

Alfred T Mahan - You are right. Cameron will harbour a grudge against Mercer forever for having been the instrument of his making his biggest mistake.

Andy

Christ you lot talk a lot of rubbish. Cameron had no choice but to sack Mercer, a ****-storm was brewing right in the middle of his attempts to detoxify the Tory brand. And if you don't think that detoxification was a good thing, frankly you're deluded.

diswiss

Verity, I was referring to
M.O's latest garment !

Alison C

Verity, Cameron will make a good PM.

You are wrong about him. Your ranting about him undermines your other sometimes insightful opinions.

Give it a rest please!

End.

wonderfulforhisage

@Andy 7:06
If I wanted to vote for a brand I'd vote 'Gordons' (not Gordon you understand). I'd rather like to vote for a party with priciples rather than a 'follow the focus group' bunch of PR merchants.

This Tory detoxification malarky is a figment of the PR merchants' imagination in my opinion. The polls are showing a Tory lead but in my belief this is a function of an anti Labour sentiment rather than pro the 'nice' Tories. My guess is that if David D or John R. were in charge now the Tories would be showing over 50% in the opinion polls.

The Tories voted Cameron as leader in a pathetic attempt to out play Bliar just as Bliar was about to be found out, as all con men eventually are.

I can't bring myself to vote for an Heir to Blair so it's UKIP for me next time.

hadrian

Goinf off tpoic a little, but I think if posters on here want to see authentic latter day consrevatism at work they need look no further than the article on Sir Keith Joseph in the current Spect. There was a man of integrity and respect for others. I think John Redwood could wipe the floor with this lot, intellectually, and they'll bloody well need his expertise if they are elected, to see us through this unholy mess of Bungler Broon.

Paul

'he had five black company sergeant majors' reminds me of Ron Atkinson....'I'm not racist, my driver is black!' You don't get it and you never will.

chris

Patrick is a hard working and reliable bloke, just like how he comes over. He certainly isn't a typical MP.
OK, Cameron was wrong to sack him, but the press would have gone overboard if he hadn't, and he knew it.
Bet you Patrick will be on the Government front bench after the election. And do well.

Verity

Wondefulforhisage - I agree.

I felt my first chilling spike of dislike for Cameron when he talked about "detoxifying the brand".

There are two wrong points contained in those three words.

One: a belief system isn't a brand. It is a set of deeply held, pondered about and considered tenets, often shared for generations. It is also an instinctive cleaving. The idea that a political belief system can be described as a product is crude and dismissive of its adherents.

The second wrong thought conveyed in those three words is: the Tory Party needed to be "detoxified" (smarty pants pr- speak) because in itself, it is not toxic. Toxicity is what was thrown at it by the socialists. In other words, Cameron allowed his great party to be defined by Labour.

Leaders do not behave thusly.

The Tories were subject to the constant braying and jeering of Labour, especially under Blair, when Labour felt like the lords of the universe, and was widely accused of, and investigated for, possibly selling lordships to all for cash donations.

Johnnie-one-notes. For years. After 9, 10, 11, 12 years in office, Labour were still looking backwards at John Major's time in office. A whole generation of children had been born and were attending school and Labour was still braying on about a record of a generation previously.

Cameron could have capitalised on this, clever pr chappie that he is.

Theresa May, who should have immediately had a leper's bell hung round her neck for her stupidity at that conference, was, instead, accorded a place. Unbelievable. Why did he allow this deeply undistinguished woman to define his historic party?

Instead of disavowing the historically solid Conservative Party, loved and cleaved to by millions of Conservative voters, the new Leader should have disavowed Teresa May and sent her to pick her way into the wildnerness in her kitten heels.

Given that the Tories had had 12 years for the electorate to watch Labour in all its incompetence, malignity, and dishonourable behaviour - cash for honours; Jo Moore's "a good day to bury bad news" on 9/11, for example, Cherie Blair pressing her husband for the destructive EHRA, for example - all Cameron had to do was come in with the message of conservatism.

Not bending the knee to their agenda and detoxifying a "brand".

The population was already disenchanted with Labour and the socialists had become infinitely more reviled and scorned under Brown.

Cameron should have been attacking "The Internationale" multi-culti destruction of the pillars of our ancient society.

The haughtiness and presumption of announcing that he was "detoxifying" his own belief system beggars belief.

Jack

Let's see more of Patrick Mercer, you must be joking.

He is frequently on the radio always in the newspapers, on the TV and internet rammed down our throats day and night and you want MORE.

In all that Mercer rhetoric there is always been a sense of cold indifference and a lack of pathos and he seems to be something of an anachronism, belonging to another age, however he worked hard on his political career and became an authority on military and security matters, which was good for him, but I doubt there will be a huge portrait of Mercer for the town hall as a cenotaph to his work in Newark.

Mercer lied when he said "I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours." later he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that in his 25-year military career, he had only twice, come across soldiers claiming racism when disciplined for poor performance.

Alan Duncan, was right to say Mercer appeared to be indifferent to the fact that someone was taunted for being black and I also think Mercer is indifferent, read his letter in the Yorkshire Post about the recent murders in Ulster where is the pathos, the sympathy?

I’m afraid he is just another obdurate hearted politician that got what he so richly deserved.

Christopher Perkins

Patrick Mercer is a terrible judge. Was a good soldier but he's no politician. Look at his recent dealings with this fool Glen Jenvey who has been shown to make up intelligence. http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/03/michael_starkey.asp
Patrick Mercer should be given a job outside of politics or stand as an independent where he can be of use to the country but not embarrass Cameron and the party.

Jeff

There have been a number of occasions where Patrik Mercer and Glen Jenvey are glorified on Newsnight by Richard Watson.
http://tinyurl.com/seejenvey

Now a search on the BBC web site does not show even a single reference to Jenvey.

Did this happened in the wake of excellent spin busting by Tim Ireland, Richard Bartholomew and Patrick Ward?