Cameron sets out his tough love agenda

David

"Making value judgements about how people live their lives smacks of hardcore socialism. "

Eh? The Conservative Party has been making value judgements like this for most of its existence. Almost all political creeds do.

Kevyn Bodman

This speech is verging on collectivist nonsense.
'All this irresponsibility must end.'
'This is our mission...yadda,yadda,yadda...'

Your mission, if you want to end irresponsibility is to stop bailing people out.
Allow people to reap the benefits or suffer the consequences of their own decisions.
And get out of the way.

Some people will take on commitments they can't afford,
some lenders will lend to borrowers who can't repay,some businesses will persist in
making products they can't sell
etc.etc.
And some people will be industrious and prudent.

Support strong families? Stop giving child benefit to unmarried women and girls and they won't get themselves pregnant by layabout or gaddabout men, in the same numbers.

'where everyone understands that we are all in this together that life is about 'we' not just 'me'.

Oh dear.
This is reminiscent of 'It Takes A village'.
It is no business at all of the government to worry about how people interact with each other.
Most people will choose to be part of a 'we' not 'me' and they do not need government guidance to do this.

Your mission Mr. Cameron, is to secure our borders and preserve our freedoms.
That's about all.

This speech is very close to platitudinous rubbish.

Doug

So long as the BBC censors anything the Tory party says (unless it conforms to the BBC's 'Tory split' or 'nasty party' theme) it will be difficult to get this message across. Maybe with this Hannan stuff, Cameron should get some more YouTube content out there but that will require Cameron to use more forceful rhetoric. We've got bypass the BBC.

Verity

"Or the businessman who puts profits before the planet."

As Tony Hancock might say, "Oh, gawwwwwwd!"

I didn't read any further. Writing by rote.

Kevyn Bodman

What a disappointing speech.
Here's what he should say, today and every week:

'On day 1 an incoming Conservative government will remove all requirements for British citizens to log their travel plans under the e-borders scheme. On the same day all spending on ID cards will cease.

There is much public discontent about MPs abusing expenses.
I have already set up a working party and in the first week of a new Conservative government we will bring forward new rules to clarify expenses and end abuse.

Within the first 6 months we will bring forward a comprehensive benefits review.
Our aim will be to increase benefits for OAPs and our wounded soldiers, and to progressively reduce them for everybody else.
We must incentivise work and so we must remove the option of benefits as a lifestyle choice.
Therefore I announce now that there will be no child benefit payable for any child born from the first anniversary of the new government taking office.
Further reviews will come later.

We will reduce non-productive jobs in the public sector.We do not want, and will not pay for,anti-smoking advisers or anything like it.
We will reduce the number and cost of quangos by 50% in our first year and by another 50% in our second year.

We recognise that there are social tensions caused by the failure of the multi-cultural experiment.We will treat all law-abiding citizens the same. There will be no blind eye turned to polygamous marriages, forced marriages or any other foreign custom that would be illegal for any British citizen.
There will be no concessions to any faith group or community. We say this now, follow our laws or leave.

We understand that these are very tough economic times. In our judgement the best thing the government can do is reduce taxes and reduce public spending more. This will make more money available for productive economic activity.
We must make it clear that the recession will be painful; we cannot remove the pain, but we can speed the recovery and that is what our policies will do.

We understand that there is deep disquiet over the UK's relationship with the EU.
We will have a referendum on the UK's continued membership and will be bound by the result.

I understand that you have rarely heard a politician speak to the electorate in such stark terms.
Please, if our programme is not what you want then do not vote for us.
But we are confident that our policies represent the best way forward, and therefore I am proud to ask for your vote in the forthcoming General Election.'

All this in less than 3 minutes.
And it's an election-winner.

Rex Burr

I am looking for a reason to love the Tories because I may spend the rest of my life under a Tory government.
I don’t have a plasma TV and I drive a fourteen-year-old car even though I could buy a new one tomorrow.
I like the tenor of this article.
The healthy welfare claimant thinks it’s OK because he or she can see Bankers and Directors milking their position for all its worth.
Come on Dave, drop this IHT nonsense, it damages your case for a nation united under the Tories. You clearly have more important and relevant issues to attend to.

Kitttler

Is it not unfortunate that the Tories, when in government, disposed of all those public assets.
The North Sea oil concessions, some now owned by Middle East states, the Utilities, most in foreign ownership.
How useful they would be in the current insolvency.
Can anyone think of anything that we could flog to foreigners, before we have to go a begging?

Steve

What will be playing on Cameron's mind is not this speech but the D word. In the past few weeks:

A council leader has defected to Labour.

A MEP has defected tot the EPP

An electoral strategist has defected to Libertas.

A donor has defected to UKIP.

Just looking at how different these four parties are you can't help but worry about the divisions in the Tory party. Not that there is an excuse for their defections, they are merely attention-seeking careerists but Cameron will need to win back the initiative with a few coups of his own. David Freud was billed as the first in a series of defections to the Tories so where are the others? UKIP will be pleased with their catch today. I am convinced UKIP are nothing more than fringe lunatics such as Verity who will achieve nothing more than permanent Labour government (and may subconsciously like this idea.

porkbelly

Just what exactly is the difference between "social responsibility" and "state control"? It sounds as though Cameron is simply advocating replacing the foolish, spendthrift headmaster with a strict Puritanical one; not a very enticing prospect.

London Calling

How patronising... To accuse the British Public of their 'addiction to debt' and that they need to change their ways for the country’s sake, when it is they the British public who along with their own current debts are now saddled for years to come with an enormous debt for their country’s sake...

The uncomfortable truth is...
the British Public are already aware and are suffering the consequences, it wasn’t a matter of choice, the Banks switched the tap off, jobs are being lost and savings of 2.billion have been withdrawn from banks by the public because they have lost complete faith in the banking system, however this is not good news for the economy as fear and insecurity has led to the public's own version of responsibility...simply not to spend except for the essentials and to keep savings at home...
David Cameron is either out of touch with the reality of the situation or he is directing his speeches blindly without thought.

Blaming the Bankers, the Bakers and the Welfare takers is not 'Tough Love' as you put it Peter
its predictable politics with a bitter lemon twist, nothing new and nothing gained, just a large cellar of salt and the publics wounds to rub it into.

The public deserve better than this... and I know it and you know it and you know that I know it...;0… I think Daniel Hannan should write David’s speeches instead...

Verity

What a crappy, content-free speech. No wonder he was so envious of Mr Hannan's talent, charisma and international success that he didn't mention it for three days, and then gave it tepid praise.

Verity

Yes, London Calling; it was a patronising speech.

Porkbelly - You are also correct. What is the difference beween "social responsibility" and "state control"? There is none. David Cameron is a social Democrat. He is not a Conservative.

TGF UKIP

Kevyn Bodman, Verity and London Calling, I am in complete agreement. When I read the excerpt particularly "the businessman who puts profits before the planet" my immediate reaction was unctuous prat.

My mind immediately went back to the Glasgow speech six months or so back when he was preaching about what people, particularly those who he regards as the lesser classes, should eat.

What a nauseatingly, pompous, patronising, pc sod he really is.

hysteria

what Kevyn said......

Verity

At the same time, who noticed that Cameron's people had had him lit more harshly, to give his face definition?

THX1138

Or the politician that lies to the elctorate..

Do you really want Companies to profit before the environment? I certainly don't, go and have a look at China if you want to see how that turns out.

johnny come lately

Terrible speech. He is proving beyond any doubt that he is a Blair Tribute Act!

Kevin Bodman, Verity and all others visit:-

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.phpfa=PAGE.view&pageId=92999

Thomas Paine speeches. Watch the two video's and then come back!

Edited for this Island, that is what I want some politician to say!

Chris lancashire

Sorry to disagree with the mainstream but I liked two lines. Setting doctors, teachers and the police free of stupid one dimensional targets and trusting them to do their jobs is central to reforming our battered public services. And as a businessman, I do try to take into account environmental factors - when I can afford it - so nothing wrong there either.

Verity

Chris Lancashire - "The environment" - meaning the Earth - is heated by the Sun. Sometimes, as in the days when Rome was occupying England, activity on the surface of the Sun intensifies and that heats the Earth up. Then, gradually, it cools again. When the Romans were in Britain, the Anglo Saxon aspirational classes were swanking about in togas and sandals. They were large vineyards north of York.

Then it cooled down again. In the Middle Ages, it got warmer again for a while. I read that Mars heats and cools to the same degree that the Earth does. And without a single carbon footprint! It's a miracle!

We want a stout person with a great love of Britain and deeply held convictions on freedom - not an empty Blair Tribute Act.

Verity

TNX Numberplate, and when was your last fact-finding visit to China? Where exactly did you go? Which language do they speak there?

Tiberius

What a fanciful take on Cameron's Glasgow speech, TGF.

Just about everyone else (except your aunt Verity) took it as a speech on the hopelessness of welfarism.

Chris lancashire

Verity, my bit of the earth is fuelled by an industrial woodburner which saves me around £20k p a in gas and another £15k in avoiding waste landfill tax. I think that's the sort of thing Cameron might be thinking of ....

Verity

Not so, Tiberius. As far as I can see, no one has been stirred to comment favourably on this verbal wallpaper. Same old, same old social democrat message. When is he going to say something about our stolen liberties, the liberties our ancestors fought and died for? When is he going to say that the Tories will repeal every thought fascist law nailed into place by the socialists?

When is he going to make a commitment to clearing out the farmyard that the House of Commons has become?

Cameron never says anything of substance because he is a social democrat. A drawing room liberal. He is not going to do anything about the plan to subsume Britain into an ever greater EU. Why should he. Like Blair, to whom his whole term of leader has been a Blair Tribute Act, he sees his own personal future in Europe. The premiership of Britain, to which he feels oddly entitled, is a lead up to greater ambition and power in the EUSSR. That is why he won't commit to anything but fantasies about global warming, and maternity pay for fathers or whatever else they're dishing out in the Swedish parliament these days. He is a lefty.

Verity

Incidentally, Tiberius, your feeling driven to make silly personal remarks about someone you don't know tells us that the David Cameron fan club is not thriving.

Tiberius

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/2263705/David-Cameron-attacks-UK-moral-neutrality---full-text.html

Verity: 8 July 2008 speech. Even the Guardian reports it as I interpet it (if you care to google their write-up).

Tiberius

Gotcha Oscar for Verity!

How well do you know fat Jacqui?

Fan club must be doing fine ;