Keep reading the Brooks, David

Susan Hill

Now what was is Maggie said about 'society' ?

TGF UKIP

Dave Dave Dave, Rah Rah Rah!

With Mr Forsyth, though, it's always difficult to know which Dave the cheerleading is for - Cameron or Brooks.

wonderfulforhisage

"Tim Montgomerie first identified David Brooks as a possible guru for Cameron".

I'd be happier with Lord Tebbit in the job.

Jenny

Yes. And who is this interesting to? Politcal anoracks.

I like the Cameron line you quote. However - and for the umpteenth time - all Cam's trendy posturing never got him anywhere. That's why you have had to write this up in this blog. It has not registered in the big wide world. Has it? I haven't seen it on any front pages.

The Conservative Party has for years failed to deal with its Achilles heal of sleaze. This was an infection so serious it required major surgery. Only after he was pushed did Cam respond properly.

The Conservative grass roots and the wider electorate are electrified this week but not because of 'green' politics or all-female shortlists or all the other PC rubbish that took the Conservatives nowhere in the polls, but simply because the infection of the Wintertons, Conway et al looks as if it is finally going to be done away with.

That is what Cam has done well this week. Forget the silly PC nonsense that obsesses wretched Londoners, this is what the country wants to hear.

Anand

I hate the fact that mainstreme media portray the Uk Conservative Party as of the same ilk as the US Republican Party. As a floating voter I am very likely to consider voting Conservative at both the Euro/Locals and the GE, but if I was an American I wold never ever in a million years consider voting Republican.

Cameron would do well to put distance between the Tories and the Republicans. He will find many people who are glad the Bush administration has come to and end yet alsowilling to vote Conservative.

Dave B

In his May 5th column, Mr Brooks (speaking about the Republicans) said they should be 'the party of of community and civic order.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/opinion/05brooks.html

RM

Susan Hill since you asked this is what she actually said:

"They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours"

JohnAnt

'We trust society.'
What the hell does that mean??? What's 'society'? We have no homogeneous society any more in our cities. We have ghetto communities of different classes and races, locked in mutual fear and loathing.
And 'trust' this (non-existent) 'society' to do what precisely? Collect the bins?
It's nonsense.

Vulture

Cameron is generally considered - certainly by Coffee House's regular pundits - to have had a superb week after what could have been a PR disaster. 'He looked and sounded like a PM'. Yes, indeed. But that's all he is: just looks and sounds. What has he actually DONE? So long as vulpine Francis Maude and smirking Alan Duncan sit as Tory MPs - let alone in the shadow cabinet - we will know that nothing has changed, and nothing will change. That its all hot air & smoke 'n' mirrors. If you want to know the future just dust down the files on Tony Bliar in 1994-97. Not for nothing does old Dave proclaim himself the heir to Blair. Believe me, its all PR bull***t. The man has no ideas, no philosophy of society or anything else. What he's after is getting power for its own sake and nothing more.

Rhoda Klapp

This is just idle positioning, and the quote has zero information content. I'd love to hear about the anti-statist changes he plans to make, how he will repeal all the things Labour did and restore power to...not the bloody council..or the regional authority, whatever that is...but to me.

Rhoda Klapp

..oh, I meant just my share of power, not all of it.

Varlet

Well said Vulture 4:46. And did you see his Party Political piece last evening. Fantastic fine words, and not a parsnip in sight.

Thinks; "How is it that commentators with names begining with V, (Vulture, Verity etc.) exude such good sense"?

Ian C

What he should have said was "we trust men and women to make the best deicsions for themselves" - as Thatcher was alluding to in her much misquoted famous phrase.

That DC has dressed this up as 'society' for presentation purposes is a poor reflection not only on him but on the wider political and journalistic world that is so nit-picking in the use of words and phrases when the meaning is and was quite apparent.