What does it matter if Samantha Cameron voted Labour once?

Andy Leeds

No ones business but hers. And as she has denied it that is the end of that. Only she knows.

Sally Chatterjee

It just fits with the story that even the Conservatives aren't sure of themselves. The fact that Ed Vaizey blurted out this speculation shows he is prone to attention-seeking nonsense. Just weeks from a general election you'd expect the Conservative front bench to be exposing Labour's disastrous legacy and proposing radical new policies. Alas.

Noa Zrk

"she has a tattoo on her ankle, she spent her student years shooting pool and hanging out with musicians. Then she married a politician".

Yup, all downside. Total loser and dropout. But where did she start going wrong?

Irene

Has anyone got a gun - because I am losing the will to live with all this crap!

Gawain

I have a brother and sister who voted New Labour in1997. One joined the Conservative party four years ago and I very much doubt that the other, who has three children at grammar school, will put an x anywhere near Gordon's army of smearers, sophists and smirkers. I would imagine that any Tory family in the country could tell similar tales. Sam Cameron is just the sort of person we want voting Conservative at this election. What she voted in the past is a matter between her and the ballot box ! The mail may have, unwittingly, done the Conservatives a great favour.

Ado Annie

Sam Cam is a terrific girl - smart, sassy and I beleive she will be a great asset as the PM's wife (in the mould of Norma Major who kept her nose out of business whilst being fully supportive).
I read somewhere that the attack dogs are after her which is pretty loathsome.
And will someone please take Sarah Brown away with her constant celeb love-ins and twitterings. If this woman isn't actually using Gordon Brown's position to further her own career ten I'll eat a ballot box.
I think this story is utter tosh Fraser but your reasoning is interesting.

Short the UK

Fraser,

Some weetabix for you:

GBP:

Reserve Currency-->Industrial Currency--->Hard Currency--->Hedge Fund Currency--->????? Currency.

It seems these are the options:

A. Deflationary depression.

B. Stagflation.

C. Stagausflation (stagflation + austerity).

D. Depflation (depression + inflation).

A - would be the best as the creditors would take a haircut and the balance sheet would be viable for future growth, only Thatcher has taken this course in modern British history. Remember the whole elite came out against her, 364 economists wrote to the Times, including Mervyn King.

B - is impossible because the deficit has to be cut. We are in this phase at the moment.

C - is where we are going next, if the political elite start cutting then this will be our lot for years and years. It is a reverse parallel experience of the Irish.

D - this the darkside where we will go if the political elite don't tackle the deficit. The Pound collapses and the UK is seen as a basket case.

James

Colud be spun as "yes, I voted Labour, but saw the light. I think ths is more of 'get your retaliation in first' from Labour. With Sarah Brown acting as unofficial spin-doctor/cheerlaeder for Gordon, they must be worried the Tories will target her.

Chuck Unsworth

Who cares? What's the point of this discussion? Are we now to examine the voting records of the partners of all MPs? For God's sake, why?

This 'article' is a complete waste of newsprint. Hasn't the Mail anything more interesting to write about? What about examining the voting tendencies of the Teletubbies?

Vulture

Slurp! If you are going to do this level of sycophancy, Fraser : can't it be a little less obvious?

This qualifies for the Eye's Order of the Brown Nose.

AuldCurmudgeon

The fundamental Achilles heel of Gordon Brown is that he is never wrong. What raises the bile about the last years of Blair and the entire administration of Brown was the way Rock Star ministers would confect half-baked Bills and use the cannon fodder of the parliamentary majority to ram through an Act, howver flawed, however ill-advised. There can be no reasoning, no negotiation, no amendment – the Rock Star is a Star and he is right and totally right and the acolytes must worship no other.
How I hunger and thirst for real parliamentary debate: a government that does not create the absolute and only solution to each and every problem. This game is the New Labour game. There is nothing wrong at all about a party that states: these are the issues and we must all find a solution through the strenuous liberty of many discordant beliefs. That’s what people think a hung parliament will deliver: no rubber-stamping majority. It’s time to stop pretending political parties are football teams and democracy is a beer bottling in the post-match booze up. It’s not having the right answers that may well count now; it’s having the political maturity to hammer them out.
I used to vote Labour.

Stonewall

The economy is in shreds, we are fighting two wars( men and women are dying or being maimed), thousands are concerned about their future the NHS is a shambles (see Stafford, the Radcliff and Basildon) etc etc and all you do is perpetuate the ramblings of that somnambulant cretin Vaizey.
Give me strength!!

Hawkeye

It matters to The Comrades because it allows them to smear someone's reputation. They can attack either her for being duplicitous or her husband for not even being able to inspire his wife's loyalty.

The Trots will think this is an election winner and by next week they will be devastated that the torie's poll rating has not gone to zero.

Meanwhile, in the real world we all await the chance to throw this shower of a govt. out on their ear.

Joesph Alan Jones

So what, we all experiment. After my indoctrination at a Coll of Ed I joined the Labour party. I lasted two meetings of the local party. It was like visiting the local nut house. Unfortunately not a joke!

denis cooper

Secret ballot, so any claims about how she voted can only be hearsay. Unless somebody produces hard evidence - her ballot paper, bearing her fingerprints and DNA, or linked to her through the list compiled at her polling station or through the postal voting documentation - in which case they have broken the law and should be severely punished on conviction. Even if she says how she voted on a particular occasion, we should have no way of knowing whether she's telling the truth. The secrecy of the ballot must be sacrosanct, to prevent both intimidation and bribery, and we should never allow anyone to mess about with it or call it into question without good cause. One of the most damaging things done by this government, in the longer term, was to undermine public confidence in the integrity and secrecy of the voting system by encouraging postal voting with rules of such insane laxity that they were bound to encourage fraud and corruption. A few people were caught and convicted, but the punishments they received were inadequate given the gravity of their offences.

Eg this Tory in Slough:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176591/Tory-councillor-jailed-using-ghost-voters-rig-local-election.html

"Eshaq Khan, 52, received a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury."

The maximum sentence for conspiracy to defraud is ten years, for perjury it's seven years, and for perverting the course of justice it's life.

Informed Giant

Agreed Fraser. And even if she merely thought about it, perhaps it shows that there are people out there who can understand ( to a point) the views of others. But we all know Sarah Brown loves the one-eyed types....(apologies to Jeremy Clarkson)

luke

I totally agree Fraser. Far more damaging is her subsequent reassurances that in fact she campaigned for Major and voted for Howard.

Frank P

Never mind the prospective Prime Minister's wife once voting labour - what about his communist pal and role model living in the White House:

http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/theres-a-communist-living-in-the-white-house/

Some really serious humour in this clip, folks stay with it.

Andre

Wasn't she the score girl on Just a Minute?

Tiberius

This story is just another confirmation of the intellectual decline of Britain, which plays into the hands of the Alice in Wonderland agenda of Labour, but causes The Tories (as evidenced by Ed Vaizey's hesitation) no end of problems.

Johnnyboy

Andre - I'm sorry, you haven't a clue!

TGF UKIP

Ah, glad to see the return of the two Fraser Nelsons. The Spectator one dutifully doing his duty this morning and acting as apologist for Dave and Lady Macbeth. It does matter though, Fraser, firstly because of the influence she exercises over Dave which, my spies tell me, is considerable. Not interested in the day to day tittle tattle of politics, but quite determined to have her view taken into account on policy. While she may not be as mouthy or as gross as Scouse Cherie (what female ever could be?) she is just as influential. Secondly, she does not hesitate to use her influence. Not only from an immensly wealthy family herself, she did not hesitate to use her step-mother's friendhsip with Michael Green to fix Dave up with his parachuted in job at Carlton. I am also told she does not hesitate to queen it over the other wives who all feel constrained to spend fortunes at Smythsons and Okah. "Sucking up to Sam" is, I believe, their phrase for it.

Then, though, we have the other Fraser Nelson, the Screws Nelson and certainly no Dave arse-licker he. Rather now, very belatedly, putting the boot instead of his tongue where it should have been a couple of years ago. Quite rightly, Fraser, as the uselessness of Dave and The Clique becomes ever more glaring, the more scathing you have become and never more so than today - I certainly hope you are not going to deprive CHers and are going to provide the NoW link for them.

All, though, much too late and not in the far more influential (in Tory circles atleast) Spectator where a repeated kicking might have rectified matters. Never mind, though, I will be reminding of your failure on the morning after and no doubt you, yourself, will be long contemplating it back in Auchtermuchty.

David B

Proof that David Camaron has a life that does not require everyone around him to think he is right all the time.

Anyone trying to make a story out of this needs to get out of the bubble and find the real world

Richard

This matter could all be cleared up if Vague just asks her...in say ten years time and then tells call me Dave 3 months later and that will be that. The fox will have been shot.

Edward Sutherland

Instead of this rubbish, Fraser, why don't you start putting together that article you promised on the far more significant Neather revelations?

biggestaspidistra

It doesn't matter at all. Increasingly over the last few months the Conservative party have appeared to be a paler, more amateur version of the Labour party. The surprise would be if they weren't voting Labour.

Although, this is a saddening observation: "Everyone knows that she is not the stereotypical Tory wife: she has a tattoo on her ankle". Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

radgie gadgie

What an astounding revelation. Heres another couple. I reckon some liebour Ministers were once young communists and some Tories have voted UKIP.

watt tyler

To all those "Conservatives" who once voted Labour. Don't lecture people on voting for UKIP at the risk of giving Labour 5 more years (which won't happen, incidentily) when you once put them in power directly.

se1man

Presumably she is just one of millions of recovering Labour voters - I count myself amongst them. Makes me more inclined to vote C rather than less...

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

@ Short the UK @ 11.24a.m.

You keep plugging away old son.
Seems like nobody wants to face the music and listen to what's important.
Has someone tampered with the UK water supply turning brains to mushy peas.

Me and my pal in the Yucatan can't believe you're all so close to the abyss, and you're still discussing for whom Cameron's wife once voted!!!

Frazer - you should be ashamed of yourself.

You keep tellin' 'em Short.
There's an elephant in the room... and it's doing ca-ca everywhere.

Fraser Nelson

TGF, I have think SamCam is great and underrated - and say so in the NOTW too. Cameron's strategy leaves plenty be be desired, and I say that in The Spectator (and did so over two whole pages a few weeks back, in the Keith Joseph lecture). I'm afraid I won't fit any binary distinction you might like to draw - being pro-Dave or anti-Dave. On a personal level, I admire him and have tremendous hope for what he might achieve. On a political level, I think he has missed many open goals - and led what is, so far, a pretty shambolic campaign largely deserves to be where he is in the polls right now. As I said in the Keith Joseph lecture, we have the battle between Cameron's radical angel and the demons of caution. I like to think Cameron's better angels will win in the end. We won't have long to see.

Mazza1230

Many floating voters were seduced by the siren-song of the charlatan Tony Blair in 1997.

What is astonishing is that it has taken til 2010 for most of these voters to realise that Blair's smarm just lent a thin veneer of electability to the same old tax and spend Labour wastrels.

Jane

Like many people, she probably voted for Tony Blair in the 1997 landslide. So did many other natural Tory voters. One must remember the downfall of the last Conservative government and the subsequent mess for many years with poor leadership and an agenda that only appealed to the hard core supporter.

People like Samantha would never vote for GB. People like me who always voted for Tony Blair will now vote for David Cameron. Leadership, personality and an agenda that appeals to the middle ground will win the election.

Anan

Well done on copying my "The Comrades" remark.

Short the UK

Zoo Keeper,

Thank you for the support.

Here's some real economic caviar:

"It’s astounding that people can’t grasp the simple concept that wealth (as opposed to money) does not grow on trees. We, individuals and governments, have consumed more than we produced, for a long time, or in simple terms we spent more than we earned. Now we, individuals and governments, must earn more than we spend, for a long time. Yes, that will cause a depression. It can’t be avoided because the consumption has already occurred and payment is due.

Our previous debt-bubble-fueled-overconsumption will be paid for, either by those who consumed, those who provided the goods, those who provided the credit, or the taxpayers. No matter which group pays, that group will consume less because they are paying for prior consumption. It doesn’t avoid anything if the government stimulates using more borrowed or printed money, just shifts the burden from one group to another. Creating future tax burdens by running large govt deficits just shifts the blame down the road a bit. Creating inflation is a tax on savers, which subsequently reduces their ability to consume. Defaulting on debt will be ruinous to creditors.

The “mother of all depressions” is still coming. We’re just rearranging the deck chairs and deciding who gets first dibs on the lifeboats."

Addenda

"When an entity/ enterprise / person goes bankrupt, the wealth that was formerly "owned" is now reassigned and actually used productively by someone who wants it, needs it and knows how to use it. It doesn't somehow disappear, "poof!". But when a trick like QE attempts to artificially prevent an undercapitalized asset (e.g., Brit Real Estate) from being appropriately reallocated, the result is zombie assets, lying around doing nothing. The expression "moral hazard" does no justice to this situation: "economic suicide" is better. This is the Japanese story from the 90s. Every pound spent on deluding Northern Rock's accountants is a pound taken out of a teacher's pay-cheque."

Anon

=====

The most shocking aspect of this disaster is the appeasement of the British elite, they won't face up to reality, I call it Treason.

biggestaspidistra

What TGF said was funny though and had a whiff of truth. For all the faint praise heaped on Cameron by his lackeys there is no charisma, no common touch, little substance. Brown lacks these qualities too, is much worse, but is already in the seat. And doesn't Mrs C sell handbags? Do you not understand why to the rest of us this cheerleading might sound so incestuous when we hear 'but no, she did incredibly well.' Standards higher please.

London Calling

History dictates that all prominent leaders had shrewd Women as council, Herod’s mother was a prime example, but then if you couldn’t rule it all makes sense. However even after one hundred year of voting for Women, all Britain has to show for the vote is Margaret Thatcher. Politics is still Male dominated, in fact the whole world is through every prism and is still yet to be addressed. The sword and the cup have yet to be realised in a democracy, but it will.

Therefore for all Mrs Brown twittering and Samantha’s influencing, nothing much has changed.

Can we now move on with this Non-story, Britain’s sinking and we have no Armada moored at Westminster…

Anna -

Great! So you finally caught up with the update I saw last night. Actually you are right with your question "What does it matter if Samantha Cameron voted Labour once?" It doesn't, but unfortunately you then go on to give the question some importance. Seriously low grade tabloid behaviour, I'm surprised at you!

Holly ......

NEXT!!!!

djw2009

Fraser, Samantha Cameron may have been a silly goth in her youth, but she is hardly non-conservative-wife material. She has a very aristocratic background that may be explored at http://www.genealogics.org/pedigree.php?personID=I00418385&tree=LEO, and is descended from the Stuart kings through the bar sinister - just as David Cameron is descended from William IV and Mrs Jordan, in fact. They are both very, very aristocratic by extraction - why would you try to paint her as anything else - unless you are writing these on commission from central office??

djw2009

David and Samantha Cameron are 11th cousins twice removed:

1. James I
2. Charles I
3. Charles II and Nell Gwyn
4. Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans
5. Lord Vere Beauclerk, 1st Baron Vere of Hanworth
6. Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans
7. William Beauclerk, 8th Duke of St Albans
8. Lady Mary Noel Beauclerk m. Thomas Corbett of Elsham Hall
9 Eleanor Blanche Mary Corbett m Sir John Dugdale Astley, 3rd Bt
10. Eleanor Corisande-Astley m. Edward Roland Soames
11. Nancie Miriel Denise Soames m. Reginald Sheffield
12. Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield, 8th Bt
13. Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield

1. James I
2. Elizabeth the Winter Queen of Bohemia
3. the Electress Sophia
4. George I
5. George II
6. Frederick Lewis
7. George III
8. William IV
9. Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence m. William George Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll
10. Lady Agnes Hay m. James Duff, 5th Earl of Fife
11. Lady Agnes Duff m. Sir Alfred Cooper
12. Stephanie Agnes Cooper m. Arthur Francis Levita
13. Enid Levita m. Ewen Donald Cameron
14. Ian Donald Cameron
15. David Cameron

TGF UKIP

Fraser, I loudly applauded your Keith Joseph, it was superb with the predictable reservation being your ritual final declarations of faith in Cameron's good angels. However, that was just a few weeks ago, and one of my main bones of contention is that you should have been taking Dave to task more brutally and severely two years ago. The PBR of 2007 should have marked the end of Blue Labour, or Budget 08 at the very latest, when the borrowing figure for 2012/13 was already at £812bn (as I recall) which,given Brown's usual undercounting probably meant closer to a trillion. But no Blue Labour spending promises continued with no expressions of outrage coming from The Speccie.

Secondly, Fraser, regarding your contiued expressions of faith in Cam - why? Unless they really are as ritual as I sometimes suspect them to be. As the C in C of the Tory Party he has been a disaster, persistently letting himself be dragged onto Labour's choice of battleground. Then appointing two mates as his Chiefs of Staff, and please don't give me that guff about ace political strategist Osborne and master marketing strategist Hilton cos demonstrably neither of them are worth tuppence otherwise the Cameron Tories wouldn't now be in the political shit they are. Finally and most bizarrely, on the very eve of battle he chooses to try to piss off the frontline troops he wants to fight for him by trying to foist on them a bunch of multiethnic, multicultural, multisexual bunch of London clones - how daft can you get! And as for being a conservative radical, how often does Dave have to explicitly tell you Fraser that he is in his own words, "a relatively liberal One Nation Conservative ..... who wants a fairer, greener, MORE EQUAL, society." In short, a liberal progressive of the Tory patrician paternalist old school - a Gilmour with a smile.

As for not having long to see, well, yes and no. If he wins we will probably have to wait until c2012/13 to see if yours and Tiberius' Ugly Duckling theory is right. My hunch, though, is that the election is coming very soon and that will see the end of Dave.

Oh and one other thing, Fraser, if election night does indeed turn out to be the Night of Doom for Dave and for Britain, will you be stepping aside from the editorial chair to make way for Verity?

David Ossitt

Fraser Nelson.

"As I said in the Keith Joseph lecture, we have the battle between Cameron's radical angel and the demons of caution. I like to think Cameron's better angels will win in the end. We won't have long to see.”

Let us all pray for the better angels and live in the hope that he will not leave it too late.

He must stop all of the youth/gay/all-women/ethnic/green/save the whale, crappity-crap and start to look like, sound like and think like a true Tory.

stevie

I can't understand the MSM's hypocrisy. Any chance to lambast Cameron is rapidly taken up yet Brown is campaigning with nothing but lies, slander and innuendo yet gets off scot-free. Bizarre. Especially so when you consider his, and his partys, massive failure. Our country is going to hell in a handbasket yet thegoon responsible is NOT held to account.

OldS.B.

So what? At least it shows that someone in the family has some wit, if only a sense of independence! I think we are long past the days when we can expect anyones' wives to behave like chattels and vote as they are told!

THX1138

Didn't everyone vote Labour in 1997?

I have just finished reading Matthew D'Ancona's superb article in this months GQ on what life will really be like under the Tories and I'm not worried.. "Coldplay Conservatism" he calls all it and it all sounds very nice & North LDN, very Waitrose, organic Vegetable boxes, coolish but safe bands, art house films, trendy restaurants & cool country house hotels (The Babington House set). My World!

Perhaps it won't be so bad after all especially as If I've now found out Sam is really "one of us" A posh metropolitan culture junkie Labour voter..

Robert Gregory

TGF pretty much nails this. Dave is useless and the fact that the Brown who should be otherwise down and out,. is creeping back in the polls, indicates the public take a similar line.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

As far as I know, Sam doesn't have a bully for a husband, nor is her best girlfriend Naomi Bully Campbell.

TGF UKIP

THX 1138, I really can't begin to thank you enough. All of us CH Dave deniers can pack up posting now, so well do you do our job for us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you and a big kiss from Verity!

Beer Moth

Well, I for one think that SamCam is a very nice looking woman.

I wouldn't climb over her to get to the missus.

Hugo van Randwyck

The media ought to leave Samantha Cameron alone. All politicians family ought to be off-limits. It's hard enough to get quality people standing for Parliament, without the media going for politician's family. I once saw her in a street, talking to someone and she seemed like a really nice person. I'm not a supporter of the Lib/Lab/Con/EU parties.

Perhaps the money for the Chilcott enquiry could have been better spent on finding if the media has a detrimental effect on quality people going into politics, and what could be done to get better people in politics.

Verity

Samantha Cameron sounds a tiny bit self-centred.

She has noted that she intends to continue working if her husband gets elected as PM (snigger). This shows an absolute contempt for the post of the Prime Minister. After the degrading circus brought to No 10 by Cherie Blair, we need a rule that Prime Ministers' spouses cannot engage in commercial activities during his/her tenure.

Verity

Hugo van Randwick says all politician's families should be off limits. That depends on whether they conduct their private lives privately.

David Cameron did that webcam deal in his kitchen and inviting us into his kitchen or whatever it was. (I sent my regrets.)

He peddled that disabled child around editors and news programmes. The boy was never slid into or out of an NHS ambulance without a TV crew in attendance.

Politicians who conduct their private lives with dignity certainly should not have those lives intruded upon by the media. David Cameron and his hero Tony Blair are not in that category.

Pot Head

I wish some of the commentors on the Coffee House would show some "dignity" and bit of common decency wouldn't go amiss either.

David Ossitt

THX1138

"Didn't everyone vote Labour in 1997?"

No; only 43.2% of the popular vote.

Tony

Yeah, she is just another regular girl. Grew up on an estate, daughter of a baronet, went to Marlborough college. Spiffingly, toppingly, normal.