Cameron kicks off his campaign

Sarnia

What I would really, really like to hear is about our future as a race on Earth. When will a top political party grasp the nettle and be honest about cost of support for the descredited AGW and associated so called carbon saving associated with wind turbine farms afflicting not just the UK but the World wide. After that they might gain credence in talking about periphoral issues such as war, water shortage and famines, even education.

Neil Turner

I asume then, that he talked "without notes" about a vote on the EU, Immigration, and his desire to rid the UK of political correctness ?

RDC

I was at this meeting.Hunreds of young (25-35!) people. A very impressive, passionate and motivating speech. I know of no-one else in politics who can be like this. When Cameron is on top of his form, he is head and shoulders above anyone else. Further, I honestly feel he believes in what he says he wants to do. It is wholly possible to believe he is wrong in some of those things, but he is not searching for pathetic dividing lines or just public spin. As a nation we MUST give this man (with Clarke, Hague etc etc) a chance.

TomTom

set up independent state schools would actually mean.

Independent Comprehensives not Independent Schools like Eton which select pupils by Means Test nor Independent Grammar schools which select by academic ability......no, these will be State Comprehensive Schools run like Foundation Hospitals

Gawain

Everyone should watch the You Tube of Cameron at Lambeth College linked on Conservative Home. Cameron is beginning to get into his stride and beginning to answer direct questions with some direct answers.

toco

Any doubters of Cameron should just look at this on one of the blogs such as Ian Dale.Cameron talking to young people who started off negative but realised he is streets ahead of Brown and came towards him because it is clear he on their side.Can anyone out there really believe Brown could even talk to young people never mind connect.

ollie

Contrast Cameron's passion and raw ability at Lewisham college today, to Brown's dire performance on the Politics Show on sunday.

The Tories need to send DVDs of both performances to every swing voter in the country - the Tories would have a 100 seat majority.

Tim W

Looks great.
I just hope he takes some rest and doesn't do this every day! We don't want him burned out before the end or the TV debates.
The one thing people aren't sure about is his policies (although he has lots). If the TV debates are about policy and he is fully in the know about every single one then he can be most popular on both personality and policy. Thats what we want to win with a majority.

I'm glad though that after the doom and gloom with static speeches we are getting far more passion. If you're going to create anything like a 'movement for change' then people need to be inspired. Hopefully Cameron can live up to this.

Rescomania

This is a great move by Cameron. Currently, Labour are trying to paint him as spin and presentation with no substance. By appearing without notes in front of real audiences, he will no doubt come across as the genuine article. Brown, on the other hand, will only appear in front of stage managed, hand-picked audiences, and the difference in the two approaches will become all too apparent to the electorate; and this will be in Cameron's favour.

egh

I am so sick of this word "change." Why are they all jumping on the Obama bandwagon? Do they think we don't know the traditional, therefore old, adage? Btw I think it sounds better in English than in froggish "THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME?"

Or are they deliberately insulting us by throwing it in our faces? Are they manipulating us emotionally, employing rhetoric as sleight of words to disguise the evil of the truth that they in fact plan more of the same for us: the euSSR, Immigration, and Communist Claptrap?

Alexandrovich

RDC: I also "...honestly feel he believes in what he says he wants to do."

Which is why I will not be voting for him.

Mucker

egh (11.3pm) he has been using change since he was elected as leader, before O. But you may feel it is too much of a gimmick, which is your opinion.

DC has been fronting up for years with his UK wide Q&A. Good training.

TLiked the Lewi vid. Loadsa passion. Great!

Watt Tyler

I am getting to the bottom of this. The Progressive (Marxists) Conservatives are trying to get him elected like Obama got elected - the HopeyChangey candidate. ConservativeHome has a thread headlined "Obama-esque photographs of David Cameron from tonight's party rally."

When Obama was elected, the media worked night and day to keep damaging revelations about his true political colours out of the public eye. However, he had to legislate when he became president, and the people had a chance to see him reveal himself.

The same will happen here, and you will be sorry.

I lament

Pathetic. In so many ways. But congrats to the young conservatives for rushing in here with so much support.

Verity

Alexandrovich ... you and me both.

No.

Verity

Re the ghastly Dave: "I ... honestly feel he believes in what he says he wants to do." Says Alexandrovich, "That's why I won't be voting for him."

Me too, Alexandrovich. Me too.

Dave is not a Conservative. He's a Swede. (I believe they have the highest per capita itinerant muslim 'asylum seekers' in the world, and also the highest number of rapes by 'asylum seekers' in the world.)

Dave is on the side of the EUSSR policy on "asylum seekers" (asylum from what?) in the world. No one ever says what they're seeking asylum from.)

From which country are they seeking "asylum"?

Surely we should address that country and not the individual monetary parasite on society? If it's Pakistan, for example, or Bangladesh, send them back with a reference to change their country from within.

That's what the Filippinos did.

They were outstandingly successful by bravely standing their ground against the military and insisting on democracy in the face of the armed forces. Of course, the armed forces were one of them, in spirit. They were all one society. The Marcoses backed down. The people won.

I was living in SEA at the time and watched it on TV after work every day, and the bravery was just outstanding.

Perhaps the Somali parasites, the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the whatever parasite poseurs du jour would be better off at home changing their system ... if they were brave enough.

I propose that there are no genuine "asylum seekers" in the world today.

Anyone who wants to argue with me, give me examples.

They should be turned away at the port without getting their "case" heard. We don't want them. Let them seek asylum in Dubai, which has their religion. Or Saudi Arabia, where the fun never ends.

Anywhere there is islam, there is toxin. Let them go and live there.

Ian C

Verity

You've been spending too many nights with your friend Atilla.

John Moss

We need to talk about the "overdraft" and the "mortgage" not the "deficit" and the "debt" - people can relate to those concepts.

Broiwn kept running up overdrafts and adding them to the mortgage every year, thinking it would all come good in the end.

Unfortunately, it was his overdraft, but it is our mortgage!

We're now stuck with hundreds of billions more on the mortgage, so when the kids inherit the house, it won't be a nest egg, it will be saddled with negative equity.

Vulture

Some of these starry-eyed Cameroon comments could have been ( & perhaps were) cut and pasted straight from from 1997 when another grinning, fluent, vacuous tailor's dummy sputed a lot of waffle about 'change'.

GeoffH

Verity: "I was living in SEA at the time"

In the spirit of your tedious rantings, you should take your own advice and go back.

Dorothy Wilson

Alexandrovich: So you will allow Brown to be re-elected - a man whose beliefs are so divorced from reality that he is in cloud cuckoo land. And has reached the stage where he is highly dangerous.

Andy Carpark

@ 8:45 am

"[Gordon Brown's] brief statement contained no fewer than eight references to 'change', which climaxed with the declaration: 'And now let the work of change begin.' His pollsters were telling him that 'change' was the most popular word with their focus groups."

Andrew Rawnsley, The End of the Party (459)

TomTom

We need to talk about the "overdraft" and the "mortgage" not the "deficit" and the "debt" - people can relate to those concepts.

You obviously can, but don't limit public intelligence to your own constraints.

The simple fact is ALL Governments SPEND more than they TAX. Thatcher did this just as Major and Blair-Brown. People would not want the levels of Spending if they were Paying CASH in taxes to fund it, so Politicians lie.

They lie about the taxes levied to fund the EU, to fund AGW Propaganda, to fund Immigration, to fund Party Apparatchiki on the public payroll.

Cameron lies about the fact that TAXES have to rise to pay for the past 15 years of Overspend and PFI even BEFORE Spending Cuts are employed to bring down Trend Growth of Spending.

The analogy with a mortgage is b@llshit because you can default on a mortgage and catch a ferry to France or Ireland...maybe the British Government should default and do a John Stonehouse.

The fact is that Britain has TOO FEW companies employing people to make things to sell abroad and earn Forex. It has created the conditions to make it impossible to create such companies through dire State education, abysmal infrastructure, and a worship of The City that led Thatcher to give it free rein to trade British companies - remember Rowntree Plc, Dunlop, ICI - to foreigners so The City could be Britain's meal-ticket in the world with Chinese coolies making our manufactured goods in the old Imperial Tradition of gentlemen making Money while the peasants make Things

Man in a Shed

I have to agree with what Ollie says 100%.

Amazingly the Daily Mail tries to spin the line that it was a disaster ! http://preview.tinyurl.com/yf76vvo

the question has to be what is going on with the Daily Mail ( and also the Telegraph ) when smears and spin that would almost shame The Mirror are being published ?

JONNY

More mindless nuttering from the usual nutters.
If he does well they kick him.
If he does badly they kick him even harder.
What s sour sour lot they are.

Glen Green

Verity, the country cannot be changed overnight; perhaps it will never change, but at least we need to push it in the right direction.
If we allow Bruin to remain in charge then "things.....can only get worse". If we vote for Cameruin then things may, "may" improve slowley.

If you think you can persuade CCHQ to replace Dave with..er...hmmm...whoever and then get 40% of the electorate to vote for them, then go for it.

I don't think I'll be able to achieve either, so I just have to be a realist and vote for Dave.

General Zod

Richard has been busy over at5 the grauniad too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2010/mar/15/davidcameron-conservatives?showallcomments=true#CommentKey:33508427-2fda-465d-9bf0-569af2a49b37

Nicholas

Actually the comparison of Cameron to the 1997 Blair is a compliment because the public voted for Blair en masse for the change he offered to a country that believed it desperately needed it (and believed in him). It is only hindsight that permits the optimism of the promise to be conflated with the outcome and applied negatively to Cameron. That is unfair, since he has not yet been able to demonstrate failure or success by being given an opportunity to hold office. Either way the comparisons to Blair as negative are invalid. Just because they promise similar things doesn't mean the outcome will be the same. To believe that is to be cynical and negative without cause.

An alternative perspective might be that Blair offered positive change from the centre-left but failed to deliver it and now Cameron is offering positive change from the centre-right with the intention to deliver it. I cannot see why he is being beaten up for this, never having had the opportunity to show he means business, and yet Brown/New Labour are still bleating about change after 13 years of failure and being let off lightly.

It seems to come down to personal and vociferous dislike for Cameron as a person (q.v. Verity) and/or a few "single issue" issues about which he has not spoken radically enough (or at all) to inspire the confidence expected from a particular entrenched "tradcon" perspective (q.v. Tebbit).

I have my doubts about Cameron and the modernised Tories but they are as nothing compared to my horror at the prospect of 5 more years of the wannabe East Germans. I am so sure of the prospects of life under a vindicated and triumphant Brown (state sponsored insanity) and less so of those under Cameron that I am more than prepared to take the risk. I won't do anything that runs the risk of strengthening the worst New Labour fascists (Brown, Harmon, Balls, Straw, Burnham, Bradshaw) - and that includes voting UKIP or any of the other "protest vote" parties.

I want those specific dangerous people out of power and I'm prepared to give Cameron a chance to achieve that. Anything else seems to me to involve greater risks.

Alexandrovich

Yes Dorothy Wilson, I would. Because exchanging like for like does not motivate me.
Let's look at the indignation expressed over the past couple of years, with regard to Cameron, by the commenters here. Notice how anger, then apprehension has meekly turned to acceptance of the lesser of two evils?
For what? A little bit of tax advantage here or there, the supposed protection of a nest egg?
And for that you want me to say that I accept there are only two political parties in our laughable democracy and I must perpetuate that.
I will be content knowing that I did not vote for Brown, whatever the outcome.

Yosemite Sam

I watched the clip of the Lewisham event after reading a sarcastic description of it in the Times. I was amazed at the difference between my perception and that of the Times writer. Since then, I have picked up the Mail take on the event and, again, I am amazed at the difference in perception. Perhaps I am getting too old. I remember well the time when politicians were expected to get out and about and meet the people. They expected to be questioned, unrehearsed, and heckled by the crowds. I saw Harold Wilson (not a favourite of mine) take on and win round a hostile crowd in 1970. George Brown was fantastic at speaking and responding - I saw him in 1966. Even Ted Heath did not dodge the man in the street. What has happened to the MSM that it can belittle a man who has the guts to go forth and put his point of view. And turn round a hostile audience - as Cameron did yesterday. All credit to him, and lets hope we see more of the same in the run up to the Election.

Verity

Geoff H, or whatever your nom du jour is: "In the spirit of your tedious rantings, you should take your own advice and go back."

Where did I advise anyone to go back? Do you find the written word difficult to grasp, dear? Perhaps you should take a course on remedial reading. I guarantee you will be happier once you can read a post and understand every word.

Verity

Glen Green - Your post gives rise to the question, why are the people who run the Conservative Party pushing Dave ... an immensely unpopular and inept individual?

I give them credit for being astute enough to interpret the writing on the wall, and to understand that most Conservatives despair of Dave and that although many will vote Tory out of loyalty, legions of others will desert in despair.

Cameron is very unpopular. Why are they retaining his services? It is passing odd.

Verity

Nicholas, you do me an injustice. I started out neutral about Dave. Like others of the right, I hoped he had the right stuff. When he declared himself, in the Commons, the heir to Blair, I had my first chilling doubts. Opportunist, clinging onto the enemy's coattails. Now he's switched coattails, and has burrowed in to Obama's hopey-changey thing.
Cameron wants to get his polished shoes under the top table, no matter what it takes. In that sense, he is indeed the heir to Blair.

(Sorry about all these posts in a row, but with the site's Comments steam engine you can't clank back and forth between comments and responding.)

Guy Liardet

I was frightfully impressed with the Spectator's manifesto- surely some of thst should get into the Manifesto?

JONNY

'Cameron is very unpopular.'

Where's the evidence for that Verity?
Have you read the recent ICM?
I think you're trying to say he gets up your very personal selective goat. (As opposed to the wunderschon Daniel Hannan).
That of course makes him universally and delusionally unpopular for one egocentric bitchy woman, with a pathological hatred complex (controllable no doubt at the hands of a pricey Harley St psychiatrist).

Nicholas

Verity, don't think so. Your attacks on Cameron are frequently ad hominem and a lot of the statements you make about him appear to be subjective. It is clear that you dislike him on a personal level but I do wonder if all the qualities - or lack of them - which you ascribe to him are backed by any real evidence.

I singled you out - not to attack you - but to example the type of attack on Cameron which your posts typify. Of course you are perfectly entitled to your view and to express it here. As I've mentioned before I also have reservations but I see it as a very clear case of the lesser of two evils.