A show of Cameron's adaptability

strapworld

"I always suspected" Come of it, if you had Mr Nelson you would have written so!

But I suppose the coalition can put this blog down as your first supporting article!

denis cooper

I too always felt sure that the Fuhrer was unaware of what was being done. Hopefully those responsible will be punished as they deserve.

David Lindsay

Was this because the letters to its Chairman calling for a Leadership Election were rapidly approaching enough to trigger one? Surely not...

Marcus Cotswell

You "hear" that GO wasn't properly consulted and that he was "dismayed" by what had happened. And from whom, pray, would you have heard such things? From 'sources close to the Chancellor' perchance?

davidk

Retreat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stephen MacLean

If this news about the 'restoration' of the 1922 Committee be true, it will be one of the more heartening developments for Tories since they formed a Coalition Government.

Ian E

Oh dear me, this looks a little like sycophancy - and, no, Cam's climbdown is clearly a sign of weakness. Even worse, it shows that Dave did not realise that there is a limit to how far conservatives will be pushed (it was easy of course for Blair who a) had a massive majority and b) was dealing with weak and largely unprincipled MPs.
No more of this sort of anti-democratic macho stuff, please, Mr Cameron!

John Broughton

For someone who thought through the entire strategy this error re 1922 was immense; one presumes the publicity has caused the retreat.

I think the "right" of the party is by far the biggest component and we will be heard.

AAE

Can someone please tell us whether the decision was ever legitimately his to make? Then we can decide if today's development is strength or weakness. As to party management, he has everything yet to learn.

TrevorsDen

I think last weeks fracas as a simple overstatement. You cannot, and would not want to, legislate away backbenchers.

Simon

Cyber crime alert - good grief, an objective article praising Dave - someone has obviously hacked into Nelson's account and is posting in his name.

Tim W

You're right about Cameron acting swiftly and being adaptable, admitting when he is wrong - something two certain men, surnames beginning with B, could never do.

I agree about him being badly advised about party management. The rank and file members are actually decent people. They are not the racist homophobes which people stereotype them as. Its a pity Cameron's closest advisor, Steve Hilton, reportedly hates these members and sees it as a good thing when they are angry at the leadership.

Snowman

Hmmm, the guy may be shrewder than I thought.

Labradoodledoo

You are wrong Mr Nelson. Not a usual occurrence. Mr Cameron heard today, via the Chief Whip, that the front bench were going to vote for Brady and that Cameron's plan to prise in his own man, Ottaway, had backfired. He couldn't strong arm the '22 like a man who had just ran and won a great election campaign, because he hadn't. It was a poor campaign and he lost. He doesn't have the authority to impose his own wishes upon the party. George Osborne knew all along. This is his own special brand of 'not me gov' spin, of which we will see more as the days move on.

JohnRS

CallMeDave may have avoided a head-on clash with the 1922 boys - but he still has some serious fence mending to do.

a j scott

It is good to see that Mr Nelson has at least some particles of the good sense and judgement Mr Cameron displays. Long may it continue.
Unswerving unthinking principles and ideology which fails to recognise changing times and people = dinosaurs.

Gawain

Clever politics is the way I read this. Cash, Chope and Brady have won another great phyrric victory and marked themselves out as irrelevant troublemakers.

Simon Stephenson

"I always suspected that last week's fracas was a simple misjudgment, easily explained under the chaotic events of coalition."

Mmmm. I think it was too obvious what the reaction would be for it to be a misjudgment. More likely, to my mind, is that it was a calculated piece of play-acting where Mr Cameron proposes something he has no intention of following through, in order to cultivate a reputation for magnanimity and, yes, adaptability, when he announces his decision to back off.

Cynical? Me? Yes, I'm afraid so, but the behaviour of the politicians of the last 20 years hasn't done much to dissuade me from being so.

Jez

Doublethink?

Tiberius

I do agree with you over Cameron's strength, Fraser, but this issue should never have got to fever pitch. There are eggs on faces, and maybe you will be able to give a fuller story in due course.

I just hope we don't have to find out that a number of Tory backbenchers still aren't grown up enough to wear y-fronts.

TGF UKIP

Well spun, Fraser, as a Dave apologist you're even outspinning Tiberius. Carry on like this and you'll have Essex Boy out of his job yet.

Fingal

This is very welcome news indeed and shows that DC realises he must keep his own party onboard. If he can combine firm leadership with a real ability to listen and stay in touch with both the party and the country then he may well become a really great Prime Minister.

Reg511

Country before party, baby Fraser takes his first tentative steps!

Fatbloke on tour

Trevor aka "Fraser" -- the fastest spinner in the Nelson family even though my brother is a DJ.

Your articles are now beyond parody.

Dave the Rave's judgement -- getting it wrong big style, and not being able to see it through -- now seen as a sign of strength and not weakness

Aye right as they say in G1.

More a case of Sniffy growing a backbone and demanding his place as the No.2 of the Coalition instead of Cleggy.

Shambles from start to finish, although it struggles to make the Coalition's Top 5 shambles so far.

Current leader in the Clubhouse is ...

... step forward Foxy Loxy for his train wreck of a visit to the front line.

Difficult to imagine how worse the pompous oaf could have behaved even if he a was a paid up member of the militant wing of the EK branch of Al Qaeda.

All to real from a government that is even worse than I thought it could be.

I really do wonder how long the honeymoon will last, the country can't take another 6 months of this Junior Common room tripe.

PS

Fair play to David Laws.
The Little and Large routine was something to behold.

He has so far managed what I thought was impossible, made Sniffy look a teeny weeny bit human.

Comes across as the Dog Boiler's "Dog Boiler", the public face of Orange Book economics -- "fire up the chainsaw, lets slash and burn".

He looked as if he was really enjoying himself today, true believer in the making.

Oh well two multi-millionaires taking money from the poor, the Coalition in all its gory detail.

Unfortunately all a bit dog bites man.
There is worse to come.

J Alan Jones

Relieved that that the 1922 committee is OK; internal wars are not a good thing. Of most importance is Europe; it is a threat to be acted upon. The vote was damaged by the large amount of anti-EU feeling. There are too many "withdraw from EU" Parties so that no one has an MP. The EU is a creeping dangerous monster, there is no way that the PM will negotiate with them; they are too devious. He needs to toughen up and deal with the matter for what it is, not what the dreamers hope it is.

Vulture

So dictator Dave's first attempt to dictate falls flat on its flabby face.

This fiasco has the hallmarks of Steve 'poison dwarf' Hilton's grubby pawprints all over it. Baldemort thought he could push the party around as easily as he manipulates Dave.

Which shows that he knows about as much abut Parliament as he does about politics generally. IE. Nothing.

With advisers like Baldie Dave doesn't need real enemies.

So Dave beats a humiliating retreat. To have needlessly alienated your own party within a few days of becoming PM after losing a general election demonstrates
Dave's awesomely awful political skills.

Carry on like this and he will be defenestrated - possibly by gorgeous George himself.

Ahmed Khan

Fraser Nelson - I am baffled how you see this u turn as a matter of strength.... the right arm of the party does not appear to know what the left hand is doing. Clearly a sign of weak leadership. Would never have happened during Maggie Thatcher's strong leadership!!

Paul B

Well done Dave,its a sign of decency & strength to see where you are wrong and to then make good.Money in the bank for you

Mycroft

Many people here are assuming that the '1922 boys' are all proper Conservatives (i.e sound rigth-wingers) while all who have posts are wishy-washy pinko traitors. Can this really be true? Or isn't there a large leemnt of wishful thinking in it?

All this bitterness against Cameron is thoroughly depressing. The line coming through seem to be that Cameron lost the lection, and that banging on about immigration, Europe etc. would have won the Tories a majority. Sheer illusion I'm afraid. It has already been tried twice. Without Cameron's transformation of the party and of its image, the Tories would never have got anywhere near Downing Street. And the Coalition marks the next stage in the decontamination.

In2minds

"Cameron is, I fear, being poorly advised about party management". Uh oh! So was the last PM, or so they said.

Steve Tierney

David Cameron has done well. Recognising a mistake and correcting it is both honourable and sensible. I feel much relieved.

Victor Southern

Vulture - I haven't seen you criticise Cameron's choice of toothpaste yet. Are you missing a trick here? And, doesn't he ride a brand of bicycle that you disapprove of?

Simon Stephenson

Mycroft : 9.13am

I'm assuming that you're not one of those who believes that what the majority is thinking must be right, in which case you must be one who believes that, right or wrong, we should support majority thinking even to the extent of denying what we clearly believe to be right.

Two questions:-

1. Why should any Party want to win a general election if this means having to implement major areas of policy that it considers incorrect?

and

2. Haven't we had enough instances over the last 100 years where blind support for the irrational majority has led to wholly avoidable human catastrophes? Or do we have to believe, with every new wave of mass sentiment, that things are different this time?

The Man

Fatbloke on Tour.

You really are very tedious. You have nothing interesting or relevant to say. Yet you still manage to say it badly. You're not John Prescott, by any chance, are you?

The Man

Fatbloke on Tour.

You really are very tedious. You have nothing interesting or relevant to say. Yet you still manage to say it badly. You're not John Prescott, by any chance, are you?

Garibaldi

So all the people that were complaining of Cameron acting like Hitler last week are now complaining that he's done a U-turn.

Grow up! Cameron is as likely as anyone else to make mistakes. He's a politician not the Messiah!

Isn't it refreshing to have a Prime Minister who actually acknowledges that he might make mistakes.

Also, can we have a realistic appreciation of how well the Conservatives did at the last election? From having fewer than 200 seats in the last three parliaments, they now have over 300. Most political commentators and opinion polls have been pointing to such an outcome for the last year.

The Conservatives failed to win outright because of low swings in Scotland and in places with a significant Asian population (London, Birmingham, Luton for example). I'm not convinced that a more right-wing campaign would have won over these areas where there is a strong resistance to the Conservative Party.

It's early days yet but I'm encouraged by signs that we have grown-ups in charge (as opposed to students on work practice under New Labour).

Mycroft

To Simon Stephenson:

1. Personally I wanted a Tory majority, though even before the election I could see some advantage in a coaltion with the LDs, for two reasons - they would have to assume some responsibility, so becoming involved with the Tories in implementing necessary but unpopular cuts, and because these would put the lie to the rather effective Labour propaganda that suggested that the Tories were people beyond the pale who could never work with anyone else (the 'progressive' - 'anti-progressive divison'). When it came to actually putting a coalition together, I was willing to judge by the results, and it seems to me, as someone with broadly conservative and libertarian attitudes, that the Tories have not sacrificed any fundamental principles. I have always had strong doubts about Cameron (the Blairish element in his approach) but have been impressed by how he has handled things since the election.

2. Absolutely agreed, but practically I cannot see it as a bad thing if the coalition has a fair wind behind its sails for the moment.

RWD Collinson

It really was a retreat:
http://critical-reaction.co.uk/2650/27-05-2010-captain-sensible