Cameron: it's all about the economy

Rhoda Klapp

There's so much wrong that it is hard to know where to begin, or indeed to sort one's increasing distaste for the man from an unprejudiced view of what the hell daft thing he is saying this time. (Did I succeeed? I think I pulled it off. /endfawltymode)

Anyhow, get the economy right, and you will have a place in the world, if that is what matters to you. Chase the idea of punching above your weight and all that rubbish as an aim in itself, and miss both targets.

I do not expect to be the only commenter with a little doubt as to 'remain masters of our nation's destiny'.

TrevorsDen

More Klapp-trap

Rhoda Klapp

TD, is it your position that we are masters of our nation's destiny? Or perhaps you can explain the concept of chasing some position in the world based on anything other than what we are and what we do. My goal would be to do things right and hope to be respected. Not to chase respect or influence by attempting to please others. But I know that is not your way.

DavidDP

"we need to sort out the economy if we are to carry weight in the world."

"Get the economy right, and you will have a place in the world"

Come clean, Rhoda - you didn't actually read it, did you. Un-predjudiced, eh?

Commentator

TrevorsDen, monotonous echo chamber of the Coalition.

ivan

I'm always amazed by Cameron's critics aka Rhoda Klapp - who would they have in his place Ed and Yvette?? please give the man a break

Fergus Pickering

Good God, we've got a personable upper=class-sh PM of the Conservative persuasion not making an utter arse of himself, with a Chancellor who seems to know which way is up, and achap who us going to sort out our Social Services and another chap who actually CARES about education. Just think what the last thirteen years have been like and cut him a bit of slack, will you? He may not be Benjamin Disraeli (and how a lot of you would have hated HIM) but he's here now and he's one of us, for God's sake. Remember Blair, the little toad. Remember Brown, the mad autistic Scotchman. Remember the cabinet of knaves and fools. They drove me MAD. Now we have SOMETHING. I feel like letting them get on with it for a bit. And shutting up, don't ypu know.

Oh, and I've thought about it and I approve of the university business. You got a better suggestion. Let's hear it then.

verity

Duck, everyone! An egg's about to shoot out of Dave's mouth!

Edward

All very well, but I'd have more faith in a leader who didn't leak the contents of important speeches before he made them.

Hugo Chav

Some of the Dave haters on Coffee House are cliff diving off the deep end and appear to be BONKERS.

The Libservatives are trying to rescue UK plc, you sound so pathetic and childish...

Vulture

Can someone just explain why a pampered preening spiv like Dave, whose only 'job' has been as PR man for a failed third-rate TV company is the right and best-qualified person to sort out the abysmal mess that is Britain?

And please don't tell me he's better than Brown. Quasimodo wouild be better than him -- I mean positive reasons.

His personal snapper has caught Dave perfectly in this pic. The hen's arse little mouth is poised in a perfect 0 - just ready to spout....well, the stuff that comes out of a hen's arse.

Paddy

Fergus Pickering:

Hear hear!

strapworld

Rhoda, you must never forget that Trevors Den is always right. His comments are to be treated as if spoken by his lord and master glorious dave himself!

As regards this latest speech by Cameron, written by one or three of his entourage of fifty (at the last count). Let us count the promises!

Like Brian in the US of A, we have here a one term prime minister. Goodness he makes Cleggy appear a stronger person!

TrevorsDen

As 'Tony' Benn might say 'issues' and 'policy' and rational argument over these things is what politics is about.

But

Dear Mr Coffee House - surely the time has come to call an end to the puerile invective we see from some quarters.

I could prostitute my intelligence by reading Guido Fawkes if I wanted that.

Phrases like 'hens arse little mouth' relate to nothing except a nasty perverse ignorant streak.

Overwhelmingly these nut jobs demand a return to a conservative party that never existed.
Overwhelmingly they demand an exit from the EU (which I would not object to) but which (which even though the EU is a dumb assed expensive waste of space) would solve nothing.
Overwhelmingly they demand some kind of change but have no policy or structure or aspiration as to what that change would be or end up as.
They just witter that it would (of course) be better - careful what you wish for. Nor do they offer any mechanism to suggest how Britain could orchestrate an agreed and beneficial exit.

Ms Klapp -- Your analysis is clouded by bigotry. Doing things right (ie the economy) and being respected and having influence is just what Cameron is saying. But you would rather wash your mouth out with sulphuric acid than admit it.

My views about Vulture are clear from above but his/her obsession with 'Dave's personal snapper' is bordering on the absurd. It of course hides any semblance of argument and of course ignores all Labours PR spending on Blair and Browns image.
Shock horror - govts promote their image and their leaders. Get a life Vulture

Please Mr Coffee House spare us from this sad saddo's sad obsession.

Rhoda Klapp

DavidDP. I'm trying to make a distinction here. I'm fed up with the punch above yout weight thing as an aim in itself. I certainly agree the economy has to be fixed. I am not impressed by a lot of the things they have left in place whilst making a big fuss of cuts which are not cuts. This is not enough to fix the economy, unless you mean fixing it to fail.

Ivan, I don't have to pick my choices from your menu. Is it too much to ask that someone who understood the problems could do it?

Right, who amongst my interlocutors thinks we are masters of our destiny?

Edward McLaughlin

"so we can remain masters of our nation’s destiny."

Erm...the destiny of this particular nation, has been ceded to Gollum Von Rumpoy and his Brussels troglodytes.

We are not the masters and the only person who can regain that mastery is the Prime Minister who has the balls to tell the European Union that our taxi is here and where are our coats please.

Not this PM it seems.

Holly ......

You can always tell when something Labour bods have tried to pull has gone the
governments way,by the increase in inane comments made by the losers.
Can the left win anything anymore?
Slowly but surely the Labour mess is being unravelled and they hate it.....We of course love it...but they hate that as well.
Happy days!!!
Love
Holly
xxx

strapworld

Trevors Den. Grow up you silly old man.

Edward McLaughlin

TrevorsDen

"Overwhelmingly they demand some kind of change but have no policy or structure or aspiration as to what that change would be or end up as."

It's like this Trev: this country is so far into so much shite, that just the communal articulation of our predicament, is both balm and rallying point, and is in any case, far better than being without policy or structure or aspiration...and also without the balls to demand change.

TrevorsDen

Dont be daft Strapworld - so everybody can have an opinion except me ??
When people talk rubbish - like 'mouth like a duck arse' or plainly misrepresent camerons words, we cannot comment?
I also point out its not as straight forward to simply leave the EU as some think. Its interesting that some opponents of the EU used to talk wistfully about the commonwealth but THATS certainly dried up.

So unlike you in your latest post I actually address something meaningfull instead of brandishing a chip on my shoulder.

The plain fact is you offer nothing but rancid invective mostly based on fiction.

Charles

@Vulture

"Can someone just explain why a pampered preening spiv like Dave, whose only 'job' has been as PR man for a failed third-rate TV company is the right and best-qualified person to sort out the abysmal mess that is Britain?"

He is the right person because more people voted for the party he led than any other party.

He is the best qualified because in a democracy this is the only qualification that matters.

Next!

2trueblue

Vulture and Verity, you may well be right. An egg may be what comes out of Camerons mouth, and that may be the foundation for our future. As Clinton said; Its the economy, stupid.

lescam

@Trevors den;

"I could prostitute my intelligence by reading Guido Fawkes"

This must be the most pompous, ridiculous comment ever.

Alexandrovich

"I actually address something meaningfull" (sic).
Sorry Trevor but, as you well know, you only laud your beloved leader up hill and down dale.

Verity

Trevor's Den writes - "Phrases like 'hens arse little mouth' relate to nothing except a nasty perverse ignorant streak."

Is the self-important Trevor's Den saying that we who comment are ignorant of what a hen's arse looks like? And he makes this judgement how?

Verity

Charles - A word of explanation for you: Cameron led the Conservatives for four years against the worst government endured by the British in living memory ... and many would say further back than that.

And he couldn't win a general election. Against the worst government ever.

He couldn't even get a majority of one.

Failed.

Britain is being led by a failure.

GDT

@ Fergus Pickering 7:04pm,
"round of applause"...well said that man.

Fatbloke on tour

PH

You can try all you like but the fact is Dave the Rave wants to swap the security provided by an effiecient and properly equipped armed forces with a "Danegeld" security policy using the DfID budget.

We are moving from an having equipment issues due to poor spcifications and the MOD trying its hand at trendy logistics to a situation where we do have the equipment in the first place.

He is taking contracting out to ridiculous extremes, maritime patrol, we don't need to do that we can just ask CESM's to do that. They have an Atlantic Coast as well don't you know.

The guy is a muppet with no backbone and the heart of a mouse.

Rhoda Klapp

I don't particularly dislike David Cameron. I am not happy with his performance as leader of the tory party. As prime minister, he has disappointed somewhat. My problem with him is that he seems to be motivated by appearances rather than principle. Once you think that of someone, you can't help wondering whether whatever he does is for show, not because it is the right thing to do. (Unless his only explanation/justification ever is 'the right thing', like GB.)

I supppse this could all be summed up as spin vs substance. Well, I think I'm seeing spin. So much that I wouldn't recognise substance if it was there. There are numerous examples of spin. There are few of guts. This is not to do with him not being tory enough. It is that he disssembled about how tory he is to gain advantage. He outright lied about being eurosceptic. I still seek a political leader motivated by principle. It may be a long search. But in the interim, please be aware that I do not any longer see it as labour vs tory, left vs right, but us vs them. The political class, and everybody who lets them get away with it, are the enemy. We ought to hold them to a higher standard, of which honesty is the key component.

Vulture

Got news for all the Camerloons on this site. (TrevorsDen and David DP this means you). Conservative Home reports that since Dave became leader, the Tory party membership has declined by A QUARTER OF A MILLION.

Fatally, the heir to Blair lacks the one quality his hero had: public appeal. He's as popular as a black rat during a bubonic plague outbreak.

TrevorsDen

The minute i saw the preposterous Vulture write 'conservative party membership has declined by over quarter of a million' I knew it was bollocks.

membership has fallen 'FROM' 250,000.

The point is still the same of course its fallen TO 177,000. But to absolve the local constituency associations of any blame is daft.
For the record here are 2 comments from the ConHome post ...
'This is so true of my association. Two members have so monopolised it that it is their private club, the membership of which they will determine. Real Conservatives are regarded as competition are not welcome.'
'

Nailed in one. I'm a member of a nearby association rather than my local one. It was like shoulder barging a closed door trying to get involved in my local association. Switched associations and I'm welcomed and valued.

I have to say that there is a lot of suspicion about new members who joined because of Cameron amongst the old guard....'

I am a conservative but not a member and have no real inclination to be a member - though Vulture's ignorance is giving me pause for thought).

if lescam thinks I am worried by his thoughts he is more delusional than i thought.

BTW far from breaking a promise Cameron again said fighting troops would be out of afghanistan by 2015.

Fat head on peregrination is of course totally fat-uous about defence. We are defended by NATO to which we mnaintain our committemnt. Labours shambles over carriers is what hamstrings our defence budget and now at last far too late (thanks to his own labour party's incompetence) our troops in Afghanistan get the anti mine vehicles they need.

Dear strapworld - given your infantile outpourings thats a bit rich.

TrevorsDen

PS - just to ventilate the drift of Vultures comment about tory membership - here are some more comments

'I can't agree with the headline assertion here.

The switch to Merlin "lost" nearly 100 members in my constituency as those who had died, moved or were listed as members multiple times due to being a members of every "branch" in the Association, were slimmed down to single memberships.

Those who were "Club" members paying £3 a year have also been removed and converted to Friends".

The national system also, I understand, no longer counts people who are members of more than one Association more than once.

Add this to the natural wastage after a campaign where candidates get their friends to sign up as members and helpers and who then fail to renew - '

and

'I think my membership has actually lapsed but no one has sent me a renewal form or anything.

Plus, Open primaries will make being a party member pointless. Why bother being a member if you can't even select your parties candidate?'

and

'they should allow people to sign up with direct debits when they join. I have been a member on and off since 1996 but would have been a member every year if there had been direct debit.'

and

'The responsibility is the Party Chairman. But none of them in the past 15 or more years has seen their main job as building the membership.'

and
Although I'm a localist at heart, I think the way local associations manage membership makes the member experience something of a postcode lottery.'

and

'

NO IT HASN'T

However since DC became leader the party has gained the ability to count it's members.'

SO
lets discuss tory membership but not through the bigoted filter of Vulture. M aybe we should start with this additional comment
'whenever I have any contact with "ordinary" party members I am struck by two things about them. They are almost invariably very nice, generous polite people. They have political opinions that range from the bizarre to the naive via the 1970s. Despite a personal view of politics that is squarely within the Conservative tradition from Disraeli to Cameron, I would no more be a member of the party than I would join the Freemasons.'

Simon Stephenson

Charles : 10.53pm

"He is the right person because more people voted for the party he led than any other party.

He is the best qualified because in a democracy this is the only qualification that matters.

Next!"

Well, next is for you to look at your argument and recognise that it is a circular one - Cameron's the best qualified because he's won the competition that decides who's the best qualified.

But nobody disputes that Cameron won the competition - the question that is being raised is has the competition actually fulfilled its function of producing a winner who is, at the very least, not inferior to other people who could be in the position to which winning the competition has led him?

Hitler fulfilled your requirements by winning a series of competitions that led to him being appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg in 1933 - should we infer from this that Hitler must, therefore, have been the most suitable person at that time to have become German Chancellor?

Simon Stephenson

Rhoda Klapp : 9.19am

"But in the interim, please be aware that I do not any longer see it as labour vs tory, left vs right, but us vs them. The political class, and everybody who lets them get away with it, are the enemy. We ought to hold them to a higher standard, of which honesty is the key component."

Interesting that you should write this, because I've just finished reading Julian Fellowes' Past Imperfect, and he suggests that the key social dividing line today is in the way that we think:-

"not between the Right and the Left, or the aristocratic and the ordinary, but between the generation of 1968 and the people of four decades later"

Personally, I find Fellowes' explanation more compelling than yours. I think that there was a major change which took place between 1960 and 1980 that took away the rules and structures which allowed the old-style operators to plunder the patsies, and put in its place a different set of rules and structures which allowed a whole new group of operators to move in and take over the plundering.

Our politics since about 1985 has been about how to maintain the pretence that democratic representation is a guarantee of the pre-eminence of the collective, when in reality it has been subverted so as to ensure that the operator class in general is given free rein to carry on plundering, and the greatest fortunes are available to those who best subvert the system.

The key political question seems to be about who is to be allowed to make the most hay, when it should be about how we can generate a large amount of hay without the pre-condition that the operators are allowed to decide how much of it they will appropriate for themselves.

TrevorsDen

Mr Stephenson - no system is perfect. Democracy is far from perfect. And there are various versions of it around, none of which stand out from the other.

But its not us and them. All of 'us' could become 'them', its just a question of the will and ability.
Sadly those with the will but not the ability seem to degenerate into name calling.
And ultimately 'us' can throw 'them' out at an election (this is not Burma).

I cannot take your post 85 analysis terribly seriously. Its true that there was a breakdown in the expenses system- that was really manufactured by the 'authorities' but I do not take that as far as you.

I do think that there is a generational gap about what different people think of as important.

I had actually hoped Davis would win the Conservative leader election - but his performance since quite seriously disillusioned me.

I think to talk about Hitlers rise is a wee bit disingenuous when you consider the violence and bigotry involved in that period.

But changing leader for any party is fraught with danger; the consequences of getting it wrong are immense.

Rhoda Klapp

OK, let's have another go at articulating this. The Us and them thing I refer to is not about class, and not about getting noses in the trough. I expect politicians to be self-serving. All to some extent, and some to every extent. I appreciate that the media and the pols tend to move in a world of their own. That is inevitable, but it would be nice if those IN the bubble would stop fooling themselves that they feel our pain, or are in charge of our joy.

No, what I am trying to get at is that the public are purposely excluded from any influence in politics beyond what the 'them' will allow them. The idea seems to be that our democracy will be fine as long as it is not defiled by the will of the people. That some things are unmentionable, some subjects are taboo and that there can be several issues where all the parties have industinguishable policies in defiance of what the silent majority might wish.

Cynic

Did he clear his speech with Brussels first?

Simon Stephenson

Trevors Den : 2.05pm

Two things:-

One, you wrote

"But its not us and them. All of 'us' could become 'them', its just a question of the will and ability."

At birth, perhaps. Possibly you could take away from their parents any number of newborn babies and turn them into self-focused, sociopathic manipulators - if this was your intention. Most parents would be horrified to think that their offspring were going to grow up in this way, and consequently, with family nurture, most children do not become adult horrors/achievers. A small percentage do, however, become just this type of person, either through the deliberate conditioning of their parents, or accidentally, through their parents mistakes and/or negligence, or through things outside their parents control.

To say that we all have a choice as adults to become "them" is ridiculous.

And two, I really wasn't limiting "politics" to the Houses of Parliament. By politics, I meant the whole structure of social decision-making in this country - how things are decided, and what influences are brought to bear upon these considerations. You see, the plunderer isn't terribly secure if there is a political apparatus that is free to be hostile towards him, so human manipulation doesn't stop at employees, competitors, suppliers and customers. The politicians and the civil servants must be brought to heel also.

If you deny there is a sociopathic group of power-men controlling large swathes of society then you of course can deny that there is any such subversion of the will of the collective. But if you accept there is an element of sociopathy in the will to win, then you're blindfolding yourself if you think there is no attempt made to nobble the political process in favour of the few at the expense of the many.

Simon Stephenson

Rhoda Klapp : 3.09pm

Yes. Your second paragraph is fine, except that I would say that it is not simply for the preservation of their own power that politicians shunt the will of the people into the far-off sidings - it's the fact that they've been compromised by the people who are in control independently of politics. The idea that universal suffrage on its own is a weapon sufficient to prevent the strong from trampling on the weak is, in all honesty, laughable.