Cameron must head for the common ground

Holly ......

Like Major said,"Makes my blood boil".
NEXT!!!!!

mongoose

Common ground; common sense; common decency; common good; Common Market; Commonwealth; House of Commons.

Holly ......

I can not remember the media trying so hard to bring down a government,especially with all the financial/social problems we face as a country.
It is a national disgrace!
This is a situation that has been cooked up and kept simmering by the media.
They hate the fact that the public were willing to give it a fair shot.They hate the fact that their beloved lefties are not
constantly feeding them headlines.
What do you think will happen if you are successful Fraser?
A Labour majority,with 'Daddy Ed' at the wheel?
A Labour minority,again with 'Daddy Ed'?
A Conservative majority/minority?
Even with a minority,most things will have been passed already so no gain for you there.
I started to read your column in the paper.
I got to the line,"no changes to the voting system to 'RIG' the result".
What 'rigging' would that be then?
Changing the boundaries so the number of voters in each boundary is of similar size,
thus taking away the Labour favouring situation?
How come you did not speak in such crappy tones about the boundaries favouring the Labour party?
I hope you are successful,the chances are a minority Conservative government,that will go on to get a better result after that,but that is what you want,isn't it Fraser???
No need to reply,I have had all the weazel words I can stomach for one day!

Occasional Ostrich

Has 'common' ceased to be the pejorative it was 50 years ago?

Span Ows

Common or garden, come-on!

Simon Stephenson

I'm sorry, Fraser, I don't just think you are making a few mistakes with this line of thinking, I think you are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Non-ideological politics is indefensible at all times, but it's not difficult to see how societies succumb to it when things are moving broadly in their favour. It's very much a feminised approach of focusing on processes in the present, rather than outcomes in the future - an unanticipatory type of thinking, which lifts the present when little is going wrong.

But, we're now going in to a major breakdown in the world economic order, in which smiling, and making people feel happy, really isn't going to be much good. And people who've spent their lives in the cocoon of thinking that marketing is the only thing that matters are soon going to be faced with a situation that they haven't the remotest idea how to address.

Robert Eve

Certainly is time to ditch Ken Clarke.

Boudicca

Mongoose, you forgot one.

Common Purpose.

Cameron is just another Common Purpose trained EU stooge. He serves the Politburo, not the British people.

http://www.tpuc.org/node/107.

Tim W

I agree with much of the article. I also think Cameron is thought of as a leftie unfairly.
The one point I'd disagree with is that the government should open more prisons, be hawkish on defence etc simply because it is popular with the people but not so with the 'metropolitan media'. It's often the case that the media promote these views because evidence undertaken by experts suggests they are right. It may sound great to lock up more people, but if having a different approach actually cuts crime then I'd rather do the thing which worked best rather than sounded best to the ordinary man.

whatawaste

If the coalition goes ahead with the HS2 rail link between London and Birmingham, the Conservatives will be de-railed. If the cabinet ministers from Buckinghamshire do not resign they will be toast at the next election as the local parties will deselect the MPs.

The business case for this fiasco is very poor. Who in hell wants to travel into London to then get a very expensive train to the `centre of Birmingham? In the 19th century it made sense to have termini stations in central London, but in the 21st? get real. If Eurostar closed its rail station in Kent leaving St Pancras as the only option cross channel ferry would boom.

I live in the Chilterns and normally placid people are quite livid. The country middle classes will take the tax rises and other fiscal pain, but destroying the countryside rouses them as nothing else can. Cameron has no idea what he is taking on - this could well be his Waterloo.

Michael

Why didn't you add Common Purpose to your list, mongoose. Or is just taken as read by the current powers.

Edward McLaughlin

'Anxiety' does not come near describing the feelings that many people have regarding immigration.

Try "Horror, fear, estrangement, hatred, resentment, bitterness, betrayal, disillusionment, anger, incredulity, abandonment, foreboding, disgust, alienation, bewilderment".

Verity

Robert Eve ...And don't forget Theresa May, who wants to ban the US preacher who had plans, subsequently cancelled, to burn the q'ran, from entering Britain. Given the absolute effluent that washes into Britain from the islamic world daily, I think banning a perfectly respectable American who simply has views that Theresa May doesn't agree with is unbridled lunacy.

Verity

"Cameron must head for the common ground."

No. Cameron must head for the exit.

dg

Cameron lost the election. He can't win the next one. He says he is pragmatic but he is ideological. Climate change, gay marriage, soft on crime, pro-EU... that's ideology!

Archie

So, Mr. Nelson, the politicians are out of touch with the electorate? And ypu've just uncovered that?

Ex-Tory voter

"Cameron ... regards himself as chairman of the board, his mission to keep everyone happy." If he doesn't keep the shareholders (ie the electorate) happy he'll be out. I thought Labour was disconnected with the Zeitgeist of the real world, but Cameron is just as bad.

Tron

Fraser, you make a great point about politicians believing that the media have the same views as the common people.
When an MP says what the people really think they usually lose their job. This started with Enoch Powell and has got worse ever since.

Verity

Boudicca beat me to it. Common Purpose is the base on which Shameron bases all his policies. The Common Purpose agenda is behind all his "decisions". (In quotes, because they are not his decisions. He's just along for the ride, and the inevitable promotion to the EUSSR top table.

mongoose

middle ground; middle way; middle-of-the-road; middlebrow; middleman; middle age; Middle Ages; Middlesex; Middleton! (Julia, not Kate); squeezed middle; excluded middle.

AlexK

' Ladbrokes has odds of 5-2 of an election next year'

Maybe you should place your money with Victor Chandler and get 9-2.

TGF UKIP

Who are you trying to fool, Fraser? This is nowt more than your usual specious pro Cameron spin.

The Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture on which you rest your fraudulent case for Cameron being not what he demonstrably is, takes place early in the year. Not surprising, therefore, given his intention to con the Stupid Party later in the year into believing he was in the Thatcher mold that he should trot out a speech to reinforce that con.

Caneron is what he is, a glib but unconvincing, metropolitan, progressive. Indeed, Cameron told you and the rest of us precisely what he was in his interview with his fellow One Continenter, Oborne, in October 09 "A relatively liberal One Nation Conservative" who wants "a fairer. greener, MORE EQUAL society".

Cameron lost the election firstly because he looks, sounds and behaves like a PR man and, quite rightly, the British public sussed that out and found him unconvincing and unworthy of their trust and secondly because with his instinctive nepotism, and despite it being an overwhelmingly economic election, he had as the economic messenger his best mate who the voters found even less likeable and less convincing.

Also noteworthy is that in your recital of where the country's common ground diverges from your Westminster middle ground, that you deliberately choose to make no mention of "the climate change" scam despite the overwhelming scepticism and the huge electricity tax rises coming the nation's way to pay for the posturing self-indulgence of your class. No great surprise there though given your past form of making sure no mention of this issue arises in either the house mag nor on this blog.

normanc

After Cameron loses the next election (whenever it will be - my money, at 5-2, is on September after the Lib Dems disintegrate when the May elections/referendum wipe them out and their hope of AV) what should the Conservative Party do?

Move further to the left? Abandon even the pretence of conservatism? Another leader who believes in big government and sharing the proceeds of growth?

Cameron is a busted flush, that 'son of Brown' Ed Miliband's Labour is ahead in the polls surely shows that to even the most myopic media pundit. We need to start planning for the future and useless theories about middle this and common that isn't going to do any better next time around than it has done this.

Pramston

Tim - Crime has been falling for years. Pretty much in keeping with the prison population increases. The proposed changes to the CJ system are not about a better way to reduce crime but rather a better way to reduce spending. Perhaps on that basis they are justifiable, it would be nice for Ken Clarke to be honest for once though; he is clearly using the 'prison doesn't work' brigade as useful stooges in preparing the ground. Crime will rise.

Roy

Cameron has cooked his goose. He could have won the election but ignored the majority of the peoples opinions in order to spring his own deluded agenda. Like Brown, he has had his brief spot in the sun, he deserves no better than to reap his reward ... demotion to the political dung heap.

Verityred

The Tories got nowhere from their saggy old right position, just like Labour with their old left clodhoppers. The country has changed, the angry squad on here are living in the past.

Like it or hate it, you have to adapt or sink into an old Tory/old Labour mire.

oldtimer

Cameron is a Green in Conservative clothing.

His endorsement of Copenhagen, before it collapsed; his subsequent mourning of its collapse (failure was a "strategic mistake" per the recent Security and Strategy Review which chopped the srmed forces); his appointment of Huhne to run the Climate and Energy dept and to negotiate a doubling (from 0.7% to 1.4% of GDP) of foreign aid to "combat global warming" at Cancun. How long, I wonder, before this is announced as official government policy? His addiction to wind farms despite the fact that they are demonstrably uneconomic and can only survive on subsidies. Although he talks the talk of localism, the reality is that more and more power has been transferred to Europe and, if Cameron had his way, to the unaccountable UN super-bureaucracies envisaged by the draft Copenhagen treaty and still pined for by the Cancun delegates.

2trueblue

The illusion that Liebore would be re-elected at this time is just that. We would all lose our shirts, totally. It is wonderful to think that getting rid of Cameron or the coalition will solve anything, it will bring everything to a stop. The UK will be so changed, and not for the better.
But never mind, the media are so excited about the idea, it must be good. This is the vacuous media who keep our great populous ignorant of reality. And we let them.

If there is another election sooner rather than later, expect one thing for sure, more people will be out there voting and the polls will be worthless. There will be no lovely trends to follow, no cute sound bites to savour over. Most importantly it will probably be over for the UK as we know it. There is only one show in town and the script is being written on the go. That is because there are new characters. No one has mentioned who the filler in for Cameron will be???? No, easier just to bash.

david lewis

I am a debutant"Spectator" blogger and what a starnge world this appears to be. Has it not occurred to some of the more Hard Right commentators here that Cameron is actually pursuing a political position that might be popular. Namely returning the Conservative Party to the political centre- its natural home and one from where it was successful between 1922 and 1992. Cameron's political antecedents are Burke and Disraeli and his Coalitionist policy reflects this. It is "empiricism tempered by prejudice". Surely better half a Tory in power than an out-of-power extinct position of interest to historians of the "swivel-eyed" political fringe...

Simon Stephenson

david lewis : 12.35pm

I think what some on here believe is that politicians are not there to kowtow to the majority, because doing so will send the nation down the pan sooner than you can say knife. Rather, politicians are there to make well-reasoned, logical and good sense decisions that the majority couldn't make, because in numerical terms it is not rational nor logical nor possessed of good sense.

The tragedy for this country is that the education standards have fallen so low that ever-increasing numbers of people fail to realise this.

To some of us, following the central majority is the pathway to disaster, and we want nothing to do with a political leadership that chooses this as its mission in life.

Fergus P:ickering

You know, Simon Stephenson, you sound exactly like a leftie. There are some things so silly that only an intellectual could possibly believe them and your post is a good example of just that. Piss off with your superior education and your long snotty nose. David Lewis, I salute you, sir.

Simon Stephenson

Fergus Pickering : 5.28pm

I'm arguing that representative democracy is a far better way of making decisions than is direct democracy. It's a point of view to which I am entitled. As is yours.