Affable Cameron invites you into his home

libertarian

Oh I'm so glad Cameron is into fairness, where's the fairness in me working 18 hour days, employing 100's of people paying for my own health care and kids education and then having more than HALF my income taken away to spend on new office chairs at the MOD, the grotesque BBC, the bloated salary of "Dame" Suzi Leather, the criminally insane EU fiscal policy etc etc.

C'mon Dave you want fairness? Where's my f***ing tax cut?

yank

You can reiterate that argument 'til the cows come home. What's being reiterated is a one-size-fits-all policy that does nothing to restructure the educracy, who retain their sinecure. To do otherwise would have meant taking them on, and Dave has not the belly for the fight.

So he spreads the pain all around, and in this case, on those who will not likely vote or organize against him in numbers. How cynical.

Layer on the VAT all around... same effect.

Layer on the rising costs for the global warmingism to all... same effect.

Layer on the QE and resulting inflation to all... same effect.

We're all in this together. Big Society. We will weigh you down and burden you with additional cost, to support the staggering weight of the leviathan that we here on these green benches all want, and personally profit from.

If you at the Spectator want to be viewed as serious, you may want to prune blogposts like this one from the rotation. Today is hardly the time to be trumpeting the "affability" of careerist political hacks. We have much work to do, and serious issues to be addressed.

Bobby

Hang on, this quote makes it seem as though Cameron did not even think the factory workers' kids might also go to university...!

This reminds me of his unworldliness when he said Sam's background was "very unconventional" because she went to a "day school". Spin sometimes cannot cover up that our great leader is somewhat out of touch with middle Britain.

denis cooper

"I was talking to some factory workers about this today. I asked them: “Do you think it is right that your taxes are going to educate my children and your boss’s children?""

And they said:

"No, one of the worst mistakes the Victorians made was to introduce taxpayer funded schools; we workers much preferred it when people like you could afford to have your children learn to read and write and do arithmetic and other clever stuff like that, while we just sent our children down the mines and into the factories as soon as they could walk."

Vulture

One of the interesting thigs revealed by this is that Cameron is a self-confessed liar.

We knew he lied about big things like the Euro-referendum, but its interesting that he lies abt the little things too.

When Young was fired both he and Dave denied that he had been & said he'd gone of his own volition.

Now Dave admits he sacked him for voicing an inconvenient truth.

The jailing of David Chaytor reminds us that Dave also promised to sack Tories caught with their fingers in the till.
Yet lo and behold the troughers Maude, Gove and above all Dave's Old Etonian chum Bill Wiggins ( whom Dave specifically promised to fire of proved guilty) are all Ministers!

My mum always said that liars need to have good memories. Dave has continued the debasement of public life started by his hero Bliar.

lescam

"Dave at home attending to Florence’s evening feed as he watches Newsnight"

I can't wait to see Verity's comments on this! :)

The trouble with "Dave" is that he may possibly be a pleasant person in real life, but he comes across on TV as being highly conscious of his own superiority to the common herd. And TV counts for a lot when a politician wants to project an image. A newspaper article is no substitute for a good TV image.

The problem with "Dave" is that he is quite obviously not a "Dave" at all (i.e. one of the lads), but a MOST SUPERIOR PERSON. It's as if Prince Charles was to start calling himself Chas.

Communication skills are extremely valuable. Tony Blair had them, Ronald Reagan had them, Churchill and the pre-war monarch King George V had them. Gordon Brown does NOT. Ed Miliband does NOT. And "Dave", for all his efforts to project the picture of the ordinary family man, does not. Instead, we see an old Etonian from an extremely wealthy background, trying to pass himself off as good old "Dave" from the Dog and Duck.

PuppetMaster

Mr. Cameron said 'I was talking to some ghastly working class people yesterday and I said do you think it's fair that I'm printing billions of pounds, lending it to the banks at 0.5% interest, they then lend it to the government at 3.5%, make a vast profit and pay themselves billions in bonuses.
'Whilst I wasn't able to understand their replies, even if they had opposed me it wouldn't have made any difference, as I'm in the banks pockets, just like the Labour Party'.
I could have endless fun with this new format. Thanks for reading the interview for me, I can't bear to read what he says myself, it all comes across as our master speaks to the plebs.

Frank P

yank

It's a pity you fell out with Nicholas, entertaining though those exchanges have been, because you both write powerful arguments in support of the conservative ethos.

I agree entirely with your comment at 2.43pm. I am a little puzzled by your last sentence, though. Which grouping are 'we'in that sentence? I gather you are a US citizen living in Canada. I don't resent the 'we' I hasten to add. Is it the conservative Anglosphere to which you refer; you do seem to have an avid interest in British politics per se, rather than in more general sense?

and I'll go to bed at noon

@Bobby

I was troubled by that comment too. It's one thing to acknowledge that most students are from middle-to-upper-class backgrounds, but quite another to explicitly say that higher education should be for the upper echelons and that the lower orders therefore shouldn't worry their poor, paupers' brains about it.

What happened to the Conservatives being the party of aspiration?

Simon Stephenson

denis cooper : 3.05pm

Yes, quite.

But, in fairness, I don't think Mr Cameron actually expected anyone to pick his words apart - he's just thrown together a few sentences to include the rhetoric and the buzz-words that he wants to be retained, and for many people this is all that's needed. Job done.

Mentioning that the policy's 99% about funding, and only 1% about fairness, doesn't have the same ring about it, unfortunately.

Publius

@Bobby and others
"Hang on, this quote makes it seem as though Cameron did not even think the factory workers' kids might also go to university...! "

-- Oh please! All he is repeating is the often stated point that he does not see why the poor should be taxed to the hilt in order to pay for a "free" tertiary education for the rich. There was no suggestion at all that the children of factory workers etc. should not or do not go to university. That is just the usual anti-"toff" spin on your part.

And on a more general point, I would rather have a PM who is educated than one who is not.

It is a depressing reflection of the degradation of politics in this country that politicians are expected to pander to the lowest in society. If they don't do it they are accused of being stuck up and elitist. If they do do it, they are accused of falseness.

Think back to Blair's vile and intermittent affectation of Estuary English and absurd posturing with a football. Is that what we must now put up with?

murph

Libertarian, if your paying your taxes why not use the NHS like the rest of us plebs? yes we should all bow down to you for working 18 hours a day, if you are complaining about half your income being taken away, why not save a bit of money and see what it's being spent on?!

Jeremy

@ yank and Frank P:

Given the circumstances, a very manipulative use of the word "We". The sort of thing one reads in the Daily Mail...don'cha know.

ROJ

Why exactly do we need "high-quality expanding universities, ... in the age of India and China and global competition"? Is it so that our economy can continue to be prosperous and competitive, for the benefit of the whole nation? And if that is so, then why should not the cost be borne by taxpayers as a whole?

It seems to have been overlooked that Lord Browne, author of the report on university funding, and former employee of BP, funded his engineering degree with a scholarship from BP. BP continue to provide scholarships for science and engineering undergraduates. Presumably BP does this not out of some spirit of corporate altruism, but because it makes financial sense for BP. Why would a similar logic not apply at national level?

toni

I would have thought that 'to strike a brilliant contrast' there needs to be an 'at home with Ed' article?
And most likely if such an article were available to make contrast with; Ed would present perfectly well, and hopefully, minus the guffawing, arrogance and glued on child.
Pah! Sycophant.

Baron

David, life has taught me never to judge anyone by his words, however ‘affable and human’, but by his deeds.

bacon

"-- Oh please! All he is repeating is the often stated point that he does not see why the poor should be taxed to the hilt in order to pay for a "free" tertiary education for the rich. There was no suggestion at all that the children of factory workers etc. should not or do not go to university. That is just the usual anti-"toff" spin on your part."

lolll That's exactly what he's implying. Why should the poor pay for rich kids to go to university? Because the parents of rich kids are paying for poor kids to go. Even if many don't (due to a variety of reasons I'm not going to go into here), many do go, you know. People like you need to get out of this "LOL REVERSE CLASSISM" mindset. I'm so sick of it.

Herbert Thornton

"Perhaps I’m alone in this, but David Cameron interviews better in print than he does on screen.........But in print his assurance has an affable, human quality."

Really? But ask yourself why Judges virtually always requires witnesses to appear in court and give their testimony in person. The Judge wants to assess whether the witnesses deserve to be believed - and to do that he needs to do a lot more than read a piece of paper. He needs to hear the witnesses actually speak, and to observe their body language and general demeanour.

Cameron in print may seem "affable and human" but so what? When people see and hear him making promises, and remember how worthless his promises have been in the past, they see more than print on a piece of paper. They see his essential character being laid bare - the character of the class that consists of smooth-talking, unprincipled salesmen of clapped out, second hand cars - whose only interest is the amount of their commission.

Verity

Lescam writes: "I can't wait to see Verity's comments on this! :)"

Thank you.

Needless to say, I wrote a post in response, but it's been censored. (I didn't write anything that could be construed, however remotely, as libellous.)

normanc

I don't know what's best, Dave's completely misguided quote or the sentence directly preceding it in this piece.

If this is the best argument that has been put forward it's no wonder the students are tearing London apart.

egh

Surely these politicians are trying to harness the natural response of loyal citizens to their Royal Family. In setting himself up as some sort of family celebrity, this twerp tries to deflect such interest to the purposes of well - the euSSR and disestablishment of British national interests. TB started it when he made a fuss about some child to which he gave a Papal sounding name.

How disgusting British politicians are.

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley

"I got a free university ­education which was paid for by those much less well off than me. Where is the ­fairness in that?’

Well why didn't he pay the money back in some way- or protest that he didn't need free education at the time?

If university education, like healthcare I daresay, wasn't so over-blown, over valued and therefore overpriced, it wouldn't be such a big deal to provide all citizens with free education, surely.

And children don't go to university. Adults do ie 18 yrs old. Personally I find it hard to believe and I'm ashamed we are so tight as a modern and wealthy democratic nation not to be able to provide for our own to get a degree - We seem to be putting pretentious ideas about so-called meritocracy above and before common sense and common sense principles ie the reasonable capacity of the common person, without any qualifications, to get a decent job. One hardly ever hears of people leaving school to get a job at 16 anymore which is a tragedy, I think.

Ruby Duck

bacon, if we still had grammar schools, you might have a point.
As it stands, the poor are paying for privately educated rich kids to go to Oxford, Cambridge and the best red-bricks, while the rich are paying to send dim posh kids and comprehensive school kids, to substandard former polys.

Widmerpool

Oh dear I thought the Speccie was a moderate Tory paper.

The CH seems the home of Camerons haters for what ever reason viz,he is too left wing, too well educated or just deep down class envy.

The bone headed right wing of the Tory Party just don't seem to get it. Dave has "denastied their party" a move away will only make them unelectable again!

Do the Boneheads and Blue Rinse Brigade really want this -another 15 years in the electoral wilderness?

libertarian

Dear Murph,

Because the NHS is a pile of crap thats why, just like state education.

The rest of your post doesn't make any sense.

Ken Bishop

Funny how people who were educated for free now have this passionate sense of fairness about paying for the next generations. I will believe they truly think it's fair when they voluntarily repay their education costs. If they don't we can safely assume it's just self interest.

yank

Frank, I haven't ignored you, and I responded to your post, but the Spectator chose to censor it for some peculiar reason. The character and tone of all of my posts are of a piece, so I have yet to decipher how it is they platform these decisions.

Blofeld's Cat

libertarian - 'NHS is a pile of crap'. That's quite a sweeping generalisation about an organisation that employs more than a million people, many of whom also work in the private health sector.

I am genuinely interested - do you mean the management of the NHS is crap, that the care the NHS offers is crap, that the expertise of the professionals in the NHS is crap, that the outcomes (across the board) are crap, that the primary care service is crap?

Problem is that most people have to use the NHS and the best way of improving it is to make objective criticism and put yourself in a position to improve it. But not if you're working 18 hours a day of course, bless ..

Verity

Yank - You and me both. Mine was also consigned to that big corral in cyberspace, despite it being of a piece with everything else I write.

Verity

He invited the world into his home before, didn't he, via an opportunity for Mr and Mrs Ordinary to watch the Cameron family having breakfast in Nottinghill? That ran for how long?

Bizarre...

Verity

Blofeld's Cat - "Problem is that most people have to use the NHS ...".

And that, right there, is the real problem.

Everyone should be required to have health insurance, but they should be able to nominate the healthcare company of their choice to receive their contributions.

Those who are not employed and don't make insurance contributions (to whichever healthcare insurer) should have care similar to that accorded to uninsured people in the US. County hospitals are perfectly adequate and people do get better in them. In fact, for a gunshot wound or a knifing, you couldn't ask for better qualified personnel.

In addition, companies may refuse to insure someone, which is only right.

This is how the free market, as opposed to communism, works.

2trueblue

This sort of post is idiotic. Would you invite someone into your home and expect them to rubbish you? Have you ever been in the podition where you invited someone into your home whom you did not know? Well I have. My brother died andleft 2 children in their teens and the only way to make them comfortable was to invite them and their friends to spend time with us. The result; we all benefited. They all went on to what they thought they could not have done otherwise. They all went to university and we all see each other and know that our lives were enriched by knowing each other. They considered our lives to be privilaged and we know that we just had different priorities and sacrificied luxury for our childrens future. All in all, we all benefited and whatI have read above are mostly sneering, unpleasant comments, judging people who simply want to broaden someones kwowledge of how they want to share what they want to offer. Look past your own prejudices and move forward. What have you got to offer and what are you prepared to expose of your real self? Very little it seems in both cases.

David Bouvier

Blofeld's Cat: I assume the observations of the NHS are based on it's systematically poor outcomes, restricted availability of drugs and treatments that are considered standard in comparable European systems, the poor operational control of hospitals with high rates of infection, frail elderly people leaving hospital more malnourished than they entered, etc etc.

Some people seem to think we should be pathetically grateful to NHS because the taxpayer is picking up the bill. It is natural to feel strongly for professional staff who have saved your life. The NHS unfairly exploits this halo effect to defend a poorly functioning substandard service. And because the NHS conflates care decisions with budgetary ones it is fairly effective in hiding how much it rations care from public and political scrutiny, with only the poor patient getting shafted.

Something like that I suspect...

Baron

Biofeld’s Cat @ 9.32:

the NHS is crap in the same vein the communist state was crap - both constructs derive justification from the same tenet, are run and allocate resources centrally, have no competition, exhibit the same failures etc.. Being crap didn’t stop the communist state to launch a man into orbit first, it made it to go bankrupt though. That’s the fate of the NHS.

unless a miracle were to happen, the NHS must collapse for one cannot run forever a system with unrestricted demand but limited funding. That’s what killed communism, will kill the NHS, too.

Blofeld's Cat

Verity, David Bouvier, Baron

Thanks for your responses. As I suspected, it's essentially the monolithic structure, the impossibility of effective management and the centralised state funding that pose the problems, rather than the often huge efforts of the individuals who work in the system (for want of anywhere else to make those efforts).

The only point that I would take issue with is the notion that people who have used the system feel obliged to be grateful for anything they get - many people are, genuinely, grateful, and many NHS staff are, genuinely, caring and effective.