DD's classy intervention

Fatbloke on tour

JF

I take you were glad to be spared "deficit" duty tonight. It can't be much fun trying to push water uphill as you try and convince, in the face of reality that Sniffy really has a clue about what he is doing?

Good to see DD rising from his slumbers and starting to get the band - "Maggie and the Dog boilers" - back together.

DD, I don't like his politics but he seems to be the real deal, he talks about it because that is what he believes in.

Dave the Rave and Sniffy are opportunists, their narrative is what they think will get them elected. Dave just wants the job for his CV and the book advance.

Any progress towards an Edwardian idyll of pampered toffs, a low tax charity based welfare system and grateful stout yeomen types will be taken up but it is not essential. Main thing is that it will be all so nice and relaxed.

Problems they can be wished away and if things get a bit hectic there is always the nice French chaps to help us out.

pottsy

Much is being made of the Tories' top table having no connection with 'ordinary people' but are they any more detached than Labour's elite?
Ed Miliband lives in a £1.6m house, his brother is a former cabinet minister and his father was a Marxist historian. Growing up, the Miliband boys were used to people like Tony Benn coming round for tea.
That's not like any family I've ever known, yet the media, especially the Beeb, only ever talk about Cameron and Co being out of touch.
It's time the spotlight was shone on the shadow cabinet's privileged cabal.

PuppetMaster

You surely mean persuading the public that what they are given is what they want?
If we look at what we are actually getting the picture is bleak. Higher taxes on electricity, so more industry closes. More costs loaded on businesses, like maternity care for men, so less reason to hire.
More money transferred to the banks, via low interest rates for them, but higher ones for us plebs. This means there is less capital to start new businesses with.
Knaves or fools?

2trueblue

pottsy, totally agree. Balls had a nice education. Balls/Cooper did very nicely for themselves, flipping marvelous, I'd say. Shame they couldn't fix the UKs finances so easily.
Blair had his little group of the chosen ones who were very placed before they entered politics.
D Davis has lost the plot and is now out on a limb.
Cameron has to prove he can deliver and communicate the message. Liebore must not be let get away with it. It is time Cameron stopped being so polite to the BBC types and Liebore. Neither have done much good for the country and he needs to nail it on them.

fitalass

David Davies is like many mavericks in the Conservative party, always in their comfort zone when looking at the dynamics of their own party. Its not commentators on the Conservative party Leadership we need right now, its backbench attack dogs taking the message and the fight to the Labour party opposition benches which are desperately needed by the Coalition right now.

If you want to make a difference to the make up of the current government, and influence its policies and direction rather than become part of the problem or another weakness. Then get out there and take on the Labour party and its record in government rather than your own.

This is exactly why we languished for so long with less than 200 hundred seats over three GE's. We didn't support our own leadership or learn to oppose the Labour government. Instead we fought over the policy direction needed to win an election, and we didn't spend enough time fighting or opposing the very government actually implementing the policies we disagreed with. And its this continued weakness that makes the Coalition government weaker and the Labour opposition stronger rather than a distant or out of touch Leadership.

Richard of Moscow

"Andy Coulson was the most senior person there who understood what it is actually like to work your way up the ladder..."
UP the ladder? All the way to the top, to that lofty height of being a propagandist for a preening ponce like Cameron.

normanc

Osborne does seem more in touch than Cameron and comes across a lot better in interviews. Maybe it's because he seems more down to earth or maybe it's because I believe that there is a conservative somewhere inside Osborne waiting to burst free when it can.

TomTom

The Party Drones are out throwing mud at their opponents ignoring the fact that the Voters see them as a "Politician Class" and out of touch. Cameron just happens to be in Government not Opposition.

The Banks are getting huge transfers of real wealth as depositors get 0.2% interest and so transfer their capital to service 29% Credit Card debt to banks who gorge on £955 billion of public support.

3 Million Shareholders were wiped out by Lloyds buying HBOS and get NO dividends yet the Treasury lets Eric Daniels get bonuses - he did get 1 million Shares in Lloyds TSB for £1 when he started so I guess that is the new guide price for the Shares.

Watching a man put £105 diesel into a BMW X5 makes me wonder how many workers he needs to fire

Fatbloke on tour

Normanc @ 7.00

Interesting point that is a bit beyond me, what gives Dave the Rave first dibs on everything?

Is their some secret toffs charter at work, some secret pecking order that puts the numpty that is Dave the Rave to the fore while the more imaginative and hardworking Sniffy has to get sloppy seconds / stir porridge until his time comes?

I blame the private schools, all that time away from their family must breed some strange habits in the scions of the upper middle class.

Consequently why is Dave the Rave numero uno, did he pay for the most damage during the regular Bullingdon club benders?

Vulture

Agree with most of the above comments. Dave IS a 'preening ponce' (hattip Richard of Moscow) with no idea or interest in what its like to live without a Trust Fund under your fat arse.

The nuanced difference between his and Oiky's more understanding approach to the poor Proles is that St Pauls doesn't cost as much as Eton and that Oiky is a nano-notch beneath Dave on the social scale - that's why they call him 'Oiky'.

Also agree with Pottsy abt Liebore leadership coming from an equally out-of-touch background. (Incidentally, how DID the Millibands get so rich?: you can't tell me that papa Ralph's turgid Marxist tomes sold like hot cakes - or at all).

As for David Davis. A Coalition Minister told me last week that he is hell-bent on bringing Dave down - and I believe it. Despite DD's monumental egotism, bad judgement, and Heath-like sulking my enemy's enemy is my friend, and if he wants to bring Dave down that's fine by me. Next time the Tories will elect a real Conservative as leader and Dave will go off to Brussels or somewhere.
It won't be David Davis however.

strapworld

Well said Tom Tom.

David Davies is right. Cameron will not know what the ordinary person thinks so it is imperative, in my view, that he has someone who can tell him what will go down well or not.

The Sun love it or loathe it is still the most popular daily newspaper in this country by a country mile. It is therefore common sense to use someone from that paper. George Pascoe Watson has got to be that man.

pottsy

Isn't the real problem that virtually no politicians (of any party) nowadays have ever done a day's work in a proper job? It's the same route to the top: study PPE at uni, become a researcher, get landed a safe seat. In other words, they're ALL out of touch.
The problem with Davis' inference that the top Tories are toffs is that it feeds the prejudices of BBC/Guardian scum. It's right up there with May's 'nasty party' blunder. Why are Conservatives so into self-flagellation when there are plenty of lefties willing to throw mud at them?

Vulture

@ IT's guilt induced by their huge wealth, Potts.

If you look at the history of the Tories, all the wet, liberal 'one nagtioon' ones are upper class stinky rich toffs: eg. MacMillan, Poole, Walker, Pym, Gilmour, Leftwing, Cameron, Maude -
and the real Conservatives are people who have had to drag themselves up by their own bootstraps and lknow what life is like in the real world: eg. Thatcher, Tebbit, Davis.

EC

pottsy,

You forgot to mention private schools before uni, and also many of them did law at Oxbridge. So, yes, definitely out of touch. Your concerns are the subject of Andrew Neil's programme this week.

Simon Stephenson

There seems to be a myth going round that the only people for whom there is a danger of imprisonment by upbringing are those from the privileged elite - that being born into an accomplished, well-off family, makes it fair to conclude that one's basic assumptions about life are incompatible with recognising the desires and motivations of people from other backgrounds. And yet, for those born into more humble families - well they of course are not subjected to the family biases that afflict the well-off, and they are therefore guaranteed to become the sort of rounded individuals able to see the world in a balanced way from every different viewpoint.

It's complete tosh. Everyone's outlook is seriously influenced by the circumstances and patterns of thought and behaviour which surround them in their formative years. A vast number of people, from all walks of life, never venture out of their youthful cocoon of bias and prejudice that protected them from attack by the adults who brought them up. But some do, and they come from a complete cross-section of upbringings.

Simon Stephenson

Vulture : 9.47am

"If you look at the history of the Tories, all the wet, liberal 'one nagtioon' ones are upper class stinky rich toffs: eg. MacMillan, Poole, Walker, Pym, Gilmour, Leftwing, Cameron, Maude "

All?

I'm not sure Stanley Baldwin would accurately be described as an "upper class stinky rich toff", nor Rab Butler and Ted Heath for that matter.

AndyinBrum

Vulture, you really must like having a labour government as Dave's the only thing making the Tories electable. The majority of the populous don't want hardcore Tory policy, you have to accept that or enjoy your long terminal decline into obscurity

EC

SS

" some do, and they come from a complete cross-section of upbringings."

Fantastic, but are they to be found in Dave's coterie?

AndyinBrum

If the parties are all much the same then does it really make a difference?

Vulture

SS: YOU need to brush up on your history old scout.

Baldwin was as stinky rich as its possible to be: the boss of an iron-making Midlands business which supplied the Empire, he was so wealthy that he gave away ten percent of his fortune to help reduce the national Debt.

And that flabby faced old coward and Nazi appeaser Wab Butler was the same: his career was subsidised by his marriage to he squillionarie heiress of Courtaulds, the textile people.

Vulture

SS: YOU need to brush up on your history old scout.

Baldwin was as stinky rich as its possible to be: the boss of an iron-making Midlands business which supplied the Empire, he was so wealthy that he gave away ten percent of his fortune to help reduce the national Debt.

And that flabby faced old coward and Nazi appeaser Wab Butler was the same: his career was subsidised by his marriage to he squillionarie heiress of Courtaulds, the textile people.

Vulture

@ Andy in Brum:

Your analysis is way out as ever. Dave and his policies are about as popular with the public as booking Gary Glitter as the entertainer at the office kiddies party.

Dave, it must be remembered, managed the difficult feat of losing an election against the most hated PM in British history. His favoured 'A' list candidates failed eveywhere, while a traditonal Tory like Patrick Mercer tripled his majority at Newark..

If you can explain what is popular and appealing about a custard faced old Etonian surrendering to the EU at every turn; handing out billions that we don't possess to foreign competition like India; selling off our forests to the highest bidder; freeing criminals from jail - and rewarding them with the vote; dismantling our defences; and holding a referendum on a voting system which no-one wants, while refusing to grant one that most people do ( on the EU) - then you are a batter man than I am.

PS: isn't it time you got out of Brum? Your career seems to be marking time.

Commentator

Vulture, the Milibands' wealth seems to have come from speculation in the NW London property market not to mention some very fancy footwork in respect of inheritance tax. They are cut from the same cloth as the top of the Tory Party. Both cliques basically want to shaft the middle classes, which they despise for different reasons.

Simon Stephenson

Vulture : 11.41am

I think if you go back to my original query, it wasn't to suggest that you were entirely wrong, but that what you wrote had an air of Littlejohnesque exaggeration about it. Certainly Baldwin was well-off, and if, as you say, Butler married money then that, perhaps, made him well-off in adulthood, but what you wrote was that all Tory wets are upper class stinky rich toffs. Demonstrate that Baldwin and Butler were both upper class toffs, and that Heath was each of upper class, stinky rich and a toff, and I'd concede that your assertion is not disproven. Otherwise ...

Simon Stephenson

EC : 11.32am

"" some do, and they come from a complete cross-section of upbringings."

Fantastic, but are they to be found in Dave's coterie?"

I don't know, but this wasn't the point I was making. All I was questioning was the popular myth that (a) it's impossible for anyone from a privileged background to understand everyday people and (b) in contrast, that people from everyday backgrounds are sublimely unaffected by the biases and prejudices of the adults under whose authority they grew up.

I'd argue that there are relatively few people who break out of the self-defensive cocoon of prejudice, and that it is from these people that we would be best advised to look for our leadership.

Publius

I agree with Simon Stephenson on this. The idea that "ordinary people" are somehow the ones with clear vision and good judgement is nonsense. If anything, "ordinary people" (whatever they are) are even more the victims of the professional manipulators than anyone else.

All this is just a variation on the class war rubbish.

And if Cameron were pursuing policies more pleasing to some on the right (or on the left, for that matter), would they still be attacking him in these mean-spirited philistine terms?

TrevorsDen

Yes what the tory party needs is someone from a humble background someone like Ted Heath perhaps,

Davis' supposition is a load of self serving bollocks - As evinced by the fact that fathead has been driven to post twice on the subject of toffs.

The Labour leadership has zero experience of the real world. Read Dizzy's threads on the topic.
The most obvious person at the top of British politics who went out on student 'raves' was of course 'privately educated Ed Balls' who was a member of a notorious misogynistic Oxford drinking club 'The Steamers'.
He just dressed up as a Nazi

Rhoda Klapp

SS is right. There is no upbringing which will of necessity preclude understanding what happens in the real world. These people, even those from Eton and Oxford PPE and wonkdom and parliament have to be part of the real world all the time. They meet real people, if only when they are served in shops or whatever. They don't actually physically live in a cocoon. It is possible for any of them to empathise with the rest of us, just as easily as anyone here can empathise with the others. Which is..not much. We just do not do it. We think we do, but really we prefer our own bubble. See, I understand they are not to blame for their upbringing or background.

But if you pretend to be a minister of the Crown, you really ought not to despise anybody who is not on the same page as you politically. And this is what (IMHO) this lot does. If you do not agree with them, well, you're wrong (if they are leftists, you are both wrong and evil). You are misguided, you need to have things explained to you properly, you may even need to be re-educated. You can't possibly understand what THEY understand. Not with your background you can't. You are probably a bigot. Who put me in with this woman?

TomTom

George Orwell son of Civil Servant and Old Etonian gained lots of real world experience after leaving school !

Verity

Simon Stephenson ... "there is a danger of imprisonment by upbringing are those from the privileged elite - that being born into an accomplished, well-off family ..."

Cameron's family is "accomplished" in what way? And Osborne's?

Verity

Publius writes: "And if Cameron were pursuing policies more pleasing to some on the right ..., would they still be attacking him in these mean-spirited philistine terms?

Yes, but see, he's not.

Verity

Time to dump "baroness" Warsi before she does any more damage to the Conservatives.

What "accomplishments" or special services to the British nation motivated her elevation, anyway?

TrevorsDen

Cameron's father was a stockbroker - we must presume an accomplished one.
He was also accomplished in being disabled since he was born one.
That ought to be enough to be going on with.

Balls' father was University Professor - we must presume he was accomplished since he could afford to ensure Balls was privately educated - thus ensuring that Balls got no real experience of life until he went round Oxford getting pissed.

yank

It's not just the top troughers like Dave and Osborne, born and slid through the velvet. It's those whose aspirations bring them through a similar path, who are accepted into it, undistinguished though they might be, and who then go on to populate government and the bureaucracy.

Dave and Obama are as one. Believe that. One had money and connections, the other a preferred type of skin pigmentation that brought both. But what has either ever truly done? Answer: Nothing. They are as one.

Fine to be concerned with the members at the cabinet table, but that is just symptom. This goes far deeper, down and through the bureaucracy. We have cultivated an entirely new species here, and that species is being handed a growing portion of our lives. This will end badly.

TomTom

TrevorsDen is so churlish. Cameron's father was a Parner at Panmure Gordon stockbrokers because his father was a Partner and his father before him.

Hexhamgeezer

It's no suprise that Osborne is said to be the most concerned about the lower orders. Wasnt he the poorest of the Bullingdon Clubsters? Maybe that experience scarred him and he has vowed to ensure those like him, and maybe even poorer, can get equal treatment.

It's a shame we dont have a proper Govt rather than a closed circle. Davis is worth listening to.