How Cameron can regain some initiative

Call Me Dave

What's he doing in Africa?
Giving our money away!
Mrs Jellyby lives on!

tb

"Leaders of the Opposition can move far quicker than incumbents"

The Tories weren't any faster when they were the opposition.

Labour play to win, sod "the rules".

The Tories mistake was not looking into the BBC when they had the chance.

Colin

It is clear that dave is crap at politics. Or, at the very least, those who advise him are crap. WTF is he doing in SA? Could clegg have gone instead?

The way back is for the government and by that I mean the Tories, to pick specific targets and attack them with overwhelming force. Wishy washy statements about general corruption, closeness to media companies, low integrity, etc. etc. are not and will not be enough.

It has been open season on the PM and his party, with a succession of unsubstantiated innuendo and smears. Minibrown and his low life henchmen have clearly forgotten the old maxim of people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

I think it's time that the Tories and their allies started breaking some left wing windows...

TGF UKIP

Impossible for the Editor or Political Editor of The Spectator to say so, but the toxicity of their favourite brand is now so great, that only abandonment and replacement will find favour with consumers.

Jailhouselawyer

The only initiative I want to see from Cameron is his resignation.

Walsingham's Ghost

@tb

"The Tories mistake was not looking into the BBC when they had the chance."

After this mess finally subsides, I suspect you will see them addressing that little oversight...

WG

adam

The blairites: Blair, Cameron, Mandelson, Osborne and Gove will be the biggest losers in this affair. There will be more revelations to come which will link them to News International.

This affair will finally kill off Blairism, a method of governing which is based on cultivating close ties with rich media moguls and to leverage their propogansing resources for your own benefit. Spin based government where perception is more important than substance, where the sound bite is King.

The Incestuousness of using the media moguls’ underlings your own personal confidants and consigliores'. Spending leisure time with the underlings and off spring of Media moguls, this leads to cronyism. It's government the way Berlusconi does it and it's bad for democrcy. It corrodes trust and traduces true free enterprise which depends on a level regulatory playing field to cut down to size potentially monopolistic concerns. To ensure diversity and competiton.

If Britain wants to end up like Greece and Italy it is going the right way about it. Leveson has a huge responsibly to get to the truth of this.

Baron

if the boy was a statesman, someone who commands the respect of the great unwashed, rather than a 2nd rate PR man, he would bypass the political establishment, get on the box, address us saying ‘yap, that’s the nature of the beast of things political, we and the media need each other, always have, always will, we use them to amplify what we’re aiming for, they feed on us to flog the rags, to boost the ratings, it seems this symbiotic relationship got parasitic somewhat, began to poison other agencies of the state, a serious MOT is in order, let’s just calm down, allow time for those mechanisms that we as a democracy have for cleansing the body politics to sit down, to take evidence, to ponder, to come back, to suggest what needs to be done to get the governance of this great country of ours back on track, in the meantime let’s focus on the economy, the crisis in the Euro, on our boys in the land of the Afghans’, or words to that effect.

then, back in the office, he would also issue a statement saying the BBC license fee will be no more from 2012.

that's it, trust me, I know, I've looked it up.

Slim Jim

Call an election! Then we can get a chance to vote in some real politicians showing real leadership and putting this country first. My vote goes to the Krankies. Or Jedward. Wibble.

Trojan Horace

Unfortunately that's precisely what he did at PMQT and with some skill - and a fat lot of good it's done. Events dear boy. The general mood of the nation is to see Murdoch "Ceasared" and his children disenfranchised, and I'd doubt anything less is going to satisfy the distaste at the Dowler revelation and the general fatigue of feeling that too much policy is dictated by fear of upsetting King Rupert

Ian Walker

Rope-a-dope. Let Millipede expend all his huff and puff, then step forward with a straight shot to the chin.

Cameron knows that everyone on the Labour bench is guilty on this. It's good tactics to let Ed fill his boots on a topic he can't win - the fall will be bigger and harder.

strapworld

If the Coalition does nothing about the BBC after this it will regret, come the general election.

Perhaps they should announce a referendum on what the public would like the Government to do with the BBC. Sell it off or continue with the tax.

As for Cameron. He has shown he will not listen to advice. I applauded him for standing by Coulson as I admire people who do stand by their friends when they are under attack. Never forget that, as yet, Coulson has never faced any criminal charge.

But Cameron is showing how poor he is, politically, by allowing Red Ed to run rings around him. Cameron did have a good PMQ's last Wednesday. I suspect this Wednesday will be different.

Where is the Conservative who will stand against Cameron and thus create a leadership election? It needs someone to start the process.

Charles Martel

If John Yates is suspended today (BBC rumours) how about opening up the 'Cash for Honours' investigation (whitewash) of which he was in charge.

At the moment the magnifying glass is on the Conservatives, the Tories need to widen the issue.

But @tb is right, Cameron had a chance to deal with the BBC and its institutional hatred of Conservatism/Libertarianism, but he fluffed it and now the Conservatives will pay the price for long after the ba$tard child of Blair leaves office.

Vulture

The British Establishment - Civil service, Judiciary, broadcasting, academia - is now firmly in the hands of the Left.

One of the big differences between Thatcher and Cameron is that she did something about that ( alas, it did not long outlast her) whereas he has done precisely nothing.

This lassitude comes partly from his own arrogant idleness, but more so because he sees himself as part of the same left-liberal milieu. He plays with them, stays with them, dines with them and parties with them. He is one of them.

if the Tory party wants to get back in touch with Britain it will rid itself of this useless imposter and his clique and dismantle the Leftist establishment that has reduced this country to a public urinal for all to piss over.

Andy Carpark

So let me see if I have understood. The fact of the matter is that when the chips are down Boneless Dave has one more roll of the dice at the end of the day. Meanwhile, Ed Miliband has to keep his eye on the ball if he going to see the big picture because otherwise all bets are off. One thing's fore sure. If the chickens come home to roost, this story has legs. Meanwhile there is everything to play for. It's a game of two halves, Brian, and the lads did well.

Not for nothing are you the protégé of Matthew 'Bagpuss' D'Ancona. You elevate total inanity into an art form.

PS How's that narrative coming along? Has it gained traction yet?

david k

Cameron is finished as the politician he started out PM as - strident and sure of his instincts. He's now proving to all just how seriously flawed and weak he is.

He's holed below the water line.

Baron

read this from 2003 in the WSJ, still unconvinced it's a fight between the evil BBC the freedom of the press?

http://i55.tinypic.com/t9ab8g.jpg

Jane

Of course PMs have to run the country and undertake serious issues such as the current trade mission. This phone hacking business is becoming boring all these hurt feelings. We have an ongoing police investigation and the setting up of an enquiry which will hopefully offer suggestions on how crucial relationships between government, press and police. The relationships are intertwined and important as governments need to promulgate their policies and the police rely on the media to help in criminal investigations. Further, I fail to see why Select Committee's are getting involved in muddying the waters and in my opinion interfering in justice. Grandstanding by some and pay back times for others!!! Can MPs go away on holiday and can journalists focus on the pressing issues facing the country please?

Before Wednesday, can we have all contacts between the last government and the media too. The Opposition are trying to paint themselves as somehow less to blame and the public are not fooled and indeed insulted.

Ed B

I wonder if Cameron is playing the long game here. Remember, we are talking about at least 10 years of wrongdoing here, by both journalists, the police and the politicians, and for nine of those years the other lot were (a) in charge, and (b) took the dark arts of spin doctoring and media manipulation to new depths.

By announcing a judge led enquiry, Cameron is opening a huge can of worms, and many of the issues which come out will, I predict, reflect very badly on the Blair and Brown camps, including the emissary from the Planet F*ck.

Cameron's silence is giving EdM space to make increasingly shrill and hysterical remarks, but I have a feeling that when we look back on this in 12 months times this posturing by EdM is going to look acutely embarrassing.

Mark Cannon

The House of Commons will sit for one more day. Then it will not sit for some time. The holiday season will slow things down.

Nicholas

When I watched Cameron's inability to attack his opponents during the TV debates before the election I thought that maybe he had a cunning plan. It now seems he doesn't and that neither he nor the rest of the Tories in government are able to land any telling blows on the Great Deceit that is New New Labour.

tb makes an excellent point that the Conservatives were just as leaden footed in opposition. Do any of them have any real passion to instil some fighting spirit or they all just too lazy, too complacent, too rich and too comfortable to bother? Who do the conservative and poor look to for salvation now?

And as for the story "developing its own momentum" - yeah, but with hefty and continuous blasts of hot air from the BBC.

RCE

Barring a miracle, ie something completely out of his control, he can't. Sorry guys, but if he had the spunk required to deal with this he wouldn't have let things get so bad, would he?

"[I'm] the most pro-BBC Conservative leader there's ever been," said Cast Iron Dave. You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.

J H Holloway

I think Ed B is right. The more Labour climbs onto the moral high-ground, the greater its coming fall. As ever with the Left, they never know when to quit once they're winning.

Incidentally, today's World at One was a bigger disgrace than usual. A good 10 minutes on why all of this, in the words of the political editor, leads back to the door of No10.

Quite how the BBC expects us to take it seriously when all of this happened under Labour and the Met failed to investigate because of the coming cash-for-tip-offs scandal is incredible.

The BBC is again burning equity.

Woody

Just arrived home from work and catching up. This is now all about Labour/BBC 'out to get' Cameron.
Whatever party you vote for, this kind of witch-hunt can't be allowed to succeed.
We now seem to have trial by media and so far are just ALLEGATIONS.

2trueblue

Millipede is doing a grand job, aided by the BBC and it will backfire. Cameron must be getting his ducks in a row. If not we are in trouble. The trouble is we are uncertain about what Cameron really is made of and this is his opportunity, lets hope he is up to it. He has not shown us what he really is, now we need to know. The BBC need to be brought to book. This is a big issue for us all, we pay for it and it is totally and utterly biased.

commentator

Nicholas, the Tories cannot land any blows on Labour because there is no real ideological divide between them and Labour. The only clashes are in reality personality clashes. Both parties are big state, corporatist and authoritarian.

DavidDP

"Leaders of the Opposition can move far quicker than incumbents"

And, apparently, call for government to act illegally without any comment. At least, this leader of the opposition can. I some how suspet a Tory one would be monstered if he or she did the same.

One is struggling to understand how the current PM is having to carry the can for activity that occured under the previous government of a different party, and at a time when the instigators of said activity we supportive and intimitely linked with that different party.

This isn't a BBC problem - the Spectator has taken much the same line.

Realfish

This wildfire / witchunt is getting out of control, driven by opportunism and a cynical search for political advantage. It's time to reflect on what the real, substantive issues are:

- To identify those in NI and across the wider media for phone hacking and other illegal intrusions and bring them to book?

- To identify to what extent were the police involved

- What is the wider relationship between the media / police / parliament and what relationship do we want and what arrangements need to be put in place to regulate?

- Is the media / are media groups too powerful.

With regard to that last point, people (especially Milliband, Prescott and friends) have pointed to the threat to democracy that an over powerful media brings. Milliband though has lined up all of those undemocratic forces for his own ends - to bring down the governement, claiming, as he did last week, that Cameron's judgement is at the heart of this. It isn't.

One other thought; such is the firestorm that is being fanned, what hope will there be for fair trials should anyone be charged?

dorothy wilson

tb: Labour play to win. Sod "the rules". And the lies.

Mark Cannon

At present the allegations/evidence of wrongdoing by the media are limited to the NoTW (effectively). The surviving newspapers seem to be observing a tacit non-aggression pact.

What Mr Cameron needs to do is to call for each national newspaper to agree to open up for scrutiny by Lord Justice Leverson all dealings it has had with private detectives over the last 10 years. And ask them to agree to that now.

And he needs to get across that this is not just about phone-hacking but use by the media of any unlawful means to obtain stories.

A call to all newspapers to that effect would be very effective in bringing this whole story back to where it should be and in showing that Mr Cameron is taking a different, and more relevant, less obviously partisan line than Mr Ed Miliband.

saddleworth

I think I need to hide until this utter load of B***ocks goes away.
What has Cameron done wrong? Employed a friend. His friend wasn't a foreign spy (Oh Lord! will that give the BBC ideas?), he hasn't killed anyone, he didn't declare war on anyone, but in due course he might get minor jail time, if convicted. This is apparently an error of judgment worthy of resignation hints the yappy dog on the Opposition front bench.
If employing the wrong person is that big a deal we would all have to resign. On a scale of 1 to 10 where does Cameron's error rate? (Don't answer that before considering the errors of Brown, Blair or their cardboard cutouts they placed at the MoD).
This issue is not being driven by public anger it is being driven by political chancers and business opportunists who have their own agendas (none which are in our interests).
The general air of squealling hysteria makes the media sound like a bunch of schoolgirls who have just discovered the joys of masturbation. We have bigger problems to address in the world, but perhaps they are too hard for these hysterics to understand.

Kennybhoy

Vulture wrote:

"One of the big differences between Thatcher and Cameron is that she did something about that..."

No she didn't. She, understandably, concentrated on matters economic. She did nothing to impede the Long March Through the Institutions.

GDT

When a story is front page and headlining for two weeks most people tend to get bored of it.

DavidDP

"What Mr Cameron needs to do is to call for each national newspaper to agree to open up for scrutiny by Lord Justice Leverson all dealings it has had with private detectives over the last 10 years. And ask them to agree to that now."

The Information Commissioner's Office did that for the Motorman review.

The largest offender was the Mirror Group, followed by the Daily Mail and General Trust, then News International and the Guardian.

Mark Cannon

David DP - well spotted! It would change the agenda, I think.

Rue de la Loi

The government's inability to get over the facts about the widespread scale of "hacking" (which it isn't really) across all newspaper groups and to ask its enemies at the Guardian/BBC to explain why Wikileaks' hacking (which exposed many to danger, such as Iraqui interpreters) is so benign, drives me to despair. The BBC's conflict of interest over NI is blatant, yet no government figure is prepared to point this out.

One of the earliest of Cameron's mistakes was to agree to a 3 year funding deal for the BBC; it should have been kept on short rations whilst it demonstrated it could behave as anything other than a defender of its own partisan interests. All those posters above who believe Cameron will somehow pull off a coup de theatre against the opposiiton establishment are likely to be disappointed; Cameron has positively aided his enemies to become embedded in every aspect of governance - he could, for example, have stopped the entry into force of the Equalities Act, but didn't. The result is that Harriet Harman is effectively left as a Minister with a brief to meddle.

Dimoto

WG: "After this mess finally subsides, I suspect you will see them addressing that little oversight..."

WG

Sorry, no chance WG.
Patten would go into warp speed "Fat Pang, defender of Hong-Kong" mode, if Cameron so much as looks at the BBC.
Patten is the appointment that proves Cameron's lack of judgement.

Or was he just trying to ensure a perpetuation of the pro EU and AGW bias at the BBC ?