What on earth were the Tories thinking?

David

I'm sorry, but this is pathetic. Why should the Tories back down when it is clear that Labour have lept on this to play politics? I'm sorry, no. And Lord Janner, ex-Labour, can shut up pretending to speak for the Jewish community on a clearly party political point. If any party should feel ashamed at playing politics over the Auschwitz, it's Labour, who have clearly spun this to avoid criticism. And once again, the media are dancing to their tune.

Nicholas

Agree wholeheartedly with David. Michael White is a notoriously partisan reporter who can be guaranteed to wave the flag for New Labour at every opportunity. Dismissing "Donorgate" as insignificant and then trying to blow up this little storm demonstrates only his own deep bias. Fact is the list hurts and New Labour and their cronies want to divert attention from its substance by any means possible. Classic New Labour spin'n'lie tactics - don't fall for them!

David

The Tories should say that, on the contrary, they believe the subject of the Holocaust to be very serious indeed, and the use of trips to Auschwitz to be an important part of increasing the awareness of the horrors of humanity. Which is why they actually fund the promises made to increase awareness, not simply say they will to obtain good headlines like the current government. Smack it right back at them.

Danielle

It is not the trips to Auschwitz that are the gimmick but Brown announcing them without the funding to back it up, something he is always accusing the tories of doing. I tell you what if you lot are so called supporters of Cameron and the conservatives I dont think they need any enemies right now!

CS

James should be ashamed of himself for pandering to this crap. Anyone with half a brain (hmmm) can see that the Tories are not saying that Auschwitz was a gimmick but that the gimmick lies in announcing that you're sending kids there but in truth only funding two out of every class. I hope the Tories tell this posse of scandalised maiden aunts where to stick their fake outrage over this issue. Maybe when Labour stops identifying the Tories with pigs and Fagin in its election advertising, we'll believe that they care a toss about Auschwitz.

JH Holloway

The 'gimmick' jibe was aimed at Brown's assertion that this was fully funded - not at the trip itself.

As the Tories point out the schools have to still find cash to send the pupils.

Depressing, old-school Campbell-style, rapid over-reaction rebutal.

Pathetic.

And Hitler was head of the National Socialist party, we shouldn't forget.

Jessica

I dont think Conservatives should take any lessons from Labour on how not to offend the Jewish community after all this is the very same Labour party that depicted Oliver Letwin and Michael Howard as pigs, which was absolutely disgusting. If anyone was playing politics with Auschwitz it was Labour announcing these trips without the money to actually pay for them, which I believe is the conservative point entirely.

Ted Tedford

I think school trips to Auschwitz *are* gimmicky. I can think of no better way to destroy the spirit of the memorial than to subject it to thousands of ill-mannered British adolescents shepherded by incompetent and historically illiterate British teachers. 'Nazi Germany' is virtually the only history most British children actually know, but this sounds like a perfect opportunity to reinforce all the misconceptions about Britain's involvement in the Second War - and to perpetuate the myth that the Soviets were 'better' than the Nazis. If you want to make British school children think about Auschwitz, make them read some Primo Levi. The clever ones will get it; the stupid ones are kept in a class-room; it's cheaper than coach hire; and there would be no risk assessments or legal work following the inevitable coach crashes on icy Polish roads.

Ted C

ames,
My immediate response was much like yours but Guido Fawkes has proved a better reporter than you.
Is a misleading announcement from Ed Balls on funding trips for 2 6th formers from every school when it turns out he meant part funding a gimmick or not - no school would send only 2 pupils (there would have to be a teacher along or two teachers if pupils were of different sexes) they would organise a class trip. So Ed Balls was offering a very small central government payment for a very specific school field trip. That is a gimmick to trick lazy reporters, and in this case it's caught the Coffeee House.

James Forsyth

Ted C, The last line of my post---they will open themselves up to the charge that they genuinely think that trips to Auschwitz are a gimmick—which they do not--was meant to address this point. Apologies, if that didn't come across clearly.

Sally C

I see what bI was going to say has already been said. Balls said the trips would be paid for. They are not. Have we reached the stage of political correctness where you can't draw attention to this without screaming racist. We had this with immigration. Shame on your silly knee-jerk reporting

Fraser Nelson

Guys, can we agree that this has at least opened up a needless and avoidable row that Labour will misrepresent with relish? It's already kicking off http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7259506.stm

Ted C

James,
My immediate response was much like yours but Guido Fawkes has proved a better reporter than you.
Is a misleading announcement from Ed Balls on funding trips for 2 6th formers from every school when it turns out he meant part funding a gimmick or not - no school would send only 2 pupils (there would have to be a teacher along or two teachers if pupils were of different sexes) they would organise a class trip. So Ed Balls was offering a very small central government payment for a very specific school field trip. That is a gimmick to trick lazy reporters, and in this case it's caught the Coffeee House.

Charlie T

For heavens sake.The Tories shouldnt play by Nu Lab`s rules.This one of their great failings and plays straight into Nu Labs hands. Who deceides who`s the "racist", the "anti semite"? Why its Nu Lab and their partisan hacks thats who! They then come out with their mock outrage manufactoring a story and the Tories then have to apologise.Proving they are the nasty party. Cameron shouldnt play their game he should just say Balls`s comments are preposterous.

TGF UKIP

Balls is testing Dave's mettle here. Should be an ideal opportunity to really go for Labour and its media friends. Let's see what actually happens though.

J H Holloway

To the Conservatve HQ.

Here is a free script for David C to read out tonight.

'The Conservative party - as our record in this area shows - have long supported assisting visits to Auschwitz.

However, Gordon Brown has used this most sensitive of subjects to shamefully spin a line that the Labour Government is going to fully-fund school trips to Auschwitz.

The truth is, the trips require hard-pressed schools to dip into their own pockets.

The Conservatives party would use the national lottery fund to pay in full for such trips.

This party is very keen that schoolchildren should be exposed to the magnitude of the industrial mass murder carried out by Germany's National Socialists..'

Tiberius

That BBC piece, for which Fraser provides the link, is reported perfectly factually. It is the hysteria of Labour that is depressingly predictable, effectively trying to spin that Cameron is saying something that he isn't. James, Fraser; if Cameron can't make this comment without being crucified, how the hell can we expect him (or Osborne)to adopt more radical policies on tax, for example? This issue could be a useful indicator as to which way the wind would blow if the Tories did move on to more radical territory in the near future. I agree with TGF about the media, and it will indeed be interesting to what happens.

Fergus Pickering

Listen up, you sixth formers. You can go on a trip to Auschwitz or you can go on a trip to Paris. Don't all speak at once.

Faceless Bureaucrat

Come on Dave, there's an opportunity to slap Balls down hard here - if that doesn't sound too painful...

James

If the intention were to teach how States organised the murder of non-combatants then an exhibition giving examples from across the world would be better. Concentrating on the German National Socialists while ignoring the various communist regimes distorts the understanding of students just as concentrating just on the gulags or Chinese camps would. So it is a gimmick.

Simon

Verity is just plain wrong.

The level of the error was put succinctly in the name of a television programme "The Nazis: A Warning from History" -- a warning that a trip to Auschwitz make all to plain.

The fact that a generation has a chance to travel to see history 'where it happened' is something we should cherish and encourage -- not deride and not devalue for political effect.

David

"Guys, can we agree that this has at least opened up a needless and avoidable row that Labour will misrepresent with relish? It's already kicking off" No, actually. It's a perfectly reasonable point as presented, and could only have raised a row if one party took the active decision to play political games with the issue. And I'd have thought that a party doing that would be immediately denounced and criticised by the media. Unfortunately I clearly underestimated the stupidity of the media and the closeness they have with Labour.

mart

The "story" was also reported even-handedly on the 10 O'Clock news tonight, about 15 mins (?) into the program. Good editorial judgement - and a pleasant surprise at that; three cheers for the BBC! Instead, the negativity seems all to be among the blogs. Turning to the substance of the issue, Labour are calling the Tories' bluff by publishing a riposte. Should the Tories stand and fight, or run and hide? They could reasonably claim to have been misinterpreted, and IMHO they should make a big push to replace the bad words being attributed to them with good ones from their own mouths. All the time complaining loudly about the spin issue they really ARE talking about in their document. The spin issue is strong stuff, and the public really need to hear the evidence.

Jack R

Labour playing politics with Auschwitz, I'm not surprised. No doubt Labour will be advocating 'educational' school trips to the Anne Frank musical next. (See: BBC site, 'entertainment'.)

Slim Jim

I agree with most here that this is a storm in a teacup, and it would appear that the young Cameron is falling into the trap, just like he did over the remarks made by Patrick Mercer. Is he trying to ingratiate himself with the touchy-feely PC morons? Be a man and tell them where to go! As usual, the compliant media pick up the baton and run like mad. This is small beer compared to the treachery and deceit that is carried out by our elected dictatorship! Troops Out and Referendum Now!

TrevorH

Read my lips all you softies at the spectator and elswhere who claim to be tories --- "This IS a Labour gimmick" ! TRell the world ! Amazingly the same people who are winging and wittering to the tune of Balls' spin are the same ones who are moaning about tories not being agressive enough about taxation.

Verity

Simon - Where did you see my post? I haven't seen it on the site.

David Davis

I am very sorry. Trips, especially "school" trips to Oszwiencim-Brzezinka, are indeed a "gimmic". David Cameron is exactly right. Good man, for speaking the truth. They are a EU-tele-staliniized gimmic, designed to prove to today's tele-stalinised British children that "we are all friends now". No child I have taught in the last 20 years has any basic clue of the horror that these places repesented. Their existing teachers sanitise it as a way of pretending that the underlying prejudices have been megically wafted away, by EU-state-FIAT (and I didn't man the car.) There is no purpose in taking (especilally new-socilaist British and therefore shallow) teenagers (with their ipods and psp-3s in the bus with them) to the site of unimaginable pre-capitalist-barbarian-evil, without a proper joined-up-history-syllabus behind you AND them, to show how this place, really only an Austrohungarian army barracks, re-used later, rose inevitably out of an anti-liberal and anti-conservative idealist tyranny. I am a science teacher. But history is often more important.

David Davis

Moreover.... I teach students, some of whom have come back from Auschwitz traumatised, and depressed. What, please, is the point of this? What is the point, when they have not been taught about the wrongness of the European-type-societies, such as socialism, that corrupted millions of ordinary people support this stuff, and fill in forms, and fill trains with screaming people without emotion, and send others to their deaths, elsewhere, for "being the wrong person"? David Cameron is quite right. Let him stand. And no, I am NOT the shadow-Home-Secretary!

Max Kaye

David (February 22nd, 2008 5:19pm) is absolutely right.

Tories should not let Nu Labour set the spin. Rebut and refute and expose their lies for what they are.

sarah nunn

All the people pointing to new labour spin need to remember that this was a Tory lits of Labour gimmicks - almost itself the definition of spin! The row is a storm in a tea-cup, but to call all the stuff on the list a gimmick because they claim some aspect is not fully funded was stupid. From auschwitz visits to deep cleans, these are sensible popular policies which many of these the tories surely would back in government anyway?

TGF UKIP

Two days have gone by now and the Tories have been unable to respond effectively. Balls has once again demonstrated Labour's ferocity and their ability to wrong foot Cameron. The more fundamental point though is the Tory stupidity of including this in their list of gimmicks. As I've posted many times before Dave's capacity for shooting himself in the foot knows no bounds.

Nicholas

sarah nunn: how can the exposure of spin be spin? The list is a perfectly valid means of attack by an opposition party responsible for holding the government to account. Deep cleans "sensible popular policies"? Depends who you talk to. Even some medical staff are describing this as "spin". New Labour is all about spin, gimmicks and knee-jerk response to the media. Their primary aims are to protect their party political image and to remain in power - not to serve the best interests of the country.

Nick Kaplan

Why shouldn't the Tories be allowed to call this a gimmick, should they not be allowed to call a spade a spade? (I come from a Jewish family and even I can see this) Of course they should not back down and we should recognize Labour's sinister attempt to paint the Tories as the guilty party in this story, to mask their own policy failure and lies (they claim the trip is free and yet charge £100 per student for it).