Playing it safe

Cameron was never going to be the leader who lead the west's war on Islamic terror and Islamic fundamentalism. He, like all politicians, is too embedded in the PC culture of which he is is a child. The Tories wanted someone they thought was tasteful, photogenic and touchy feely. Shame on them

Polly Toynbee for Home Sec

How exactly does one 'defeat the Taleban'?

Oh that's right, you can't. The truth is that the majority of the British population don't give two figs about Afghanistan (or Israel for that matter), and rightly so.

What matters is that the bins get emptied on time, the mail gets delivered with reasonable expediency, you have a decent local hospital and little Johnny's school is OK. 'Terrorist training camps' don't enter into it.

Key Fob

The Gove speech was good.

Do check out Quentin Letts' take on that (and also his take on the Conservatives' cultural vagueness at the end of that piece):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218936/QUENTIN-LETTS-Goves-speech-attacking-decades-school-failure-kicked-dumb-downers-wet-lettuces.html

"How do these Tories measure human expression? How do ' modern Conservatives' (new buzzphrase) intend to counter the regiments of subsidised art who so readily attack family values?

"Which side do the Cameroons dress, culturally? Until we know that we will not know them properly."

Go Quentin.

And Simon Heffer is simply magnificent on George Osborne. The page should be at the top of his archive but isn't. Perhaps it will appear soon:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/

Jez

Thank you Melanie!

I heard part of the speech coming back from Hartlepool this afternoon;

(Cameron on Europe Lisbon treaty)

"We are really.... yes, REALLY...... and when i say really, i mean; REALLY, REALLY *REEEEEALLY*.....
(whisper) 'goingtomaybe/possiblyhaveHaguetobringitupsometime'"

Unreal.

Absolutely nothing of substance regarding immigration, Europe or how to tackle the social fracture enveloping our inner cities.

DavidDP

I can't think of a better indication that it was on the right path.

david skinner

Melanie, I admire your courageous attacks and exposures of much that is rotten in Britain - and elsewhere but I have to say that I have to differ on your appraisal of Michael Gove. All that you accuse Cameron of - his ambivalent and inconsistent views regarding homosexuality - Michael Gove also espouses. There is absolutely no difference in their opinions. If anything Gove’s are even worse. I know this was written in 2003 but who is to say that he has changed his opinion? Gove reveals a terrible ignorance of the dangers of homosexuality.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/michael_gove/article1147059.ece

As for General Sir Richard Dannatt, I believe he is no longer in the Army but is now the Constable of the Tower of London., an honoury position given by the Queen. As for ex military personnel what about Paddy Ashdown or Duncan Ian Smith? Indeed what about Winston Churchill or Wellington. If ever we needed men of moral courage and martial vigour to be involved in politics it is now.

Dave B

"...it didn’t tell us a story that made us say yes, this man really does grasp not just the economic debacle but the full extent of Britain’s cultural, moral and existential decline – and that it is important that we elect him in order to reverse that decline. "

Perhaps I was listening to a different speech, because that's certainly the message I got.

David Skinner

In fact I would go as far as saying, that Sir Richard Dannatt's first duty was to march down to the House of Commons and chuck them all out, as did Cromwell and assume control. What Britain desperately needs is moral leadership and marshall vigour.

Nicholas

You must have listened to a different speech. Unless people like you get behind Cameron there is a risk we could end up with another 5 years of Brown & Gang.

Yeah, good move Melanie. With friends like you the Tories don't need enemies.

Graeme

Melanie, I do not agree with you over General Dannatt. Dannatt will bring some real military backbone to the Conservative Party and pour some concrete down their backs.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

Melanie it should be the opposite, you should became the prime minister i will vote for you and Cameroon should became a Guardian journalist or something like a lefty holy man

Wm. Hazlitt

Margaret Muller-Johansson, Another gnomic saying to add to the growing collection: you seem to be using "holy man" as a form of abuse. It's okay, I know not to expect an explanation.

George Steiner

I have no dog in this fight. But a pigmy will forever remain a pigmy, even if he raises his voice.

w smith

The new mod cons are great on pr and marketing "something for everyone" but low down on trust.And the question of trust is the achilles heel of all the entrenched Westminster parties which might be surprised when the disillusioned vote.

just Louise

A very disappointing touchy-feely speech.
Methinks it's time King Arthur rose with Excalibur!

Polly ... (whose myopia is all-too-typical of the Chattering Classes) wrote:
"The truth is that the majority of the British population don't give two figs about Afghanistan (or Israel for that matter), and rightly so."
This reminds me of Appeasement's indifference towards Czechoslovakia, that distant country of which we know nothing, as somebody once put it. The Nazis took it over in 1939 and - whoops! We all know what happened then. Remember Pastor Niemoller's warning - "then they came for me".

"What matters is that the bins get emptied on time, the mail gets delivered with reasonable expediency, you have a decent local hospital and little Johnny's school is OK. 'Terrorist training camps' don't enter into it."
What use is domestic efficiency when there's an existential foreign threat?

kate b

People don't really understand the issues. Afghanistan is seen as another British Imperial onslaught, but people ignore the fact that Islamic Imperialism is oppressive and expanding at a rate of knots see the Rifqa Bary case currently running in America (the land of the 'Free"). I really don't think people have worked out that the Taleban want Pakistan's nukes and with a bit more organization could put their men in positions of power in the Pakistani government (not to mention Iran's Ahmadinejad). Islamic fundamentalism (Islam how Mohamet did it) spreads across nations, not just Afghanis.

Taleban means 'student', but of what? Al Quaida (THE Base=the Qur'an, this is why it is held up. If the words say to kill then it must be done - you won't find Jesus doing or condoning this, he gives life, although they do have Jesus/Isa Sura 3:45 who happens to be THE Messiah, so they've missed the point of the scriptures, but that's by the by.

So do we have a problem in Britain? Yes, as we sanitize a politic which is wrapped in 'religion' so it must be treated with reverence to prevent hurt feelings we deny open debate about a man (Mohamet, the 'perfect example') you wouldn't want near your child, with a faith which is clearly not confirmation of the Torah and injil (Sura 3:3) as it claims.

We Brits perish through lack of knowledge. The greater demand on NHS, education &. are merely symptoms; the fact is that Britain is collapsing by accommodating ideologies, religious and secular and their whims which are contra to those our Grandfathers fought to keep.

Bullingdon carpet salesman

What about the economy? Can anyone really see Bullingdon Georgie wafting the UK back to solvency on his magic carpet?

Lizzy

Maybe the Tories could invite Sarah Palin to lead them...

Nick

Odd that Cameron didn't mention bankers' bonuses or the multi-billion pound bail out of the financial sector. Surely some mistake?

Incidentally, talk of 'Britain being under existential threat' is simply laughable. Who are we under 'existential threat' from? The Martians? Run!

Chris S

David Skinner - 'Gove reveals a terrible ignorance of the dangers of homosexuality'. So what exactly are those dangers?? Gove's 2003 article seems remarkably sane, measured and thoughtful, adjectives that clearly can't be applied to your comment.

Melanie is too simplistic in her analysis of Cameron's principles. A nuanced view would recognise that one does not have to take an *extreme* position on a policy issue in order to be for/against it. There is no inconsistency in an approach that, for example, proposes measures to promote entrepreneurialism while retaining a safety net for the lowest earners in the form of a minimum wage; it is perfectly acceptable to note that his support for the minimum wage means he'll never go as far in his entrepreneurialism as Melanie would like him to, but the two issues are *not* fundamentally incompatible. Ditto a scaling back of government and a strong backing for the NHS.

I think it's fair to argue that parts of Cameron's speech were vague and woolly, but to suggest that it was logically incoherent is incorrect.

steve

"Well actually we are there to defeat the Taleban in order to stop them from getting their hands on Pakistan’s nukes." Really, so the Taleban are fighting in Afghanistan in an effort to take over Pakistan's nuclear weapons? Perhaps in that case we should be fighting in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan.

Vision Aforethought

@Kate B: You are so spot on. Ensure you preach this mantra to those around you. Enlightenment is priceless.

Patricia Shaw

The support you give continuously to Gove in this column is frantically worrying.

Worrying for any politician who would think twice about having somebody like you support them

and worrying for British parents - of ALL religions - should he one day assume the position of SoS.

david skinner

Chris S, “So what exactly are those dangers?” is an excellent question to my statement 'Gove reveals a terrible ignorance of the dangers of homosexuality'?

I thought no one was going to ask.

David Cameron himself patted the labour government on the back for the way they had brought in -what in his mind - are more just and human legislation with Civil Partnerships for homosexuals. The government’s record wasn’t all bad after all.

But Civil Partnerships inevitably become a demand for homosexual marriage. At that point marriage has been appropriated and deconstructed to mean something else. This eventually leads to the complete disappearance of marriage itself. We will be left with polyamory - anarchy and the destruction of the family.

What else? It will lead our children into all the mental, emotional and physical dangers of homosexuality. Don’t believe me? Just consult the National Blood Service, the Health Protection Authority and a whole load more I could cite.

What else? It will lead to a huge increase in child abuse and homosexual paedophilia. Don’t believe me? Without even checking pie charts and graphs just read up on actual cases over the last couple of years.

What else? It will lead to oppression and the shutting down of all dissent and freedom to criticise not just homosexuality but any form of sexual behaviour. Homosexuality will lead into a complete free for all - incest, zoophilia, sado- masochism, polygamy, pan sexuality, objectum sexuality, necrophilia and much more.

At least with fighting Hitler, the threat was from outside. Here the threat to our nation is from within. Unless I have misjudged the man, only someone with the moral courage, martial vigour and Christian discernment of Sir Richard Dannatt can save Britain from complete meltdown.

Peter Roscoe

Dear Melanie

Thats the problem with Cameron he is in agreement with the Guardianistas and the BBC establishment. His failure to mention what we are up against and illustrate this by reference to 7/7 was despicable cowardice. He is useless.

In the meantime keep up your fight for traditional values however depressing and dispiriting this must be by evidence on a day to day basis of the tsunami of cultural marxism which engulfs the west* and has subverted a substantial section of the Tories.

*Just to shovel on more of this gloomy evidence is this mornings announcement of Obama's award. God forbid.

KEITH

Kate B...excellent. Trouble is David Cameron seems to be following the new labour lead by dismissing the concerns of the western population in these islands. Much teeth gnashing and hand wringing after yet further encroachment by the BNP and they may just get it. The British people are not racist,are aware of the threat from Al Quaida,and fundamentally wish to remain a Democracy with values and laws that dont involve the lifestyle promoted by the koran. We know Labour wont save us from that. Mr Cameron ,if he wishes to be sure of election, had better let us know how he intends to reverse the trend of Islamisation in the UK. Now

David Skinner

I received an email from Ben Summerskill, the chief exective of Stonewall in response to my reflections on his boycotting the LGBT fringe event at this year’s Conservative Conference.

“Dear Mr Skinner
Thank you for your e-mail which has been given appropriate consideration.
I have never either read the James Kirkup poem you cite or visited the Gaydar.com website, so your relish for homosexuality is clearly somewhat more enthusiastic than mine.
However, if I might say, your evident exposure at some length to all these matters without you turning gay is a powerful indictment of the increasingly persuasive arguments that homosexuality is a matter of nature, nor nurture. I am grateful to you for it and will cite it, if I may, in future.

Yours sincerely

Ben Summerskill”

But if we take Michael Gove’s reading of it he would say that my more than average knowledge of homosexuality and my obvious abhorrence of it - my homophobia- were clear proof that I was born in Lala Land. Gove would say to Ben Summerskill that my “evident exposure at some length to all these matters” begged the question of not such much why I had not turned gay, but what was I desperately trying to hide. He would agree with Ben Summerskill that no amount of negative nurture can hide one’s true homosexual nature - the more one protests, the more evident this is.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/michael_gove/article1147059.ece

Any child in school therefore who exhibited an abhorrence of homosexuality would in Michael Gove’s book would be clearly labelled as a closet homosexual. This man is going to be the future Secretary of State for Children Schools and Families. God help us and our children

St Bruno

Why,oh, why can’t the Tories get a grip on what the British people are thinking and act accordingly. Nif naf and trivia are no good in today’s climate. If the Tories don’t watch out Labour will win again or there will be a hung parliament with UKIP and BNP. Ignore them and they might go away has never worked.

In my opinion a hung parliament would not be a bad idea: might focus the minds of the born to rule class of Eton and Oxford on a bit of realty. The reality that the large Christian mass of the British people feel is about to come to pass. A few reality lessons could be learned from Israel, Kosovo, Cyprus and past Russian activities in Afghanistan. Islam and the people of Islam cannot be trusted in a Christian and Jewish world.

Augustus

I agree with Melanie that Cameron's Conference speech lacked a measure of dynamism which one might expect from a leader of the Conservative party
under the circumstances in which Britain finds itself today. People are, quite frankly, suffering from fear. And the basis for this social unrest lies a great deal in the inability, or unwillingness, of the Labour government to come to terms with social unrest and instability. It's as if the Labour party itself has the most to lose by releasing the country from the fixed obsession with multiculturalism
and the politically correct mindset. They should be unmasked
in no uncertain fashion, but David Cameron is not the man to do this. If Labour wins a fourth term next Spring, only a homegrown version of Geert Wilders would be able to do it. But democracy wouldn't be quite the same as we now know it. Perhaps that might not be such a bad thing under the circumstances, given the pressure the country would then be under.

david skinner

Augustus you say “If Labour wins a fourth term next Spring” You cannot be serious.

When Tony Blair was swept into power in 1997, all was prepared for a marvellous release of creativity; we awaited the New Britain - and what did we get? A society that needs to be put on special measures. Surely it is humility and abject repentance, not Pride, that are the only response to the evidence piled higher and higher each day that Surestart for children means industrial abortion of 200, 000 babies per year. This alone cries out for justice but what about the widespread abuse of children (many of whom are in the care of social services that can no longer cope); a government unwilling to stem the flood of pornography into every home and school in Britain, government funded agencies like the Family Planning Association that are leading our children into promiscuity and homosexuality; a huge increase in paedophilia and pederasty; rocketing levels of sexually transmitted infections; a national health service already creaking under the strain of treating teenagers for abortion; STIs and now alcholism, drug addiction and mental diseases, often leading to suicide; teenage rape gangs; levels of nihilistic violence and murder demonstrated by teenagers that were even rare amongst adults; parental duty of care, authority and power being taken out the hands of parents and placed into the hand of a totalitarian Marxist state; and the deliberate and wholesale deconstruction of the family and marriage. After twelve years of misrule Britain has a prison population at bursting point, …….and the spectacle of MPs, like Chris Bryant in their underpants on Gaydar, looking for lust, not to mention a government dominated by Marxist queers………..“If Labour wins a fourth term next Spring”

If this happens Gordon Brown will force through - if not before the election- the incitement to homophobic speech crime which would mean that I would probably face seven years in prison for writing what I have just written.

I therefore foresee and foretell that the policy of submitting bills to parliament will carry with it restrictions upon the freedom of speech and debate in Parliament, on public platforms, and discussions in the Press, for it will be said - indeed, I hear it said sometimes now - that we cannot allow homosexuality to be criticised by ordinary common English politicians. And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

I can think of only one man who has the moral courage, martial vigour and Christian discernment to lead us and that is Sir Richard Dannatt.

mr melrose

David Skinner et all...

What is it with you and homosexuallity? Why don't you just let it lie? 'A government dominated by Marxist Queers' 'Family Planning leading people into homosexuality' . I would call you a homophobe but it runs a bit deeper than that doesn't it? What an idiot.

Marcus

Ah Mr Melrose - but who are we to deny David Skinner fond reveries over Chris Bryant resplendent in his Calvin Kleins?

jim comfort

of more current interest, I wish you would comment on the Tory association with the polish and Latvia far right parties.

Marcus

Jim Comfort - absolutely. I've been wondering why Mel and posters here have expressed neither concern or anger over Cameron's hooking up with openly anti-semitic groups in Europe - a far more pressing issue than this minor squabble over what or what did not appear on a Guardian website.

david skinner

Jim Comfort and Marcus Melrose, Ben Summerskill pulled out of attending and speaking at the Conservative Party's LGBT event that was held on Tuesday evening 6th October because, in his view, it had been overshadowed by the controversy of the party’s coalition with homophobic parties within the European Parliament. Apparantly, the party had invited Polish Law and Justice Party MP Michal Kaminski to speak at its conference last week. Mr Kaminski was filmed calling gay people "fags" in an interview in 2000. He is now the president of the Tories' new bloc in Europe, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group.
Ben Summerskill was reported as saying, "There is no doubt the progress that has been made in the last couple of years has genuinely been historic. It would be churlish of anyone not to welcome the apology a couple of months ago over Section 28."
”But the event tonight has been overshadowed by the presence, not just at conference but on the same platform as some senior members of the party, of people of such extreme and offensive views.”

Yes, it is unlikely that British society would be as unfair, inequitable, unstable, intolerant and fearful as it is today without “genuinely historic pieces of legislation” contributed by Stonewall since the introduction of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, in 2006-7.
But the Conservative party’s LGBT event being hosted in Manchester, being “overshadowed by the presence, not just at conference but on the same platform as some senior members of the party, of people of such extreme and offensive views” as the Polish Law and Justice Party MP Michal Kaminski, can in no way be compared to the way Stonewall has - not merely shared the same platform - but showered awards on such outfits as the Gaydar.Com Meat Market. Neither can it be compared to Stonewall’s close association with individuals like Elton John who put on a show celebrating paedophilia for Cherie Blair and other VIPs at the Royal Albert Hall in 1999, or be compared to its identification with the chief executive of the Scottish youth LGBT, Jamie Rennie who recently went to prison for running an appalling paedophile ring in which children as young 18months were sexually abused, or to its flaunting Boy George, the sado masochist, as a kind of mascot at this year’s London Pride. But way beyond these examples is that of his side- kick, Sir Ian Mckellen, who read out in public the poem, “The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name” by James Kirkup. This is an obscene, pornographic, blasphemous poem about homosexual necrophilia that is designed to cause the maximum of offence and distress to Christians. But never mind because Christians have less rights than foxes.

On the other hand, neither does Summerskill shrink from inviting for public humiliation and abuse, at the Stonewall annual award ceremonies , solitary individuals who uphold and defend righteousness, marriage, family life and children against immorality. On any scale, the proposed inviting of the bishop of Winchester, the Right Reverend Michael Scott-Joynt, to receive, in person, the Bigot of the Year Award, at the Victoria Albert Musuem, is a grotesque example of Christianophobic hatred, harassment, intolerance, discrimination, exclusion and a flagrant insult to one of the Queen’s appointed ministers of the Church.