The winning Tory strategy of hope'n'change. Oh, wait...

Noa Zrk

Quite so, Melanie.
Sums up what I and others have been saying in these blogs.
He's dodgy, well dodgy; with his line of "if you don't like this policy I've got another just parked over here..".
The first, last and middle issue has to be rescuing the £200b structural deficit and the the bankrupt economy, after this platitudes about the NHS and VAT just pale into insignificane.
It's simply outrageous and insulting to the electorate to expect us to take his ability to run the country on trust, when he can't put the worst PM and government out of its misery. Worse still, he associates himself with most of their key policies.
But hush, I may have been transmitting too long... I hear knocking on my door, is that the Millbank Gauleiters already? My toothbrush is packed. I may be some time...

Neil Turner

Certainly no practical difference between Tories and NewLab on:

- the Climate Change / Carbon scam
- leaving the EU
- political correctness

That's why I'll be voting UKIP after 30 years as a Tory

A J Scott

Well, at least we know what you stand for, Melanie, generally speaking, and I for one am with you, generally.
But I think you are somewhat off target on the strategies and content of the Conservatives. For them, don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes (and that may start up the racephobia nuts) is the best policy.

Andre

It is a horrible scenario but if Cameron loses by a whisker can we expect to see a right wing avuncular figure emerge to lead the Conservative Party and the the UK. Someone who will take a stand against radical Islam, the politically correct neutering of our culture and the black hole into which our public finances have descended? Public spending has to fall dramatically - that means substantially rolling back the welfare state, breaking up and privatizing the health service and abolishing the state's unhappy role in education. I see no such person on the Tory front bench

Peter Smeaton

Not up to your usual standard, Melanie. A good slagging off is OK, but it needs a better target. I do not believe that you think that the Conservative party cannot form a better government than this discredited, fractious, hapless group of mediocrities currently in power. Look beyond Mr Cameron....there is a lot of ability there. And he's not so bad either.
Look beyond Brown and you see why this incompetent buffoon is still the Prime Minister...nothing that would make a realistic lower to middle manager.
There is always a time for change, however much it has become a bit of a cliche. Now is well beyond that time.

just Louise

Andre, I agree with you so strongly, but Call Me Dave is slippery re such things. He seems to think voters are preoccupied with matters economic and tries to be all things to all people.

London Calling

We Can't go on like this...

I can't wait until the election is over.;(

Dixon

I think Mr Cameron has missed his true calling. He should concentrate on getting the part of John Steed in a future re-make of the Avengers. In tweeds or pin-stripe and a bowler hat he would be almost perfect, although not as avuncular as Patrick Macnee. I cannot help seeing the resemblance every time he appears. His words just become a blur something like "mmmmrs peel, errr, mmmm, peel,mmmm mother......"

Straydingo

I would vote for Boris in a heart beat if he was leading the Tories

phil

Andre
January 5th, 2010 12:03pm -

I see at least someone is facing reality and if Just Louise is there too, that alone would make me happy ,but still things are being said by some that the policy of putting money back into our system was wrong ,it is being said by those that do not like the idea of paying for what we are responsible for, our own collective lethargy with the bankers, the chancellor and those institutions charged with fiscal prudence .The buck stops with US!! we elected the government .
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The disaster that would have accrued if we had not refunded the economy ,assured our banks and building societies that they would continue is on a scale of one to ten -eleven !We now have to pay for it but hopefully with a banking system that works and with most business still intact-can you imagine the benefits payments for even more unemployed and from a system producing no taxes ,also from a system that would have killed off entrepreneurs who are the future employers -need I go on .? We were in a worse mess in 1945 and we came out strong and we will again provided we find politicians with common sense and courage ,To that extent I hope someone will press William Hague into the role of chancellor -He at least has that sense and ability .I am not sure about Dave .

Jonathan Phillips

Spot on, Melanie. I live across the pond and I wish we had commentators who could articulate the state of things as well as you have.
Excellent analysis.

Noa Zrk

Phil:
"The buck stops with US!! we elected the government..." .
I'm really not comfortable with the position that "we are all guilty" for Gordon's moronic fiscal and economic policies. For starters; I've NEVER voted for a Labour government and I've always considered his bombastic boom and bust approach would be disastrous. Nor did the electoral majority vote for him. We are left, nevertheless, to resolve and pay, for many years, for his monstrous, incompetence and to add insult to injury, his bloody index linked pension.

Remember that our balanced, two chamber political system with its doctrine of Ministerial responsibility was also
wrecked by NewLabour, so people like you and I have had to watch, helplessly and with no recourse, other than through violent revolution, whilst this megalomaniac clown and his fellow poltroons have systematically trashed our country and everything we value.
Are we responsible for that? Did we vote him in? Is it our fault? Should we have stormed Downing Street, hung the sods from a lamp post? To the extent that we didn't then we are responsible.

Nicholas

No comment.

Rachael

The hope'n'change lines were just unbelievable.

These were classed as rhetoric of the highest merit in the mouth of Obama, thanks to a mainstream media that decided it wasn't going to be critical at all, but anyone with more than two brain cells saw such hot air for what it was.

Too often Dave is working off a template that is bust.

It's not 1997.

It's not America 2008.

It's 2010.

It requires a combination of Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher.

To the waste in the NHS, we must say: no, no, no.

To mass immigration, we must say: no, no, no.

To the Islamisation of our country, we must say no, no, no.

And to rule by Brussels we must say: no, no, no.

Re-run the VT, Dave and see how it's done.

No, no, no.

Does anyone have a handbag they can lend him?

Swing it, Dave! Swing it.

Tiberius

Like Simon Heffer, Melanie, it is a shame you want the Tories to appeal to an electorate that you wish the country had, rather than the electorate the country actually has.

Do you not remember the Question Time audience that you tried to reason with over climate change, as an example?

Cameron has to get an awful lot of people to vote Tory who did not vote for them last time. He (or a different leader) could take your advice (if that is what you are offering above), but that would not win the election.

Andre

Maybe this sounds eccentric but I have never had any sympathy for banks. No bail outs. let 'em crash. Phil makes a good point, though, which I think is that collectively we have all eschewed thrift and were happy to live in debt. get rid of credit cards and shop with cash.

I do not think Cameron has any more coherent a grasp of this mess than does Brown. What troubles me most is the lack of informed debate concerning our country's economic and social future. To hear our leaders mumbling through an O level grasp of Keynesian economic theory is deeply troubling.

MADDY

THE PEOPLE ARE NOT CONSULTED/

WHAT CAN WE DO.

Baron

A glaringly obvious analogy between the NHS and the now collapsed communist regimes of the East. They both fit like a pair of gloves - same type of ownership, an identical manipulation of demand, same central control, same allocation of resources, no market forces in the one or the other, same sort of shortcomings and failures, black market catering for the dissatisfied in either… and I reckon the same ending for the NHS as for its big Red brother.

badstephen

You're wrong Tiberius. Dave doesn't need a lot of people to switch to the Tories. He needs roughly one million disillusioned Labour voters to sit on their hands. If I thought there was any chance of him behaving like Enoch Powell, or doing any of the other unpleasant things recommended here, I would hold my nose and vote Labour once more. As it is, us wishy-washy liberals think we can tolerate Cameron as long as he remains strong enough to resist you guys. British elections are won from the Centre (even Thatcher was more moderate than the Labour alternative). Get used to it.

Augustus

In a ridiculous but amusing poll
a few years ago people were asked if X was a car, what car would he/she be? David Cameron came out as a sports car, Blair was a defunct Rover, and Brown
(worryingly) ended up as a tank.
Such an image might have been seen as positive at the time, but today, in 2010 with the General Election on the horizon,
he is still a lightweight, and his performance is definitely underwhelming. The fact is, David Cameron would have been better suited ending up leader of the LibDem party. That seems to be more his style. I hold no candle for Brown and his awful
self-important socialist band of imcompetents, but an enigma you don't know might well deserve to be beaten by a devil you do.

John

Straydingo. Boris was in the Obama camp last year cheerleading for him. Does that not tell you all you need to know about Boris and commonsense? I don't live in mainland UK but if I did I would vote UKIP. The Tories are only Labourlite. You might as well vote for Gordon and have the real thing.

Graeme Thompson

Tiberius
January 5th, 2010 5:22pm

I think you make a very good point, but then, once elected, what then? Can we expect anything different from a Cameron Government? Can we expect anything worthwile? I think not. I think he is a hostage to BBC bias. The message of what needs to be done in our country is a winnable message, but one that needs Thatcherite/Churchillian levels of courage, conviction and charisma to carry through.

Brown has completely debased British politics, and one hopes and believes that Cameron and his retinue cannot be more morally debased than Brown's. A change of Government would fumigate the air a bit at least. But all Cameron can offer is a brief and fleeting respite while Britain continues tumbling downhill.

The British values Melanie is such an unparalleled exponent of are values that if well presented and fearlessly put before the public, can coalesce support right across Britain's democratic spectrum.

It would be great if Melanie could put together a party to stand in areas where the BNP has most support to lay them to waste for the Nazi scum that they are and to fire a shot across the boughs of a (hopefully) incoming Cameron Government, that the British public have an appetite for the values that made us great, if but a political leader was brave enough to slay the dragons that hold them captive.

Melanie, I'm sure it wouldn't 'cramp your style' to do this. Noone is going to bring this change to the British political landscape but you. A lot of people seem to believe in you, and hopefully you'd find that you can believe in a lot of people.

PJ

I saw Mel have a hard time on Question Time with global warming dupes ('twas ever thus), but that is not an accurate reflection of society.

Those Question Time audiences are very carefully chosen and if you read some of the accounts some audience members gave to the Mail on Sunday not a few months ago, they seem to be chosen along the lines of how PC they were.

I know someone who works for a radio phone-in show and when climategate broke they were desperate for just one believer in global warming to call in just to give the show some balance. It didn't happen. There's the unedited audience for you.

Indeed, if you look at opinion polls, despite the almost blanket propaganda telling us to believe in global warming, the bulk of the public are still sceptical.

The BBC isn't stupid when it puts shows like Question Time together. It works very hard to make sure the show will reflect the corporation's biases - especially in the way its audience is chosen.

Sam ARMSTRONG

Tiberius: "Like Simon Heffer, Melanie, it is a shame you want the Tories to appeal to an electorate that you wish the country had, rather than the electorate the country actually has.

Do you not remember the Question Time audience that you tried to reason with over climate change, as an example?"

I am so sorry to break the news to you Tiberius, but I'm afraid that the UK DOES in fact have this electorate, and in large numbers. The panel selected by BBC Scotland for the Question Time edition to which you refer, was composed of typical boring lefty BBC type socialist people, who are not typically British at all.

workie ticket

What do the ‘Blue Labour’ Tories stand for, apart from winning?

I think the answer is 'Nothing' apart from the securing of power. The Big 3 parties will continue to play out a 'yah boo hiss' pantomime charade where they claim to be miles apart in policy but in reality could quite happily serve in each others governments were it not for those oh so important party brand labels they chose in their adolescence.

After a lifetime voting Labour I was looking for a real choice, a real change, but Cameron and his mates havent got the guts to provide it - I wont vote for Blair #2. I will vote but not for the '3'.

Baron

workie tickets sums it up nicely. The big 3 behave like clones of each other, and we only matter in choosing one set of power hungry lot or another.

phil

Noa Zrk
January 5th, 2010 4:11pm I did not vote for him either but as a democracy WE did .and you will note that nobody on this thread has suggested how we were to get out of the mess .,I would be happy to hear from anyone who has or had a solution other than that which was taken .Brown is not my cup of tea but the man is not wrong every time he does something .
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Andre has no sympathy for the banks and nor have I, but we did not have the luxury of letting them go bust -if any of you have any savings or pension would you have been glad to lose them all just to kick the bankers'? -I think not .There is too much rhetoric here and not enough pragmatism -loads of complaints as usual but no construction and that seems to me to be a disease in our country which is in great need of an antibiotic .This is a magazine that attracts the more intelligent people and if this nonsense continues to be perpetrated here I really have to worry about our future .

David

So many people seem to love Brown so much that they will lose no opportunity of slating Cameron.

I wish them joy of five more years of this awful government.

Tiberius

Graeme T: you're asking Mel to form a UKIP II party, the effect of which, along with UKIP I, would be to weaken the oppostion vote to Labour.

PJ/Sam A: if what you say is true about the electorate, why was it unable to see through the New Labour lies in the two GEs in 2005 and 2001 when the Tories campaigned on their more traditional, upright platform? It's also worth remembering that Cameron's predecessors presided over a wipe out in Scotland and Wales (although since Cameron became leader some ground has been regained in Wales).

John Richardson

'Tiberius'

"...if what you say is true about the electorate is true why was it unable to see through the New labour lies...." 1:02 6th Ja.

Fair question but I would say the Conservative agenda was not conservative at all and the electorate knew that. The sentiment, and BBC/lib media 'mood music', was all that was right wing about Howard/Haig.
(I would add Blair fooled no-one in 1997. He gained 24.95% of the vote. Millions stayed at home. We now know those crowds in Downing Street had been bussed in from Lab. HQ..... )

Answer to your question (finally); the electorate were bribed with house price inflation. Simple. The relaxation of Hight Street credit also helped.

Noa Zrk

Phil @ January 6th, 2010 11:45am

“I did not vote for him either but as a democracy WE did”
- No, we didn't have the opportunity to vote on his leadership, only his Scots constituents got that, otherwise, the Labour party appointed and anointed him.

So, replace the oligarchy with a democracy.

Reform the electoral and parliamentary systems, with voters having multiple votes on merit and an accountable two chamber checks and balances system, define ministerial responsibilities and establish fixed terms for Parliaments and MPs and elect the PM, also for a fixed term.
A decent system would at least have facilitated scrutiny and review of our financial system and separated speculative high risk activities from domestic housing and savings, oh and buggering up pensions savings and the gold reserve.

“...and you will note that nobody on this thread has suggested how we were to get out of the mess ..,”

Where do we start? First we have to get rid of the present dead hands on the tiller… then reform the political system, enabling us to start putting in place a capacity to earn our living by re-building a productive private sector rather than continuing to spend beyond our means.

“I would be happy to hear from anyone who has or had a solution other than that which was taken. Brown is not my cup of tea but the man is not wrong every time he does something “.

Well, actually, he is. Thumpingly, clunkingly and pontificatingly pompously so. Like a bullfrog in heat.
I can’t identify a single thing the wretched man has done correctly since he became Chancellor or sneaked into No 10. Just for example he chose to take undeserved credit for a vibrant City and economy when it provided a rich tax harvest to be frittered away, and eschewed any responsibility when it collapsed. Oh, and allowing the wasting body of our diminishing industrial base to be picked over by rapacious foreign competitors, and its workers replaced by cut price east European and far eastern labour. There’s much, much more of course but I’d bore myself if I continued…

“Andre has no sympathy for the banks and nor have I, but we did not have the luxury of letting them go bust -if any of you have any savings or pension would you have been glad to lose them all just to kick the bankers? “-I think not.”

Actually we did, again we weren’t consulted on bank rescues with our cash and it might not have happened if our regulatory financial institutions hadn’t been emasculated and the banks thus properly regulated in the first place. As it is those rescued, now declining savings have merely been protected by the now astronomical overdraft and quantitative easing,

“There is too much rhetoric here and not enough pragmatism -loads of complaints as usual but no construction and that seems to me to be a disease in our country which is in great need of an antibiotic. This is a magazine that attracts the more intelligent people and if this nonsense continues to be perpetrated here I really have to worry about our future”.
Well if you don’t find them in this thread there are plenty of positives elsewhere, with solutions, original or traditional, to problems and issues identified by discerning and informed readers and I trust you’ll continue to be one of them.

Andre

phil Too many complaints and not enough solution thinking, OK good point. What I was hinting at was a re-espousal of Thatcherite market principles - if no one wants it or sets value on it then let it go. Banks, stocks and shares etc - painful admittedly but a stronger economy emerges rather than one hobbled by the sub cutaneous shrapnel of unrepayable debt. So let the banks go bust - pay out the savers at 80p in the pound if you like but not the banks, heaven help us. I still can't believe a labour gov is bailing out a clutch of obese asthmatic counting houses. However my major concern remains that we have no adequate intelligent debate as to what to do. State administered antibiotics will not cure the disease of failure and loss of confidence in our country; only the working off of excess fat and a consequent strengthening of the immune system.
Brilliant post from Noa Zrk - I have also embraced the heresy of a restricted franchise - no work no vote. I want to see excellence in politics and business - I have no problem with politics being fostered on the playing fields of Eton as well as the gymnasia of Tower Hamlets ....

Cuse

In absolute agreement Melanie.

Dave is the biggest threat to this country in a long time. You can't run a country on the hoof, as Dave, Gideon, Hague and Coulson want us to believe and a re trying to demonstrate daily.

Much as the Labour dossier of the Tory spending plans sank like a stone, there's one element of it that Dave is desperate to avoid. Darling wasn't wrong. The Tories have got no clue about what to do and are saying Yes to everything. Their friends in the military for example would be wise to ask "how will you pay for all the extra equipment you've complained about Labour not providing and promised us to buy when our budget isn't one of the protect ones you promised?"

The ONLY thing Dave wants is power. And his cosy Eton old-boys network all over the media is determined to make it happen.

Cuse

@Noa Zrk.

The problem with your view on democracy is on paper it looks appealing - power to the people, vote on everything, referendums for all... but in practice it's crippling. Look at the mess in California - where their whole approach is referenda led (no tax rises without public approval for example) and results in budget meltdown.

Your siren-call "reform the political system, enabling us to start putting in place a capacity to earn our living by re-building a productive private sector rather than continuing to spend beyond our means" is similarly flawed. The private sector is not a panacea. It is a wheel in the recovery cog, but the public sector in the UK will always be crippled for years by the cycle of Tory under-investment and Labour over-investment to rectify it and Tory under-investment to control it ad infinitum. It also stops dead after the first statement. There is no political system that exists which achieves your aim. It sounds like a typical Dave speech - froth. Aspirational yes, but froth nevertheless.

Dave and his fellow Tory Troubadours are so far from the answer this country needs it's not true. What we need are solutions. Not endless re-hashing of what the problems are.

phil

Andre
January 7th, 2010 9:10am -Andre yesterday I sent in a post after rereading my reply to you to say that my answer did not mean to reflect any criticism of what you had said earlier ,it got lost in the ether ,so I am trying again .the" nonsense" bit was not anything to do with your remarks which I value .
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Noah great post -I think you are aware that I am no fan of Gordon but I do believe QE has given us the chance of financial stability in the LONG run even though we will be paying the price of survival for some time to come,nobody has come out with any other solution that would not have destroyed not only us but the whole financial system ,and my complaint was that too many people have been castigating him over this without any semblance of economic understanding -To have stood back and let market forces take over ,which I kept hearing was a recipe for meltdown and a way of us going back to the circumstances from which the beast hitler arose .I said to ANNA W K the other day that I believe we get the society we deserve and that I come here to try to influence it hopefully for the better :)-Those of us who try ,right or wrong are doing just that when we make constructive suggestions and our debates help us see another view .I agree with almost all you have said ,but I would like to have a swing at the FSA who have done a shocking job ,they make life difficult for all those who are honest and do not catch the smart alecs as we have seen to our cost ,can I mention Northern Rock and the Equitable fiasco ,the accountants and pension advisors ,more ? not enough space and this is getting too long .nice to hear from you both regards phil

Andre

phil - thanks I too agree with much of what you say - it is better argued and less emotional than my angst ridden barking. Keep up the good work