David cameron

Most press releases don’t really catch the eye.  But when one hits your inbox from The Department of Government Waste, you can’t help but take notice.  In it, the Secretary of State for Government Waste, Robin Ewe (geddit?), celebrates 13 years of “waste-maximisation,” and there are links to a departmental website, complete with reports and videos. No surprises that it’s a Tory campaign.  And to up the fun quotient, CHHQ have even managed to plug it via a cheeky advert in the Guardian.  But although there’s a comic tinge to it all, and although it’s rather straightforward, this is still a smart message for the Tories to get out there. 

This morning, David Cameron and a large chunk of the Shadow Cabinet were talking in some detail about how the Conservatives will enable a Big Society. To do that, they are going to have to stop state-run organisation crushing community initiatives.   Take the case of MyPolice. This website was set up to let people offer tips on how policing in there area could be improved. Earlier this month, they were contacted by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) who told them that they were launching a site called MyPolice. The original MyPolice objected.But HMIC went ahead anyway, using the url mypolice.org.uk. This better funded website now comes top when

Tomorrow’s Word of the Day is ‘Big’.  That is to say: the Tories are holding a Big Event, on the theme of the Big Society, and they’ve got all their Big Hitters out for the occasion.  In all, there’ll be presentations from eleven shadow Cabinet members, followed by a speech from David Cameron.  You don’t often see such a concentration of Tory firepower outside of conference season. What’s clear, then, is that the Tories regard tomorrow as an important day for their election campaign.  And so they should.  Their Big Society agenda – aka, decentralisation – spans across some of their most encouraging policy ideas.  From Michael Gove’s plans to

Gordon Brown and David Cameron have just been facing each other in the Commons chamber. Brown was notionally reporting back on the European summit meeting, but in relaity Brown and Cameron were setting the stage for the Chancellor’s debate tonight. Cameron claimed that there was a new dividing line in British politics, the Tories for ‘efficency and aspiration’ and Labour for ‘waste and taxes.’ Brown claimed that the Tories were indulging in panic measures and that their plans announced today would ‘withdraw the support that is necessary for the economy to have a sustained recovery.’ Brown might have some Keynesian economists on his side when he says this. But it

Public sector net borrowing, public sector net debt, total managed expenditure, departmental expenditure limits … zzzzz.  One of the main reasons why Labour has been able to fashion an economic narrative, against all odds, is because they can rely on some pretty esoteric language.  Thus debt becomes interchangeable with deficit, and cuts can be hidden under layers and layers of different spending metrics.  Perhaps more than anything, this almost-casual deception is Brown’s greatest skill. Which is why it’s encouraging that the Tories have tried to demystify some of the fiscal debate, putting it into language that everyone can follow.  They’ve set out their “more for less” argument by referring to

Cameron was scarcely trying at PMQs today. Show up, look a bit cross, slip in a joke or two, then sit down and wait for the Budget. That was his plan. When the PM offered his congratulations on BabyCam, the opposition leader quoted a text he’d received – ‘How do you find time for these things?’ Making this wisecrack seemed more important to him than attacking the PM. His tactics were odd, out of touch, retrospective. He asked about Brown’s attempts to conceal the evidence that, as chancellor, he flogged the nation’s gold too cheaply and blew vast sums in potential profits. Brown’s bungling over the bullion billions should be

David Cameron may be talking about a new relationship with France, but let’s hope the Conservatives do better than Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP, which suffered a heavy defeat in local and regional elections, with a Socialist-led opposition alliance taking an estimated 52 percent of the vote. This is bad. At least three of President Sarkozy’s enemies have now made a comeback: the French left, the far-right Front National and Dominique de Villepin, who appears to have been buoyed by UMP’s defeat and a new poll that showed the French preferred de Villepin to Sarkozy as UMP leader. It will be interesting to see how Sarkozy copes. Until now, he has not