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Posts Tagged ‘David Cameron’

David Cameron gets Tory candidate’s name wrong in Oldham East & Saddleworth

06/01/2011, 07:01:49 PM

David Cameron has been up in Oldham and Saddleworth today doing some ‘stealth campaigning’. But just in case any one got the wrong end of the stick and thought Dave wanted the Tory candidate Kashif Ali to win – he demonstrated his lack of interest in the Tory campaign by getting the candidates name wrong in an interview with the Beeb.

You can listen to it here: cameron_oldham_gaffe

Q: How worried are you that there’s going to be an anti-government reaction here? This is people’s first chance to shown what they think of the coalition?

DC: I think what we’ll be saying is look this is actually about choosing a new Member of Parliament for Oldham and Saddleworth. That’s the key thing and who’s going to make the best candidate to replace the Labour MP who you know, had the seat taken away from him because of the way he behaved during the election. And that’s really what it’s about, is someone to stand up for this area in Parliament and our candidate Ashif [sic] is very very strong, I think he’ll do a very good job.

Update: Those little tinkers at Political Scrapbook got hold of the video and made this little beauty

Posted in Inside | 2 Comments »

Cameron’s bottle-out on fox hunting: a good broken promise

06/01/2011, 07:00:26 AM

by Sally Bercow

Spare a thought for the scarlet-clad tally-ho brigade. Not only were over half the Boxing Day foxhunts called off due to heavy snow and ice, but it looks increasingly like game-over for a repeal of the hunting ban too. As DEFRA officials recently admitted, David Cameron has now abandoned his oft-repeated commitment to facilitate an early overturning of the ban. A free House of Commons vote has been kicked firmly into the long grass. Indeed, with a bit of luck, it may not even take place at all.

This is music to the ears of most people in Britain. For, unlike our prime minister (who was born into the hunting tradition and has repeatedly argued that the 2004 hunting act was “a mistake”), over three-quarters (76%) of us believe that fox hunting should remain illegal. Despite concerted propaganda to the contrary by the countryside alliance and their ilk, Labour’s hunting act has proved to be a popular, humane and effective piece of legislation, which enjoys an impressive conviction rate.

It would be heartening to think that Mr Cameron has abandoned his pledge swiftly to repeal the ban because he has undergone a Damascene conversion. All who oppose wanton cruelty might sleep more easily in their beds if they thought that their prime minister now acknowledged the error of his ways and accepted that, in a modern, civilised society, there is simply no place for dogs to shred foxes to pieces. Such a volte-face would be a real blow (“I say, old chap, what’s going on”?) to the die-hard, unreconstructed, hunting-obsessed Tory toffs who think that opposition to their “sport” is merely the vulgar prejudice of the lower orders. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 28 Comments »

Cameron is a class act, a worthy opponent. So we must nail him now.

04/01/2011, 03:00:05 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Ed Miliband was right in his New Year message. 2011 is a year of consequences. This is the year Labour really has to nail David Cameron. Once and for all. For five years he has slipped through the party’s fingers with one failed attempt to characterise him after another.

First we had “Dave the chameleon”. Cameron was a chancer; all things to all people. Then we had the toff-bashing fun of the Crewe by-election: a stunt that grew into the entire campaign, with predictably calamitous results. Then we had “Mr 10%” – the amount that a pre-election Cameron was said to want to cut from public spending. A line which no less an authority than Douglas Alexander recently lamented had been quite useless.

Tony Blair once chided Cameron that he would not withstand the “big clunking fist” of Gordon Brown. But Cameron has instead shown that he has a decent chin. Then we had Brown’s repeated charge that he was “all style, but no substance”. That is not a crime in modern politics; as, indeed, Blair testifies. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 11 Comments »

Tom Watson: Michael Moore has broken the ministerial code

23/12/2010, 07:00:04 AM

If you can’t see the letter in the document viewer below, the plain text version is here.

TW_dc22

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Tom Watson: Michael Moore has broken the ministerial code

23/12/2010, 06:59:23 AM

Mr David Cameron MP

Prime Minister

10 Downing Street

London

SW1A 2AA

22 December 2010

Dear Mr Cameron,

BREACH OF THE MINISTERIAL CODE

I enclose a copy of a press statement circulated today by Matthew Harvey of the Scotland Office, and the Scotland Office’s Press Office, in which Secretary of State Michael Moore MP gives his reaction to the Daily Telegraph story “Liberal Democrat ministers condemn scrapping of child benefit”. (more…)

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Tory local government leader lets slip their contempt for the north

13/12/2010, 10:49:11 AM

If you can’t see the letter in the document viewer below, the plain text version is here.

Letter to PM From Michael Dugher.2

Posted in Inside | 3 Comments »

Andy Coulson is not J Edgar Hoover

12/12/2010, 09:36:23 AM

By Dan McCurry

J Edgar Hoover originally brought scandal upon himself when he worked in the private sector. However, he was saved from his disgrace when the US president offered him a job as his head of communications. As the holder of one of the most powerful civilian ranks in the US government, he answered directly to the president without the constraint of civil service accountability to stand in his way.

That paragraph is, of course, ridiculous. Why would anyone hire the disgraced J Edgar Hoover? Who in their right mind would be interested in a man whose view of the private lives of others was so contemptible that he bugged thousands of public figures? Not for national security reasons, but to pursue his own selfish ends.

Of all people, why would the US president hire J Edgar Hoover after he came to public notoriety following a bugging and deception scandal? A scandal that sent people around him to jail and over which he only narrowly avoided prosecution. It is inconceivable.

Yet that is exactly what David Cameron did when he hired Andy Coulson. There then followed a spate of bugging and burglary scandals involving the Tory party as beneficiaries. Questions were asked. The Guardian investigated. (more…)

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Dave, Boris and Parliament Square: Ian Austin seeks the truth

10/12/2010, 02:40:07 PM

IanA_Cam

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On FIFA, Cameron is our leader

05/12/2010, 10:02:09 AM

By Dan McCurry

Before the FIFA announcement I would have agreed with Ken Livingstone that it would be better to put off the Panorama broadcast until after the vote. There is corruption in the world and we do our bit to discourage it. But it is probably a bit too much to ask us to be martyrs for the cause. I am sure you agree.

But how do you feel since the vote? How do you feel since they taught us a good lesson? Do you feel chastised?

Having had your wrists slapped by FIFA, do you feel sufficiently regretful? Perhaps we should apologise to them? Admit that we were wrong to allow the BBC to behave in such an adversely critical manner to the good people of FIFA? Perhaps we should promise never to do it again? Do you think so?

I do not.

Do you want to know what I feel? I’ll tell you: how dare they? How dare they treat us with that sheer contempt?

Do they think we should go away with our tails between our legs, having learnt our lesson? Do they think we should be humbled? Harried? Humiliated?

I am with David Cameron on this. I am a Labour bloke, but political parties do not come into it on this occasion. As far as I am concerned, when I saw him humiliated, I felt humiliated. I felt my country humiliated. I felt every British citizen had been humiliated.

And that was the point. They wanted to punish us for the audacity of exposing their corruption. As if we were arrogant to believe that it was for us, the pompous British, to condemn theft: the stealing of money. Because that is what corruption is. Pure and simple. And for that – that very same bunch of thieves should teach try and teach us a lesson?

Well I say this: I am with you, Cameron.

I am with you and so is the whole of the Labour party. Every MP, councillor and party member. We are with you on this all the way. You are the leader and we look towards you. So now that we have been publicly humiliated in front of the whole world, show us what you are going do about it.

Come on, prime minister. We are waiting and we want to know.

Dan McCurry blogs here.

Posted in Grassroots | 1 Comment »

Letwin checking up on Lansley: John Healey’s letter to David Cameron

03/12/2010, 10:56:41 AM

Rt Hon David Cameron MP

Prime Minister

10 Downing Street

London

SW1A 2AA

01 December 2010

I welcome the review of the Health Secretary’s plans for the NHS that you have asked Oliver Letwin to undertake, confirmed by No10 and the Treasury to the Financial Times and reported today.

This is the right time for the review, before the Government gets any deeper into the high-cost, high-risk internal reorganisation that Andrew Lansley set out in his White Paper in July.

My concern is for the future of the NHS, and this is entrusted to you and your Health Secretary for now.

This is set to be a period of severe financial squeeze for the NHS. Despite your promise to protect the NHS and to protect NHS funding, the health service is already showing signs of strain. This time next year, when the NHS will be operating on funding from the first year of your Spending Review, rather than the last year of ours, these strains will be much clearer to patients and the public.

This is a period during which the efforts of all in the NHS should be dedicated to making sound efficiencies and improving patient care. It is therefore exactly the wrong time to be forcing the NHS through what the King’s Fund Chief Executive describes as “the biggest organisational upheaval in the health service, probably, since its inception”. (more…)