David Cameron – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

The Coalition’s woes: mid term blues or the times they are a changing?

Turgon on May 7, 2012, 7:51 pm

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The backlash to the Labour gains in the council elections seems to be continuing. Some such as William Hague have tired to write the election results off as a typical mid term result (and to be fair although good for Labour they were not a Tory melt down) but others are more concerned. The results have fed into the narrative of the omnishambles and the fear appears to be amongst Tory MPs that a vicious circle of increasing disaster, increasing …

The omni shambles and Labour’s difficulty capatilising

Turgon on April 28, 2012, 3:52 pm

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The omni shambles which is the current government seems to continue. I mentioned the disaster which was the budget and the spin surrounding it recently. Jeremy Hunt and his special advisor have yet again shone a spotlight on the relationship between Rupert Murdock’s media empire and politicians (though of course the Tories were far from the only political party with close links to News International – take a bow Alex Salmond). It has been suggested that Hunt is being kept …

Coalition trials and tribulations over budget

Turgon on April 18, 2012, 9:59 pm

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The coalition have been having a few weeks of pretty bad media storms. There was the fuel crisis that never was when the government in trying to make people prepare for a possible crisis managed to create one. The government may have thought they were preparing themselves like a mini version of the Thatcher governments preparations for taking on the miners. In reality the government actually did the tanker drivers propaganda for them demonstrating how bad a strike might be: …

“….some senior Conservatives are privately starting to wonder…”

Mick Fealty on April 16, 2012, 3:44 pm

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In case you missed it over the weekend, James Kirkup has done some digging into the workings of No 10 and finds that one of Cameron’s failings is that he’s just not political enough (for his many critics): Because Mr Cameron’s team is not regularly involved (meddling, some would say) in the daily work of departments, potentially controversial policies can sometimes catch it unawares. Hence the development of a personalised “app” for Mr Cameron’s iPad that will allow him to …

“I am delighted to hear that the people of Northern Ireland are the happiest in the United Kingdom”

Pete Baker on February 29, 2012, 6:05 pm

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Some good news! [Peter Robinson will be pleased – Ed] Possibly… According to the Office of National Statistics’ analysis of experimental subjective well-being data from the Annual Population Survey, April to September 2011, the people of Northern Ireland are the happiest in the United Kingdom. In fact the, admittedly subjective, data reveals that the people of Northern Ireland had higher average ratings than the rest of the UK on the ‘life satisfaction’, ‘worthwhile’ and ‘happy yesterday’ questions (7.6, 7.8 and 7.5 out of …

Unionist forces begin to muster

Brian Walker on January 12, 2012, 10:12 am

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So it’s game on for the early rounds of the referendum campaign. The Westminster government says Alex Salmond can have a binding referendum provided he sticks to a Yes, No question on independence. No fudging over devo max. The UK parties are uniting to save the Union, although the others would like Cameron and the Tories to take a back seat according to the Guardian, for reasons which Alex Salmond himself makes clear in the Independent. They have all but conceded …

David Cameron boardroom pay and putdowns

Turgon on January 10, 2012, 9:56 pm

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The coverage of David Cameron’s views on any Scottish independence referendum have been analysed in detail. Those comments did rather eclipse the coverage of his interview with the Sunday Telegraph. The Telegraph is obviously the most pro Tory of the broadsheets but they do seem to be even more sympathetic than usual in their coverage of the interview: not only the article by Patrick Hennessy above but also Matthew d’Ancona who bordered a little too close to sycophancy</a. and a …

Cameron’s battle with the European beast makes EU less unpopular?

Mick Fealty on December 20, 2011, 11:17 am

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Much has been made of the veto bounce for David Cameron. You find it most dramatically in the ICM poll which filters rigourously for likelihood to vote (and already had the Tories in the lead). In fact the detail in some of the polls suggest that the Tory bounce has been in part a result of squeezing UKIP’s recent surge. And if you look at the patterns over the last few months on YouGov’s polling report, this bounce only just …

Cameron needs to review and politicise his government’s negotiating effort…

Mick Fealty on December 19, 2011, 5:05 pm

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It’s an odd twist of fate whereby we face a situation in which most of Ireland ought to be putting some store on David Cameron’s (albeit abortive) attempt to renegotiate a better and more fitting solution to the solvency problems of the currency that no lender of last resort it seems can be made to love. As Micheal Martin pointed out after his meeting with the Taoiseach last week: I asked the Taoiseach why Ireland did not consider supporting the …

The problem of communicating DC to DC?

Mick Fealty on December 19, 2011, 6:54 am

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Matthew d’Ancona, a friend and admirer of the late Christopher Hitchens, reaches for one of the few times he had ever spoken on the subject of David Cameron: “He seems content-free to me. Never had a job, except in PR, and it shows. People ask, ‘What do you think of him?’ My answer is: he doesn’t make me think.” D’Ancona follows up by stating: The biggest problem of perception facing this Government is that it is less than the sum …

Lib Dems firmly locked into an executive they have no control of…

Mick Fealty on December 14, 2011, 12:09 pm

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I see Mike Smithson’s taking advantage of the Tories’ two per cent poll lead over Labour to call into question the future of Ed Milliband. However, that question has always been there. He’s simply not rated as a political operator, even by own his party’s footsoldiers at Westminster. If anything the mystery has been his substantive lead over the government. Even now, it’s not that he’s dropped points, more that Cameron’s disaffected Eurosceptics are coming back to after his ‘veto’ …

Euro crisis: “Anyone who claims to know what is about to happen to Europe is a fool.”

Pete Baker on December 14, 2011, 11:56 am

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In the Guardian, Simon Jenkins identifies a key point missing from most analysis of the aftermath of the EU crisis summit. From the Guardian article Anyone who claims to know what is about to happen to Europe is a fool. An unprecedented collapse in world credit has hit against years of reckless state borrowing to produce economic meltdown. Where there is economic meltdown, there is always a danger of political meltdown. While all other sciences have advanced over the ages, …

Screw EU!

Brian Spencer on December 13, 2011, 5:32 pm

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Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/

Is Britain’s ‘Gentleman’ Prime Minister now set up for a fall by Euro ‘Players’?

Mick Fealty on December 11, 2011, 3:43 pm

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Will Hutton tricks out a nasty diplomatic undertow to his walkout. If things go belly up with the Euro, not only will the UK suffer economically, it may get the blame for it not working: Worse, we have made it significantly harder for the 17 members of the eurozone rapidly to put in place the cluster of policies needed to save the euro. Chancellor Merkel said the compromise was workable – to widespread German scepticism; the European Central Bank warmly …

Scotland Referendum – Cameron starts his play…

Dewi on November 11, 2011, 5:24 am

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I’ve been expecting something for a while but perhaps not exactly this (from the Indie): David Cameron is considering a UK-led referendum on Scottish independence to prevent the Scottish Nationalists from setting the terms, question and timing to suit themselves, British government ministers admitted yesterday. That might be a bit of a red herring but this ain’t: There have also been suggestions from the Nationalists that Scots would be able to choose more than one option in the referendum – …

Cameron’s decision on Finucane case insults family, betrays us all

Patrick Corrigan on October 11, 2011, 5:58 pm

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When a lawyer is murdered in any country, it should be a matter of great public concern, seen rightly as an attack on the entire legal system. When there is clear evidence pointing towards the collusion of a range of agents of the State in that murder, then the mood should become one of national outrage. When the killing, alleged collusion and cover-up is happening not in Latin America or Russia, but within the UK, then one might expect that …

Those English riots and the ideological conclusions that followed…

Mick Fealty on August 19, 2011, 12:15 pm

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Hands up, I’ve no idea what caused the English riots of a few weeks ago. Partly because I was in North Wales, intentionally as far from t’Internet as I could bearably go. But also, there was nothing evidently causal you could point to, as you could in the early eighties, when union versus government ideology was to the fore. I hesitate to make the comparison, or to give any false impression that I know more than I do about any …

Cameron: “politics here will need to move beyond the peace process…”

Pete Baker on June 9, 2011, 4:12 pm

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After yesterday’s Joint Ministerial Committee meeting in Downing Street, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, was in Northern Ireland today. The Belfast Telegraph has an article on NI by the Conservative Party leader. And his address to the NI Assembly is here. Some sections worth highlighting – for the benefit of certain members of the Northern Ireland Executive… Whether you serve here as a Minister, a member of a committee or as a backbench member, all of you carry the responsibility …

Nick Clegg: little to show for selling a political soul

Turgon on May 7, 2011, 12:35 am

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Below I looked at the AV referendum. Although that was the single largest mass slaughtering by the public of a Liberal Democrat Sacred Cow, the electorate seemed determined to cause the Liberal Democrats as much electoral pain as possible. They lost seats in English local elections; were practically annihilated as the governing party in any northern English towns; were humiliated in Scotland and pushed into fourth in Wales (clearly Lembit Opik got thrown out at the right time). This was …

Of Royal Weddings and Social Mobility

Turgon on May 2, 2011, 11:30 pm

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The excitement of the Royal wedding did not last even as long as the long Bank Holiday, displaced as it has been by Mr. Bin Laden’s death. There was little in the way of politics to the wedding: omitting Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from the guest list hardly counted as a constitutional crisis. As social commentary some suggested that the fact that Catherine Middleton is from a non aristocratic background somehow marked a welcome departure for the Royal Family. …