[guide.chat] news cameron get a grip and out of touch
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 04:45:09 +0100
The Conservative part of the Tory-led government started last week badly, when
a newspaper sting caught one of its chief fund-raisers, Peter Cruddas, offering
supper with the Camerons for cash. The attempt to brush off Mr Cruddas as a
minor and inexperienced personage who was guilty only of "bluster" was not
wholly convincing, but at least he was sacked within hours.
The story was damaging to David Cameron partly because it reinforced the
message of the Budget a few days earlier, that the Conservatives are the party
of the rich. Worse than that, the cut in the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p in
the pound on incomes over £150,000 suggested a government that was out of touch.
Indeed, several of the Budget measures helped to give this impression. The
granny tax is a squeeze on pensioners on incomes of between £8,000 and £24,000
a year. (The giveaway phrase in the Budget speech was "no pensioner will lose
in cash terms", which meant that they would lose from inflation, and that new
pensioners would get less.) Our ComRes opinion poll today finds that 64 per
cent disagree with it and only 21 per cent agree.
The imposition of VAT on hot takeaway food, the pasty tax, is even more
unpopular, opposed by 71 per cent and supported by only 17 per cent. Both of
these were puzzling decisions, given their high fuss-to-revenue ratio.
All of which adds to the view, expressed by Nadine Dorries, the disloyal
Conservative MP, before the Budget, that "policy is being run by two public
school boys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to
put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it".
So far, so damaging for the Conservative leadership. The Independent on Sunday
does not agree with tax cuts for the rich and tax rises for those on lower
incomes, and we think it a tactical mistake for the Tory party to retreat from
the centre ground, but we should not be surprised when Mr Cameron and George
Osborne reveal themselves to be (a) right wing and (b) posh.
What might have surprised some people, though, is what happened next. It
started with 10 Downing Street briefing the newspapers that the Army was on
standby in case petrol tanker drivers went on strike. As an aside, the Prime
Minister's spokespeople said that people should take sensible precautions,
which some newspapers took as advice to fill up with petrol. Enter Francis
Maude, the Cabinet Office minister. Fresh from trying to minimise Mr Cameron's
fund-raising dinners by describing them as "kitchen suppers", he gave an
interview in which he used the words "garage" and "jerry can".
It is still not clear whether this was all part of some cunning Baldrick-style
plan. Certainly some Conservative MPs seem to think it was a good idea to
encourage car drivers and petrol stations to increase stocks, so that the
unions would be in a weaker position if they did go on strike. If so, they know
little about petrol distribution. Or it may have been that elements of Tory
high command may have thought that talking up the possible strike would
distract attention from the Budget and "cash for suppers" and draw attention to
Labour's links to union vested interests. If so, their judgement is almost
comically awry.
By urging drivers to buy more petrol and then, yesterday, not to, ministers
have shown astonishing incompetence. This newspaper has said before that Mr
Cameron and Mr Osborne are not as good at politics as they think they are. Mr
Cameron's apparent likeability has carried all before it until now, but last
week the gliding swan looked as if he were waddling in a puddle. The fuel
crisis of 2000 was something of a turning point for Tony Blair: he never seemed
to be quite so sure-footed after that. Last week's government-instigated
panic-buying could do the same for his heir.
Mr Cameron's No 10 operation has been shown up as lamentable. Conservative
commentators are baffled at best; and at worst utterly scathing, as the
grandest high Tory, Charles Moore, showed in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. And,
after a week in which the leader of the opposition suffered the humiliation of
a by-election defeat by George Galloway, made worse by the fact that he did not
see it coming, only Nick Clegg has any reason for an unobtrusive smirk of
satisfaction.
That was the week, then, in which the Conservative Party went from being out of
touch to being out of control. Mr Cameron, get a grip.
from
Vanessa The Google Girl.
my skype name is rainbowstar123
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