Sunday, August 24, 2008
Does Cameron know what's occurring?
Paul Walter draws our attention to the excellent article by Carole Cadwalladr in today's Observer in which she underlines how the characters in Gavin and Stacey, which David Cameron claims to admire so much, are the very anti-thesis of the perfect Tory family:
David Cameron's problem isn't with his reading of Gavin and Stacey, it's with his reading of everything else. Examine the facts. Nessa is a single mother whose baby is the accidental product of a one-night stand and who is no longer with the child's father. Stacey's mother appears to have no means of support and her uncle is an unemployed homosexual. How do they fit into Tory policies on the family?
'I'm going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer and radical social reform is what this country needs right now,' Cameron says at another point in Jones's book. 'It's dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime and the problems that we see in too many of our communities.' Or comedy dramas we purport to love.
Stacey's family does not fit in with Tory sensibilities, in any way. And yet this is the Conservatives' shortcoming, not theirs, for they are more functional than dysfunctional, non-nuclear but no less affectionate and loving for it. And that is what people respond to and what has made it one of the most loved television programmes.
Smithy (that's Smithy, as in Cameron to Jones: 'I love Smithy, he's just great.') is an absent father and has yet to discover the joys of the Atkins diet.
Ms. Cadwalladr quotes from the Dylan Jones' book, 'Cameron on Cameron' in which the Tory leader says:
'[...] "I've been to Barry [where the show is set] three times and now desperately want to go back. From now on, whenever we have any success in Wales I'm going to congratulate my Welsh MPs on a tidy result."'
She quite rightly points out that the real reason why David Cameron has visited the Vale of Glamorgan three times has nothing to do with Gavin and Stacey and everything to do with the fact that it is a marginal Labour-Tory seat.
What she fails to mention however is that the Conservatives currently have no candidate in that seat. He has been suspended for describing Italians as 'greasy wops' on a BBC Radio Cymru programme. I think the chances of David Cameron returning to Barry before that situation has been resolved are pretty slim.
David Cameron's problem isn't with his reading of Gavin and Stacey, it's with his reading of everything else. Examine the facts. Nessa is a single mother whose baby is the accidental product of a one-night stand and who is no longer with the child's father. Stacey's mother appears to have no means of support and her uncle is an unemployed homosexual. How do they fit into Tory policies on the family?
'I'm going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer and radical social reform is what this country needs right now,' Cameron says at another point in Jones's book. 'It's dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime and the problems that we see in too many of our communities.' Or comedy dramas we purport to love.
Stacey's family does not fit in with Tory sensibilities, in any way. And yet this is the Conservatives' shortcoming, not theirs, for they are more functional than dysfunctional, non-nuclear but no less affectionate and loving for it. And that is what people respond to and what has made it one of the most loved television programmes.
Smithy (that's Smithy, as in Cameron to Jones: 'I love Smithy, he's just great.') is an absent father and has yet to discover the joys of the Atkins diet.
Ms. Cadwalladr quotes from the Dylan Jones' book, 'Cameron on Cameron' in which the Tory leader says:
'[...] "I've been to Barry [where the show is set] three times and now desperately want to go back. From now on, whenever we have any success in Wales I'm going to congratulate my Welsh MPs on a tidy result."'
She quite rightly points out that the real reason why David Cameron has visited the Vale of Glamorgan three times has nothing to do with Gavin and Stacey and everything to do with the fact that it is a marginal Labour-Tory seat.
What she fails to mention however is that the Conservatives currently have no candidate in that seat. He has been suspended for describing Italians as 'greasy wops' on a BBC Radio Cymru programme. I think the chances of David Cameron returning to Barry before that situation has been resolved are pretty slim.
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Its a TV show Peter. One of the comments that followed was a classic about supporting organized crime because they liked the "Sopranos" or for that matter "The Godfather".
I like the "Simpson's" but not the lifestyle.
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I like the "Simpson's" but not the lifestyle.
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