Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Was Cameron this country's worst Prime Minister?
I haven't had time to catch up with the Inside Europe yet, but those who have seen it tell me, and this review confirms that the programme validates everything we think about David Cameron's tenure as UK Prime Minister:
The full hour paints a vivid portrait of a leader showing no leadership but instead bending to the whims of a fully sociopathic political project. It lays bare Cameron’s only achievement, which was to lay a paper-thin layer of modernisation over his beloved Conservative Party, to make it electable again. Of course, this could not stop him from being burnt to a crisp by the red hot volcano beneath it.
It is also a gentle trot through some extremely poor politics. There is a tendency to imagine that, with hindsight, Cameron faced an impossible job, managing a party several decades into a civil war over Europe. But this documentary reminds us that many of his key decisions were abysmal even at the time.
It shows David Cameron standing up at his own party conference, making menacing promises that he will “sort out” various problems with the EU that, in fact, cannot be sorted out, and so served only to shatter his own fragile position.
He promises an in-out referendum, as well as a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. When his renegotiation is widely (though unfairly) panned at home, he has suddenly trapped himself in a position whereby he must criticise the EU at the same time as campaigning to remain in it. That, we now know, was a disaster waiting to happen.
The EU Council president Donald Tusk pops up for the hour’s most revealing moment, when he breezily informs viewers that Cameron told him there would never be a referendum, as his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, would never allow it. Cameron then confounds his own expectations and wins a majority in 2015. As Tusk says, “The real victim of David Cameron’s success is David Cameron.”
The programme also underlines the role of Theresa May in making life even more difficult in the negotiations with her insistence on limiting immigration. Her intransigence as Home Secretary also made a major contribution to the mess we are in, and which she is demonstrating as Prime Minister, her inability to sort out.
The full hour paints a vivid portrait of a leader showing no leadership but instead bending to the whims of a fully sociopathic political project. It lays bare Cameron’s only achievement, which was to lay a paper-thin layer of modernisation over his beloved Conservative Party, to make it electable again. Of course, this could not stop him from being burnt to a crisp by the red hot volcano beneath it.
It is also a gentle trot through some extremely poor politics. There is a tendency to imagine that, with hindsight, Cameron faced an impossible job, managing a party several decades into a civil war over Europe. But this documentary reminds us that many of his key decisions were abysmal even at the time.
It shows David Cameron standing up at his own party conference, making menacing promises that he will “sort out” various problems with the EU that, in fact, cannot be sorted out, and so served only to shatter his own fragile position.
He promises an in-out referendum, as well as a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. When his renegotiation is widely (though unfairly) panned at home, he has suddenly trapped himself in a position whereby he must criticise the EU at the same time as campaigning to remain in it. That, we now know, was a disaster waiting to happen.
The EU Council president Donald Tusk pops up for the hour’s most revealing moment, when he breezily informs viewers that Cameron told him there would never be a referendum, as his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, would never allow it. Cameron then confounds his own expectations and wins a majority in 2015. As Tusk says, “The real victim of David Cameron’s success is David Cameron.”
The programme also underlines the role of Theresa May in making life even more difficult in the negotiations with her insistence on limiting immigration. Her intransigence as Home Secretary also made a major contribution to the mess we are in, and which she is demonstrating as Prime Minister, her inability to sort out.
Comments:
<< Home
Beth Rigby-Sky The culture war that Brexit has unleashed cannot be undone. It will run on and on But politicians should pause and consider this: the basic role of a govnt is to look after its citizens and not impose unnecessary difficulties on them. BOTH CAMERON AND MAY ARE MORE INTERESTED IN KEEPING A SENILE PARTY TOGETHER.It has outlived its usefulness.
I'm not sure why the report says that Cameron's renegotiation was unfairly panned. He promised to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU, even though he must have known that anything involving a treaty change was off the table and the best he could expect would be a superficial rewording of the status quo. And that's exactly what he came back with.
The assumption that he could rely on the Liberal democrats to block his referendum rings true, though. If my memory is correct, the polls in the run-up to the 2015 election were pointing to to another hung Parliament and another coalition. So Cameron probably felt quite safe in making promises and relying on blaming his coalition partners when he reneges on them.
Post a Comment
The assumption that he could rely on the Liberal democrats to block his referendum rings true, though. If my memory is correct, the polls in the run-up to the 2015 election were pointing to to another hung Parliament and another coalition. So Cameron probably felt quite safe in making promises and relying on blaming his coalition partners when he reneges on them.
<< Home
