Wintonsweek Cameron “U-Turn” Placates The Critics For Now Two Years Of Dead End Politics Changed With No Apology Half-Competent Opposition Would Be Streets Ahead Of Failed Labour “Cameron has more in common with United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the show-pony of football who flatters to deceive but rarely delivers” The media would have us believe David Cameron’s speech to the Tory Party conference without a script was a tour de force, a magnificent achievement. I beg to differ. Only an arrogant fool would gamble the future of a political party with an ego-driven wing-and-a- prayer address, when it should have been a set-piece speech summing up Conservative philosophy and policies. And the fact that I fell asleep about 30 minutes from the end, weighed down by the platitudes and clichés, sums up the power of the content for me. (I did view the gaps on BBCTV’s Parliamentary channel later). His judges in the media were more impressed with the circus trick of managing to talk for more than hour without stumbling all that much, rather than the humdrum content, which was in fact just repeating what some of his smarter colleagues like William Hague and Michael Gove had said. Maybe Cameron has more in common with Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the show-pony of football, who flatters to deceive but rarely delivers. Speaking from the heart? No; this was just a grandstanding attempt to make sure the content wasn’t examined too closely. Screeching hand-brake turn And risking his career was one thing. Jeopardising a whole political party and all its members was quite another. Cameron is just too much. After trashing basic Conservative values for almost two years, he and his silly little oppo George Osborne did a screeching hand-brake turn out of the cul-de-sac they were heading down, when the penny finally dropped that tax cuts and traditional values might actually win him the election, or at least stave off oblivion. The arrogance is quite breathtaking. Cameron shrugs his shoulders and without even a hint of an apology, faces in the opposite direction. If the Conservative party had been led by a solid operative like David Davis, it’s hard to believe that a disgraced and incompetent neo-Labour party would still be ahead in the polls. After Labour destroyed our once fantastic pension system, and then presided over crumbling education, health, and transport, the Conservative Party shouldn’t be a few points behind in the opinion polls. The country is almost ready to burn down Parliament and Downing Street for all the damage done to the British way of life by Labour’s arrogant dimwits. And yet the Conservatives are struggling to make an impact. The idea that Fuehrer Brown is expected by some to win an imminent election by a landslide, reflects just how badly the Conservatives have been led by Cameron. Yank Theresa May Cameron’s inexperience gave us the wrong analysis of why his party had lost 3 elections in a row, and allowed the egregious halfwit Theresa May to utter her silly, hostage-to-fortune words about the “Nasty Party”. Her front bench career should have been yanked there and then. Cameron’s diagnosis that the Conservative “brand” had been irreversibly tainted, and everything must change, was just plain dopey. The country opted for Labour when it convinced itself the old lefties had been purged. The Tories will be returned when the economy turns down, or when the public can’t tolerate the stench of Labour corruption and incompetence any more. Sure, some aspects of Toryism had to be improved, but the basic tenets of small government and low taxes remain as powerful as ever. Cameron’s rhetoric which simply says “modern” or “change” is good, old ways are bad, without having an intelligent reason or analysis is simply sophomoric. He held back at Blackpool on some of the sillier environmental policies he’s been given by the foolish, half-educated poor little rich boy Zac Goldsmith. But believe me, he was just hiding this real intentions. Cameron really does believe that we are killing the climate, and if he ever gets into power he will curb the car (excluding his limo of course) and make good on plans to stop domestic and holiday flights. Brown’s Northern Rock culpability And the media’s attitude to Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a puzzle. Newspapers and TV slavishly reported Labour party claims that Gordon Brown was some kind of hero for doing nothing but utter some empty words after the Islamic bombing of Glasgow airport. The media allowed Brown to evade responsibility for the Foot and Mouth crisis, which showed nothing had been learned from the debacle of 2001. And the disease was generated by a government laboratory for God’s sake! Then the media failed to nail Brown’s culpability for the Northern Rock financial meltdown, which revealed his Bank of England regulatory changes to have been a dangerous sham. The likes of Ed Balls (isn’t it great to know that because he didn’t have the guts to change his name earlier, his political career will never rise above the mediocre. Nobody is going to tolerate a Foreign Secretary or Chancellor called “Balls”) are allowed to mouth garbage about how Brown’s handling of all this was the act of a political giant. Luckily, Balls’ Tony Benn/George Monbiot revolving mad eyes mean that everything he says is greeted with shrugs of contempt from most of the populace. Will he? Won’t He? No Will Brown call an election? I’ve been arguing up until now that this was very unlikely. Why jeopardise a guaranteed, comfortable 3 year stretch of the limo and all its trappings for the possibility of 5 years with a reduced majority or worse? There is one scenario that makes me wonder that Brown might grit his teeth and go. If the economy really does dive into the tank next year, that might upset Brown’s apple cart. But even if it did, the economy might well recover strongly for an election in May 2010. Also, Brown has unleashed such a wave of election hysteria, if he finally says “Stop, I want to get off”, the media is likely to turn on him in a big way. This could be the time when even the Daily Mail’s weird support of the great socialist could finally run out of steam. It’s UKIP for me Some of us will have some hard decisions to make if there is an election. Clearly, only a halfwit would vote Labour or Liberal Democrat, and one’s first instinct is to cast a ballot which will ensure the boot for this awful government. But I would find it hard to vote for a party led by the charlatan Cameron, and which has prominent roles for useless handwringers like Andrew Lansley, Oliver Letwin, Francis Maude, Theresa May, Alan Duncan, Caroline Spellman and grammar school turncoats like David Willets. There is a party which has bunches of policies with which I wholeheartedly agree, so it looks as though it’s UKIP for me. Neil Winton – October 5, 2007