Skip to main content

Is David Cameron losing the plot?

The funny thing about the Grammargate fiasco amongst British Conservatives is that it shows David Cameron in a consistently bad light.

He must know how resented his Old Etonian background is amongst many opinion formers- not least John Humphries- so stirring the pot on education will always leave some echo of the dreaded class war. The other thing that this is showing up is that Cameron is growing more isolated in his party- it is not just the right wing malcontents this time- even centrist MPs have been showing irritation.

Although this is obviously not the beginning of the end, it probably is the end of the beginning for Cameron. After a breezy first year or two, he must now engage in a war of attrition with quite a few of the Tory die-hards. Cameron has hitherto been a extremely lucky politician- this maladroit blunder is the end of his lucky streak.

In the end OE charm is not enough, and with the plodding policy review process now beginning to show its first fruits, I suspect that there will be sustained trench war on several fronts for the Tory leader over the next year.

Meanwhile, it is Gordon Brown who may inherit a little luck- there is some curiosity as to how or if he can make a big break from Blairism, and for a while at least the pressure could be off Labour while people size up whether a Brown premiership marks a real break or simply a continuation.

The next six months will decide the likely outcome of the next general election. After the slightly farcial Blair farewell gig, British politics might just be getting interesting again.
Labels:

Comments

chris said…
the really weird thing about this whole episode is that in saying that he was not going to build new Grammar schools all he was doing was reiterating a policy of long standing. No new ones where built, and many existing ones turned into comprehensives, by Thatcher and Major. The substance of his speech, which was completely ignored by the media, was actually rather good being mainly about the parents and teachers knowing best and how to help them by letting them set up their own schools without state interference. It is almost as if the media being unable to understand a policy which did not have state at the heart of it simply decided to make something up to sell papers.
6:27 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop...
Post a Comment
Read more

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have ...
Post a Comment
Read more