Um, some formatting may need to be done to this post… Is this a final draft before the links and italics are added?

Preach

1) However Cameron’s point was about it not working either. You’re quite right that he’s simplistic, but it’s not like Labour have a track record of governing well either.

2) I thought this too was a rather vapid part of his speech, soundbite territory perhaps.

3) Cameron has said no more about cutting benefits than Labour intends to one way or another, and parts of Cameron’s main team even advocate pushing up wages to counteract this issue (a third choice you don’t list). I’ll say it again, the audacity of ANY Labour supporter trying to claim Labour are there for the poor after the last 5 years, and after Brown’s budgets of persecution on the poor, is astounding.

4) Both reds and blues have been awful on this issue, I think Chris Dillow’s article and comments have been explaining it better than I could here, so I won’t bother.

5) Whoopdy-fucking-do. I slowed the rate of growth of mold in my bathroom…it’s still a big problem I need to get sorted. Excuse us for, yet again (it happens so often), not applauding Labour on not failing quite so hard as the last team.

6) So your point is that they will, in terms of dependencies, do no worse than Labour. Again…what point are you actually trying to make here? Don’t vote for the Tories because if you want that brand of shit shower then we’re already in office?

Seriously, you need to get your message in order, it’s not very invigorating for the electorate as it stands. If there’s one resounding hypocrisy showing through it’s in your condemnation of this speech (which was hollow, I agree) from the position of claiming Labour are the ones to vote for.

Rowenna Davis: “1) Life is more complicated than “Small Government Good, Big Government Bad.” The world has moved on from such dogmatic ideology. As Obama said, it’s not the size of the state that matters – it’s what works. If you’ve ever met anyone who’s just come out of prison, been long term unemployed or a young single mum you’ll know that simply withdrawing state support doesn’t work.”

I won’t try to defend Cameron but I’ll stand up for small government. To me, small government means that the authorities only intervene in private affairs according to liberal conventions (J S Mill, and all that). Small government can mean the taxes to which we are accustomed in the UK, if that money is required. (If you buy into the argument that small government = no/low taxes, you are pandering to the bloggertarians.)

The people who need active help from the government amount to, a guesstimate, 25% of the population. For those who receive active help, a consequence is that a government official will be examining their lifestyle and calculating their household budget. Not nice, and apart from those proposing a national minimum income, it appears to be conventional wisdom.

Small government means getting out of the wage packets of those on modest incomes — the people who pay taxes and receive rebates. It also means not doing stuff that most us despise, such as National ID Cards.

Was listening to the speech earlier, surprised at how angry it was making me, especially after Osborne’s earlier incredible rage-inducing assertion “we’re all in this together” (spontaneous reaction – no George, you, your boss, and a lot of your smug banking friends who largely caused this mess aren’t “in” anything, you’ve got savings coming out of your arses, you oily…) the repetition of which on the news left me spluttering in inarticulate and impotent fury at the radio while I made the kids’ dinner. Didn’t think “Call Me” would even come close to that, but dearie me…

Using personal tragedy to elicit sympathy and try to convince the rest of us he’s going to be all kind and fluffy to the NHS was pretty damned despicable. Yes, he’s suffered something absolutely terrible, and as a parent who has run to A&E carrying their child (meningitis – fortunately only brief & mild), my heart goes out to him & his wife – but you don’t stick it in a speech to make political capital. Sickening.

And I do find being patronised by this exceptionally privileged individual utterly nauseating – I certainly wouldn’t want to be in *his* model ‘community’ – and for those of who can recall, it didn’t seem too far from John Major’s ‘village green England’ idyll…?

Mr. Cameron did a very good job of presenting pleasing-yet-vacuous images of a paternalistic Tory utopia, something along the lines of “If you build it for us, then we might let you have a pay rise in a few years” sort of affair, all under the benevolent gaze of ‘Dave’, the man who knows how to run everything so much better than we could. (sorry, but the more I see of him the more he exudes this carefully-subdued air of superiority. That’s one of the differences between him and Osborne – George can’t keep it bubbling under the way DC can, and anyway, his is acquired, whereas Dave’s just comes naturally)

Arrgrghhhh.

Please, give us Scottish Independence NOW!!!

Thanks to ‘Big Government’ we can still withdraw cash from the cash machines – now of all times seems like a strange time to resurrect Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher and go on about the need to shrink the state.

Quite apart from the sheer weirdness of ‘the main problem with Britain is how big the state is…and isn’t the NHS great’, this shows up in the bit about poverty.

I don’t think it is Orwellian to talk about marginal tax rates, but the Tories appear to have two plans about what to do about this – the official policy of moving people onto lower benefits and forcing them to work for their benefits and the IDS plan of the government spending billions topping up the wages of low paid workers. These are both ‘big government’ solutions (in both cases the government handing out billions in corporate welfare to private companies).

It is also a bit of a hostage to fortune, because if the Tories win the election and implement their policies, then poverty will rise significantly.

It was a bizarre speech.

Cameron blamed Labour ‘big government’ on creating the recession and in “breaking Britain”. Seriously.

1. Does this explain the US recession too? The Icelandic one? The French one? The German one? It’s all about evil Brown increasing spending on the NHS.

2. No role for the banks and under-regulation in any of this?

3. Was Britain working well in 1997, no social problems at all? Is he saying it only broke post-2001 when Labour increased spending on schools and hospitals. Why do all the stats seem to suggest that, while there are still problems, Labour has began to fix a lot? Does Brown make them up from his bunker and force the ONS to plain lie?

4. No role for mass unemployment and mass worklessness created as a matter of government policy pre-1997? No role for poverty? No role for inequality?

What a complete idiot. It does not fill you with hope for the future administration when they seem to believe crap like this.

“Why do all the stats seem to suggest that, while there are still problems, Labour has began to fix a lot?”

Stats are misleading on all counts, Labour changed how they were measured, Tories changed it too…let’s face it, what you’ve just said about what the Tories have said can be said about what Labour will say in a decade also. This is bog standard predictable politics.

I agree it’s absolutely ridiculous but ALL parties do this sort of thing, it’s kind of in their benefit to do so.

@6 “Please, give us Scottish Independence NOW!!!”

No, Andy, give it a couple of years, 18 months or so into the political & economic disaster of the Cameron administration. It’ll taste all the sweeter.

The BBC are still running it as their main story with a huge picture, even Sky droped it hours ago.

As far as John Pienaar goes is he a closet Tory or what.

I think all this moaning from the right has finally swayed the BBC into being bias.

Agreed about Pienaar

Is John Pienaar trying a similar career move to Richard Dannat?

Does this explain the US recession too?

I believe that the US recession was caused a) by that arch-communist Alan Greenspan and his statist ways and b) by those socialistic financial regulators schemes to allow Wall Street the freedom to frag itself.

I suppose we Brits should consider ourselves lucky that our right wingers have decided to blame this catatrophic failure of capitalism on, er, socialism. In America, they just laid everything at the door of the minorities and “the left”, which has been more or less their entire electoral strategy for the last forty years.

on the BBC – they have, to an extent, to butter up the Tories now in order to secure access; and Robinson and Pienaar definitely have Tory sympathies anyway. Also there’s the ‘England manager’ effect – nothing makes easier copy than an England football manager who’s doing bdly, and nothing makes easier copy than a ‘struggling’ PM vs someone who’s full of energy.

A note that’s not on policies (since there were pretty much none, as usual) but on delivery – he was awful yesterday. Had to look down at his script almost 4 times a minute, in the middle of sentences, and even during the supposedly heartfelt tribute to his wife. if you don’t know your lines then use an autocue.

the air of superiority definitely broke through in that moment, as well. Personally I still think they have a lot to do – they clearly think a landslide’s in the bag but I’m not so sure, and in any case the majority won’t be big at all, which means that Europe is going to divide them, again.

For a much better break down of the failings of this speech, I recommend http://j.mp/4vuqkT

To me, small government means that the authorities only intervene in private affairs according to liberal conventions

The Tories intrevene socially, while Labour govt intervene economically. I know I prefer the latter (though, admittedly it’s still too much)

@6 – please give us English independence!

There’s a really obvious alternative to the two proposed at (3), which is to cut income tax and/or raise the personal allowance. It’s Lib Dem policy, of course, to raise the personal allowance to £10,000.

Maybe I am on a different planet! I have been a lifetime liberal (and after that liberal democrat) voter. From the age of 21 to my present 62 I have ticked the liberal box. This is the very first time I have been tempted to vote conservative and because I am so desperate to remove this Labour government probably will.

@19 Oh, Barry, don’t!

There’s just a total disconnect between the edifice Cameron claims he aspires to build and the absolutely bog standard Thatcherite policy tools he intends to use. There is absolutely no chance of him delivering on any of his promises on poverty, social mobility or the environment. His economic policy is going to be a disaster and we could be looking a 5 million unemployed under his regime.

Barry:

From one ex-Labour voter (stopped voting for them after 1999) to another – welcome to the Non Tribal world of voting for Anyone But Labour.

Note to Strategist ;

We ALREADY HAVE 5 million unemployed under this Labour Government.

Duh!

Just because Labour hide the figures in ‘sickness benefit’ doesn’t mean they are miraculously “in work”; now does it!

Silent hunter

One correction — I have never been a Labour voter always a Liberal.

To others — Surely how can anyone of liberal persuasion back the present government. It has shaken the foundations of any liberal support. The choice is to continue voting Liberal Democrat or switch to Tory. If I vote LD (and I am in a LD seat whose MP is standing down) will the effect be to have another 5 years of Gordon? I am not prepared to even entertain that outcome!

If you’re in a LD seat then carry on voting LD. You, as an LD supporter, should know that switching your vote in such a seat is not going to do anything to aid the fight against labour.

If you’re serious then you should be out there going to the marginals where LD and Labour are close and get them to vote LD, or even if Labour and Tories are close to get them to vote Tories if that is your inclination.

Simply voting Tories for the wish of no Labour in a FPTP system is a little ill judged.

cjcjc @17 – gladly! ‘Cameron’s England’ is welcome to swan off into its own bitter north/south divide at the earliest possible juncture :-))

Labour slowed down that growth in inequality massively compared to Thatcher

The statistics I have seen showed the “growth in inequality ” grinding to a halt in 1990. About the time John Major became PM, as it happens.

London Zone One independence would be best for me…!

I didn’t vote in the 2005 general election but at the beginning of 1980, I would have voted Conservative if only to improve the chances of getting rid of New Labour governments.

Whatever else now, I shall not be voting Conservative at the next election.

The whole Conservative conference was too stage-managed and contrived for my political tastes.

FWIW I rate Cameron as much a charlaton as Blair. I simply can’t believe that the Conference truly reflected the true values of the Conservative constituency.

Cameron’s speech was the one I expected.
He knows as the great John Cole once said “Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them).
As for CjCjC
I suggest you move to Jersey or The isle of Man, wonderful nirvanas for Thatcherite golf club types. You will love it

A quickie: Is there a tactical voting movement for the next general election?

@Barry Andrew: Just carry on voting LibDem if you trust the candidate. It may put a decent person in parliament. If we have a hung parliament in 2009, it is inconceivable that Labour would nominate Gordon Brown for PM.

And every alternative is useless.