Practical Packing for a Wonderful Journey
The latest leader of the Conservative party kicks off the 2009 election campaign in today's Observer. "That he wants to talk in depth and at length to us," burbles guardian of democracy Andrew Rawnsley, "is a significant signal of the intent to reach out beyond the Conservative Party's core." It may be more a signal of the way in which, as the boy-wonder himself later observes, "the parties have come closer together"; like the Observer and like Blair himself, Cameron has been "dazzled" by Blair.
He has repudiated his repudiation of Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society"; poor Maggie's words were "taken out of context". Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" was taken out of context, too, but it seems a fair summing up of the royal attitude in the fifteen years before 1789. What Thatcher was trying to say, according to Andrew Rawnsley, was that "families and individuals were much more important." Society is not nonexistent; it is merely insignificant compared with the material interests of the Murdochs, the Bushes, and the Cecil Parkinsons of the world. Cameron is "not rejecting" this concept of society; he is "seeking to rehabilitate it". The reason for this, apparently, is that he is a pragmatist: "I'm not a deeply ideological person - I'm a practical person, and pragmatic. I know where I want to get to, but I'm not ideologically attached to one particular method." He wants to get into 10 Downing Street, but doesn't much care how. Perhaps we are to take this as yet another significant difference from Blair.
David Cameron believes in "rolling back the state" and in letting voluntary bodies take care of "drug abuse, family breakdown, chaotic home environment, crime, poor public space" - all those poor people's problems with which the state should not seek to dirty its hands. Then again, the process of rolling back "must never leave the poor, the vulnerable and weak behind, and that's where the state clearly has a role", presumably in forcing people to dirty their own hands for free. David Cameron would like to see a "much greater role for social enterprises, private businesses, other organisations, to run training programmes". Rawnsley compares this to the left-liberal fantasy government frequently mentioned by the likes of Polly Toynbee and apparently to be run by Gordon Brown at some sweet time in the hereafter. The role of the state, as opposed to charity work, will be a "potentially big and defining dividing line". Democracy is not yet dead.
As the author of the 2005 "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" Conservative manifesto, David Cameron is of course "passionately committed to giving people who are being tortured and persecuted asylum". In a near-orgasmic access of Blairite fervour, he defines asylum as follows: "not just letting them in, but taking them to our hearts, and feeding and clothing and schooling them". This is because "there are clear benefits in a modern economy from having both emigration and immigration". He has always believed this, apparently; defending his literary legacy, he said there was a "very deep perception problem" over Conservative handling of the issue. Translated, this means that the public were too stupid to perceive the underlying, feeding, clothing, taking-to-heart-and-schooling message behind the Michael Howard rhetoric. Doubtless he has learned from the experience.
Iraq, it appears, is another of those issues on which the parties are closer together: "we're now, I think, pretty much all in the same place, which is to hand power over to the elected Iraqi government, Iraqi police force, Iraqi army, and bring the British troops back home", draw a line under the whole nasty business and let Halliburton and the permanent American bases do their bit for freedom.
Asked which Conservative prime ministers he most admires, Cameron goes for "the obvious, easy answers: Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher". Apparently neither was an ideologue, both were deeply compassionate, both were thoroughly practical and pragmatic. Or the admirable thing about them might just be the fact that both of them got into power and stayed there. Asked which non-Conservative prime minister he most admires, Cameron has to cogitate a little, perhaps because he is too dazzled by Blair to remember any others. "I don't know - Palmerston?" Rawnsley says that Palmerston was a "mid-Victorian neo-con", whereupon Cameron dredges up another Liberal, William Gladstone, who liked chopping down trees and giving helpful advice to prostitutes and who also, incidentally, spent an inordinate number of years in power.
On education, David Cameron says that "a return to the 11-plus" is "not on the agenda at all". David Cameron represents small towns with only one or two schools, and the last thing he wants is for one to be a selective school and the other one not to be. That appears to settle the matter. David Cameron will also be ready to tell business "quite determinedly" where it must do more to protect the environment. Legislation is not mentioned. No doubt he plans to rely on goodwill. David Cameron did not, he says, "go into politics to be the mouthpiece for big business"; but "All our policies are under review" and he is, after all, a pragmatist.
He has repudiated his repudiation of Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society"; poor Maggie's words were "taken out of context". Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" was taken out of context, too, but it seems a fair summing up of the royal attitude in the fifteen years before 1789. What Thatcher was trying to say, according to Andrew Rawnsley, was that "families and individuals were much more important." Society is not nonexistent; it is merely insignificant compared with the material interests of the Murdochs, the Bushes, and the Cecil Parkinsons of the world. Cameron is "not rejecting" this concept of society; he is "seeking to rehabilitate it". The reason for this, apparently, is that he is a pragmatist: "I'm not a deeply ideological person - I'm a practical person, and pragmatic. I know where I want to get to, but I'm not ideologically attached to one particular method." He wants to get into 10 Downing Street, but doesn't much care how. Perhaps we are to take this as yet another significant difference from Blair.
David Cameron believes in "rolling back the state" and in letting voluntary bodies take care of "drug abuse, family breakdown, chaotic home environment, crime, poor public space" - all those poor people's problems with which the state should not seek to dirty its hands. Then again, the process of rolling back "must never leave the poor, the vulnerable and weak behind, and that's where the state clearly has a role", presumably in forcing people to dirty their own hands for free. David Cameron would like to see a "much greater role for social enterprises, private businesses, other organisations, to run training programmes". Rawnsley compares this to the left-liberal fantasy government frequently mentioned by the likes of Polly Toynbee and apparently to be run by Gordon Brown at some sweet time in the hereafter. The role of the state, as opposed to charity work, will be a "potentially big and defining dividing line". Democracy is not yet dead.
As the author of the 2005 "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" Conservative manifesto, David Cameron is of course "passionately committed to giving people who are being tortured and persecuted asylum". In a near-orgasmic access of Blairite fervour, he defines asylum as follows: "not just letting them in, but taking them to our hearts, and feeding and clothing and schooling them". This is because "there are clear benefits in a modern economy from having both emigration and immigration". He has always believed this, apparently; defending his literary legacy, he said there was a "very deep perception problem" over Conservative handling of the issue. Translated, this means that the public were too stupid to perceive the underlying, feeding, clothing, taking-to-heart-and-schooling message behind the Michael Howard rhetoric. Doubtless he has learned from the experience.
Iraq, it appears, is another of those issues on which the parties are closer together: "we're now, I think, pretty much all in the same place, which is to hand power over to the elected Iraqi government, Iraqi police force, Iraqi army, and bring the British troops back home", draw a line under the whole nasty business and let Halliburton and the permanent American bases do their bit for freedom.
Asked which Conservative prime ministers he most admires, Cameron goes for "the obvious, easy answers: Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher". Apparently neither was an ideologue, both were deeply compassionate, both were thoroughly practical and pragmatic. Or the admirable thing about them might just be the fact that both of them got into power and stayed there. Asked which non-Conservative prime minister he most admires, Cameron has to cogitate a little, perhaps because he is too dazzled by Blair to remember any others. "I don't know - Palmerston?" Rawnsley says that Palmerston was a "mid-Victorian neo-con", whereupon Cameron dredges up another Liberal, William Gladstone, who liked chopping down trees and giving helpful advice to prostitutes and who also, incidentally, spent an inordinate number of years in power.
On education, David Cameron says that "a return to the 11-plus" is "not on the agenda at all". David Cameron represents small towns with only one or two schools, and the last thing he wants is for one to be a selective school and the other one not to be. That appears to settle the matter. David Cameron will also be ready to tell business "quite determinedly" where it must do more to protect the environment. Legislation is not mentioned. No doubt he plans to rely on goodwill. David Cameron did not, he says, "go into politics to be the mouthpiece for big business"; but "All our policies are under review" and he is, after all, a pragmatist.
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