Did anyone see............

[Kyajae]

Channel 4's Dispatches: 'Cameron, Toff at the Top' by Peter Hitchens, Tuesday 26 March 2007?

For those of you who aren't familiar with Peter Hitchens, he's a columnist for the Daily Mail papers, so yes; he is a Tory but quite a discerning one. And his programme tonight confirmed everything I always suspected about David Cameron - just an opportunistic Blair clone who offers no real alternative to the current shower of sh*t running the country.

Hitchens was never a 'swallow the bull and regurgitate' Tory and his research for this programme was in my mind devastating. Cameron was spouting all the traditional Tory principles until he became leader and now he's changing tack. Didn't Blair do the same pre-1997 before proposing to delete Clause 4 of the Labour constitution? Whatever your politics, Hitchen's programme was tantamount to heresy has he been a Labour supporter.

Blair is on his way out after conning the electorate in 1997. Cameron looks like he's about to pull the same stunt in the next general election. Both rely on the tactic of smoke and mirrors and God help the British electorate. The alternatives? Lib Dems? Joke! The Greens? We'd all be eating lentils and paying £5k a year road tax. BNP? They have everything to gain from those who feel completely marginalised and that's the real tragedy of British politics in the 21st century.

What do you think?

[DimPrawn]

I shall vote with my feet. Suggest you do the same.

[VectraMan]

I shall vote with my feet. Suggest you do the same.

Not sure I can draw an X with a pencil held beneath my toes. Better get practicing.

[Denny]

Channel 4's Dispatches: 'Cameron, Toff at the Top' by Peter Hitchens, Tuesday 26 March 2007?

For those of you who aren't familiar with Peter Hitchens, he's a columnist for the Daily Mail papers, so yes; he is a Tory but quite a discerning one. And his programme tonight confirmed everything I always suspected about David Cameron - just an opportunistic Blair clone who offers no real alternative to the current shower of sh*t running the country.

Hitchens was never a 'swallow the bull and regurgitate' Tory and his research for this programme was in my mind devastating. Cameron was spouting all the traditional Tory principles until he became leader and now he's changing tack. Didn't Blair do the same pre-1997 before proposing to delete Clause 4 of the Labour constitution? Whatever your politics, Hitchen's programme was tantamount to heresy has he been a Labour supporter.

Blair is on his way out after conning the electorate in 1997. Cameron looks like he's about to pull the same stunt in the next general election. Both rely on the tactic of smoke and mirrors and God help the British electorate. The alternatives? Lib Dems? Joke! The Greens? We'd all be eating lentils and paying £5k a year road tax. BNP? They have everything to gain from those who feel completely marginalised and that's the real tragedy of British politics in the 21st century.

What do you think?

Depends on which way you look at it. True Cameron does come across as a shallow Toff who is hypocritical and unrepresentative of the values he appeared to hold only a few years ago. That's one angle - the personal one - based on the toffee nosed twit Cameron who spews up in restaurants in £3000 frockcoats from specialist outlets and likes to hob nob with the Chelsea and Kensington set and therefore can't possibly agree with energy saving windmills and hoody hugging social liberalism he claims he now embraces - the Hitchin angle.

However, Thatcher was never representative of traditional Tory values, that were traditionally based on pragmatism and common sense. Instead, Thatcher represented a radical departure from pragmatism and adopted a set of ideals of her own - principles inspired by Buchanan's neo-conservative
economic liberalism, that most of you grew up with, and was depicted in the politics of greed and excess and self-interest with films and soaps such as 'Wall Street' and 'Dallas.'

You could, therefore, argue that Cameron is simply revisiting old Tory schools of thought and has realised that the only way to gain power (which is the Conservative Party's main pragmatic consideration of the day, let's face it, after years of the Conservatives being out in the wilderness) is to publicly dump the neo right wing attitudes of Thatcher's yesteryear (at least publicly) and, instead, adopt the prevailing centre left attitudes of the day - a concern for the environment and a recognition for social justice, which seem to occupy the centre ground of Blairite politics too. The fact that Cameron doesn't personally believe in any of it, and probably has nothing but personal contempt for middle England's twee pot plant tendering, self righteous, Daily Mail reading lower middle classes, for whom he can't really identify, doesn't matter a jot. The politics of visionary idealism rightfully belongs to the true left not the pragmatic right. Hitchens didn't really touch on this more political angle at all, more's the pity. If he had, he might have concluded that Cameron was bang on form as a traditionalist Tory grandee of the old school for which is clearly belongs, according to his class and education, rather than a shallow pseudo social liberalist flag waver with no convictions.

However, he did touch on the wider constitutional dilemma of the day: the dwindling evidence of a genuine two party system that gives the electorate a a choice, which is a real concern to a true liberal democracy and Cameron seems not to offer a solution to this without the risk of keep the Tory party out =in the cold forever.

[malvolio]

However, he did touch on the wider constitutional dilemma of the day: the dwindling evidence of a genuine two party system that gives the electorate a a choice, which is a real concern to a true liberal democracy and Cameron seems not to offer a solution to this without the risk of keep the Tory party out =in the cold forever.

This is becoming an urban myth. Until an election is positively on the horizon, the Tories dare not release any kind of detail policy, since as soon as they do Blair and/or Brown will nick it, announce it themselves (even if they have no intention of delivering it) and so remove it from consideration: vide the "tax cut" in the last budget - Osborne says 1.5%, Brown announces 2%, just before announcing something a bit more quietly that negates the change totally.

And it's not Tory moving to Labour, it's NL taking over the Tory ground to win power and pretending to hold it while promoting the same old Socialist bollocks. Hitchens is sometimes right, but he s in danger of promulgating the wrong party back into power. He needs to go back to his history books

[Euro-commuter]

.... Cameron was spouting all the traditional Tory principles until he became leader and now he's changing tack. Didn't Blair do the same pre-1997 before proposing to delete Clause 4 of the Labour constitution?
...
What do you think?

I think that's the first time I've seen Blair attacked here for getting rid of Clause 4. Most people would regard it as an almost impossible operation, essential to bring the Labour Party up to the modern world; and admire him for having achieved it.

[The Lone Gunman]

I think that's the first time I've seen Blair attacked here for getting rid of Clause 4. Most people would regard it as an almost impossible operation, essential to bring the Labour Party up to the modern world; and admire him for having achieved it.

It is a shame Clause 4 doesn't still exist. Contractors charter. Should kill IR35 dead.

Do Tone and Gordo know how far they have fallen from the tree?

[Euro-commuter]

It is a shame Clause 4 doesn't still exist. Contractors charter. Should kill IR35 dead.

Do Tone and Gordo know how far they have fallen from the tree?

If you're suggesting that "to secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry" means not paying NICs on your income, I don't think you're really in step with Old Labour.

[The Lone Gunman]

If you're suggesting that "to secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry" means not paying NICs on your income, I don't think you're really in step with Old Labour.

How many times, the issue is not about NICs.
How does "to secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry" not square with owning your own PSC business?
I enjoy the full fruits of my industry.

Full quote for those who don't know

"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."

[Euro-commuter]

How many times, the issue is not about NICs.
How does "to secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry" not square with owning your own PSC business?
I enjoy the full fruits of my industry.

Full quote for those who don't know

The issue for the Govt is NICs, to them that is what IR35 is about.

And Clause 4 is about nationalisation, not about government getting out of the way and letting self-employed people run their own business.


Your suggestion that Clause 4 kills IR35 is most appealing, but I think it is poetic rather than political.