The Cameron government

Crisis? What crisis?

The West’s most radical government is in trouble. It needs to rediscover its boldness and honesty

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Readers' comments



Honesty is important to a government!

patrick veale in reply to aAfAZ2ZPCr

Machiavelli said the it is impossible for the prince the be virtuous and pursue to good of all since he must cater to the powerful or else he will lose his head. So the great Machiavelli advised that the prince must APPEAR to be virtuous. Cameron's austerity has brought about a double dip recession which I am sure does not please the mighty, and is seen by the public at large as the King in his all-together.


The purpose of Cameron was to oust Brown which had become an emergency requirement. That achieved, anything else is a bonus. One bonus already in the making is the implosion of the Lib Dems as a political force


"There are all sorts of areas where this newspaper disagrees with the government—its petulant attitude to Europe, its banker-bashing, its failure to prize immigrants."

In other words you look at what ordinary people think and take the opposite stance. No better definition of a bien-pensant elitist. If you think you are on the correct side of the argument in the above matters then you add folly to snobbery.

Austrian Smith

The real problem is Cameron has no vision and little if any conviction. People know the situation is bad and need leadership.

No one from any side of political spectrum appears able to be honest and strong enough for the challenge ahead. The professional political class seeks compromise and has little conviction. The result is lack of direction, to the detriment of the nation.


"Margaret Thatcher’s government once trailed Labour by 24 percentage points" because she put the country through unnecessarily harsh austerity of her 'good housekeeping' programme in which she brought UK unions to heel by destroying its industry. The medicine didn't have to be so harsh. Was British industry so useless that the only option was euthanasia? She overcome a domestic disaster by winning the Falklands war.

Cameron is going down a similar path of harsh austerity, this time largely to slash the size of the public sector, but has no foreign war to act as a distraction. I'm beginning to think he is encouraging Kirchner to mouth off.


Depreciation based economies have this kind of end. When some one try to destroy other it affects there self also. We are worried about the .4 million pensioner who served there nation if west is doing this kind of crime with them what they did with other regions.

mark anthony

Cameron made a decision that he could afford to ignore his Party's members by supporting Lib Dem policies and ignore traditional Conservative values. His theory was that by doing so he would attract more support from the middle ground . The problem is that his traditional supporters are the ones that do the hard work and they see little reason to continue to do so when he cavalierly ignores their beliefs.

qos in reply to mark anthony

He didnt make a decision , he failed in the election and was forced by the electorate.
The problem with his traditional hard working party supporters is their views are not supported by most right leaning voters, apart from those of UKIP and BNP.The Lib Dems dont help much but lurching right isnt going to either.


In my view Cameron needs to do three things to bring the British voters behind him.

1) Give the British voters the often-promised referendum on EU membership.
2) Call an election, and get ride of Clegg, and the Lib Dems.
3) Do what his Party promised to do, and that is listening to the British voters on things like the reduction of fuel taxes to create real growth for both business, and the general public.

Time and time again Cameron adopts an “I know best policy” when he should be taking account of British opinion on issues like immigration, welfare payments to immigrants, and deporting those that preach against the British way of life. I suggest that the British public are not interested in Lords reform, and Lib Dem policies, but they do care about the NHS, and the founding principles of this, along with paying out billions of pounds to prop up the failing euro. Cameron needs to remember the basis of democracy – follow the will of the majority.

timothytitus in reply to Norm.73

What? Cameron is no more going to call an election than fly to the moon!! His party is trailing Labour by at least 10 percentage points, for goodness sake!! Brown wouldn't even call an election when the polls put him ahead. Cameron knows full well that the only possible outcome of calling an election would be a Labour government with a huge majority.

Norm.73 in reply to timothytitus

Yes, you are right, the chances of Cameron calling an election against a background of a 10% deficit in the polls are very unlikely, but he may not have a choice. Despite his / Clegg’s recent visit to the old Ford tractor plant in Basildon to try and persuade the voters that the coalition is working, when it is pretty obvious that in fact it is not working, and if you add to this the growing number of Conservatives that who are leaning towards the UKIP way of thinking, or defecting to UKIP, then Cameron could well be forced to call an election. Despite the biased BBC reports, and those of some of the tabloids UKIP are not a one policy Party. Their manifesto is one of the most in depth manifestos of any of the mainstream Parties, seriously addressing immigration, welfare reform, the NHS, education, crime and policing, along with many issues important to voters, and most importantly a plan for growth.

The recent local elections gave UKIP 14% of the votes, with seats gained in many parts of the country. Make no mistake about it Cameron is very concerned about the growing strength of UKIP, and the leaning of many Conservatives in this direction, and rightly so, because all across Europe the mainstream Parties are loosing out to nationalistic Parties. If Cameron has any sense (a bit doubtful, because he is out of touch with the UK voters) he should call a general election, and steel much of the UKIP manifesto. If he did this he could win an election, because lets face it every time Labour have been in power they have bankrupted the country, and despite a 10% lead the people remember the way Blair took our country into debt to pay for his ego trip, and the illegal Iraq war just to make Blair look good on the world stage.


Your point that Thatcher's mid-election blues were possibly deeper is as laughably comparable as Osborne's comparison of the economic situation then and now.
Thatcher enjoyed turnouts of roughly 74% in general elections. A mid-term variation of 24% is roughly proportional to the current 10 point deficit; if we take current turnout to be sub 60%. Bear in mind low turnout across Britain at referendums and local elections. This swing is advantageous for Labour but if we step aside from top-three punditry there is growth in the independent candidacy.
Thatcher managed to salvage her party's image for Major to whittle down. Cameron has ensured that this will be the government to change the face of politics at the loss of the political class.

Fred Breughel

The UK - partially thanks to it's "stable and profitable" banking sector and miniscule private household savings, among the lowest in Europe over the last decade - has managed to pile up the largest debt in the world amounting 507% of GDP.

To make it worse, this government has run unsustainable deficits year over year in the range 8- 10% of GDP, destroying a relatively clean public debt record to an outright warning from rating agencies.

A decent economy has been ruined in twenty years. I think it's a little late for "new policies". There will only be consequences from now on. More printing, probably, until the music stops.

James Yarwood in reply to Fred Breughel

An outright warning?

13/04/12 Standard & Poor's reaffirms UK's AAA credit rating

Private household savings are only a part of household assets and investment in houses is far more common in the UK than on the continent.
Your 507% number includes asset backed secured debt owned by the banks, and backed by liquid assets, which is incomparable to unsecured debt.

Please stop cherry picking random numbers - it contributes nothing and is rather unscientific (and frankly a little desperate).

Sense Seeker in reply to James Yarwood


Seems to me that investments in housing aren't going to be much use. If ever the UK economy tanks, you'll all want to sell your houses at the same time. (Fortunately, this never happens. Really.)

If that is an 'outright warning' then god help France which has already been downgraded, and Italy & Spain, which are between 9 and 12 notches lower than the UK.
The point is that implying doom based solely negative watch is wildly inconsistent, when viewed in context with the rest of Europe. Such facile scaremongering is clearly based on an agenda.

Fred Breughel in reply to James Yarwood

The point is that you like to harash others bloggers, many times containing abusive language like "fool" to name one. It is clear you don't listen and learn.

One delirium is your childish idea of "secured debt". Ask Jamie Dimon who - only a couple of hours ago - had to apologize for a 2 billion trading loss.

James Yarwood in reply to Fred Breughel

'harash[sp] others[sp] bloggers.... abusive language...fool...delirium ...your childish idea'

How deliciously ironic.

'Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers.'

FYI, a trading loss impacts upon secured assets in no way whatsoever.
I could explain why, and explain the difference between trading books holding short term risk, and banking books holding assets, but I cannot see how it would be helpful.

Fred Breughel in reply to James Yarwood

It wouldn't, so don't hurt yourself kid:

"The $2 billion loss occurred in London under multiple traders, according to an executive at the bank, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Dimon wasn’t immediately told about their shift in strategy and didn’t know the magnitude of the losses until after the company reported earnings April 13, the executive said."
"The cost of insuring debt of JPMorgan from default rose. Credit-default swaps insuring JPMorgan’s debt climbed 17 basis points to 124, the highest since Feb. 16, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

James Yarwood in reply to Fred Breughel

kid? You're doing yourself no favours, and you should have retired with some dignity.

Either way I do not know what your point is supposed to be. You are bringing up JPM's CDS spread to argue what? How does this impugn the quality of assets held by UK banks in any way? I think you are a little confused.


It's far from clear that we have a "double dip recession". The preliminary ONS figures were at odds with other surveys, and the mean revision between initial and final estimates is 0.4%.


I'm not completely comfortable with the division between the deserving and undeserving poor that "limitless payments to the work-shy" implies. I think the issue of unemployment, and the support that those unable to secure a job are entitled to and deserving of, should not be presented in such a simplistic way.

Will Hayes

So, you are no longer blaming the British recession on 'austerity' in the year of a record budget? Please remember that the next time you sacrifice your former tendency towards economic analysis on the altar of massive government othodoxy.


Boris really is an example of how far honesty appeals to voters. Cameron must be less scared of telling the public how it is



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