Cameron's weird week

David Cameron tory leader has set himself an unusual and surprising task in the coming week at the tory party conference -

Conservative leader David Cameron is to tackle "head-on" claims that he is all style and no substance.
He will use his party's annual conference, which starts in Bournemouth on Sunday, to stress his commitment to developing serious policy ideas.

Cameron: This week I'm full of substance

- Unfortunately for Dave C the underlying truth remains.....

There will be no specific policy announcements at the four-day rally, a Tory spokesman confirmed.

tory spokesman: no substance here this week

Cameron is creating a party with no body, he's removing the old body (the now unliked party of the past which people remember), adding a mask and new clothes but he's not replacing the lost body, which is policy and direction.

What on Earth do the Conservatives stand for?

[edit on 1-10-2006 by Prometheus James]

How can he really make anounce policies at this moment in time when it could be 4 years or so until the next election? at this moment in time nobodies knows what state the country will be in then or how many more financial black holes will be left to sort out.

Well you can avoid the issue (and try to fire in some speculative wee anti-Labour digs) if you please solidshot, but the point of this thread is the contradiction Cameron set himself up with.

It's Cameron who is, apparantly, making a big deal of this and trying to shift the public's impression of his stunning degree of image-obsessed vacuity .....and for good reason -

Earlier, a survey by YouGov for the Daily Telegraph put Labour and the Tories level on 36% - compared with a Tory lead of 7% earlier in the month.

YouGov questioned 1,847 adults online between September 27 and 29.

The YouGov poll also found 54% of those questioned thought it was "hard to know what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment."

news.bbc.co.uk...

- Cameron is the one doing his first party conference, it is Cameron that needs to imprint some kind of authority and substance on matters and It was Cameron who, despite claiming to be all about substance this week and with the pick of domestic and world-wide issues to debate and talk about, insults the British public with grotesquely empty pathetic infantile drivel like this -

David Cameron has told Conservatives to be the party of optimism, urging them to "let sunshine win the day".

news.bbc.co.uk...

- Cameron is also the one having to deal with a slide in the polls more generally too -

The Conservatives' lead over Labour as they begin their party conference has fallen to 1% from 4% in mid-September, according to a Sunday Mirror/ICM poll.
The poll of 1,029 people on September 28-30 put the Tories on 36%, Labour on 35% and the Liberal Democrats on 19%.

news.bbc.co.uk...

......and it's Cameron who has to deal with yet another boorish and inept performance from his supposedly 'young'
(immature or just offensive and pathetic?) shadow chancellor -

A charity has criticised George Osborne after he appeared to suggest Gordon Brown could be "faintly autistic".

news.bbc.co.uk...

- Conference week for the tory party, never short of 'entertainment', huh?

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
image-obsessed

lool and Blair isn't image obsessed? wasn't it only a year or so ago that a memo was reputedly sent around the cabinet stating that they wanted Blair to get the credit for the goverments "achievments"? if anyone is image obsessed it's Blair

Do try and stay 'on-topic' please.

This thread is about and came from Cameron's own desire to present himself as a man of substance this week at the tory conference.

This despite the conference organisers saying there will be nothing of substance on show this week.

BTW if I were you I'd stay off of the comparisons with 'Blair-lite' Cameron's speech verses 'the real thing' Tony Blair's.
You have got to be kidding.
It doesn't make for a good comparison at all for DC.

Let the sunshine win.......

Tony Blair's main speech to Labour conference 2006

David Cameron's 1st speech to tory conference 2006

Don't forget (......oh joy!) we're going to be treated to a 2nd Cameron speech. Another display of his special brand of empty, all talk, cuddly gesture, posing politics on Wed afternoon.



[edit on 2-10-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Tony blairs speeches out classes Camerons anyday. But my question would be who is more convincin now Blair is leaving?

Brown or Cameron, Watched both of their speeches on the T.V. Brown looked more convincin than Cameron did. Suppose it is still early though. Oh well will wait until the next Political conferences to see if he gets any better.

What with Camerons web cam this week. Looked weird LOL.

Steve Bell's Cameron cartoon proves the art of the political cartoon is very much alive and well.
Well worth a good look (can you see it? ......you'll not be able to look that logo the same way again! )
Caustic, sharp, to the point and very very funny.
Spot on target.


Guardian cartoon



[edit on 3-10-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Inevitably Cameron's big centre-piece speech today was long on aspiration and short on any substance (although he did actually mention the word 'substance' several times).

Lots of talk about better support for families, the armed services and all the regular tory favourites.

Lots of very commendable stuff (put so blandly and vaguely that almost no one could really disagree with it in principle) but not a single substantive proposal or policy to back up such heart-warming 'vision(s)'.

......and all against a back-drop that requires total amnesia about their record and how the tory party inevitably operates when actually in office.

Sadly there was lots of trying to have it both ways too (their self-serving, very obvious and highly questionable attempts to twist and turn to capitalise over anti-US sentiment is particularly unpleasant to watch).

I thought his complaining comments about what he claims is this government lack of 'support' for famillies, compared to the tory period, stunningly if rather breath-takingly cheeky given the tory record for so long during their near 20yr stint in office.
Ditto the reduction in capabilities of the British armed forces......as well as the tory record of cutting the actual defense budget itself.
Ditto the complaints about disillusioned public sector workers.

Conference was very slow to warm up and it was unintentionally very funny on a few occasions where he stopped for expected applause and the conference was silent and missing it's cue for a few obvious moments.

Clearly large sections weren't so keen on some of what he had to say even if they put a brave face on it (tho not so brave that cameras panning around weren't able to catch looks of rejection in the delegates faces.
The looks when he claimed to back 'civil partnerships' was especially amusing).

Credit to him for saying some of what needed saying there tho.

Credit too for his at least saying out loud 'we' should act in Darfur (echoing Tony Blair last week).

Credit for his attempts to at least open a tory debate about the environment (though again not a single concrete policy proposal).

Pity it was spoiled when 'the boy' George Osbourne was wheeled out onto the BBC who ended up protesting that no, they weren't announcing any new funding priorities, there were no actual new policies and no they were not pressing the government to adopt an actual substantive thought-out proposal to help any of these groups.

All image, all talk.
David Cameron in a nutshell; a low-rent Tony Blair-lite.
With no sign of an actual verb relating to actually 'doing' anything in sight.

The tory press might try to manage to look lukewarm about it but my bet is this has not been a particularly good week for Cameron, just as this wasn't an especially good speech.

The question now remains.
The polls aren't looking very encouraging for Cameron & Co.
What happens if they return to months of trailing Labour?
How long will the tory party put up with this supposed 'modernising' approach if it is not producing any clear results?

Any takers on Cameron having a clock now ticking over his head?
4yrs until the next scheduled election so say 2yrs max until he gets the boot?

......and if Brown calls a snap election in autumn 07 after delivering a good budget in the spring and wins again maybe Cameron has a matter of mere months left leading the opposition, hmmmm?
From 'Cameron the coming man' in British politics to 'Cameron the sacked' within a year.
Maybe.

The co-author of New Labour verses the co-author of the tory manifesto 2005?
Where were all his clever ideas then, hmmmmm?

We shall see.

At least he had the sense not to repeat that dreadfully empty and childish stupidity he came out with on Monday "let the sunshine win", God almighty, how aweful was that?


At least he didn't sign off like Richie Rich saying 'God to bless the dog'.



[edit on 4-10-2006 by sminkeypinkey]