WHERE'S CAMERON GOING? WE ASK, AS ANOTHER PLEDGE BITES THE DUST

As Dean points out in a good post on Cameron and his future, another of the Tory’s manifesto promises, a revision of "hunting with hounds" legislation in England, has been dropped for the foreseeable future.

Quite apart from fox hunting, which is of only peripheral concern to me, the first thing I would suggest to Cameron is that he must try to keep some, or even one, of his manifesto promises.

Snide politicking apart, I think most people would accept that when a party has been out of government for a long time, there will be a certain fumbling at the beginning. A prime or first minister, who has never held a cabinet position himself (Cameron, Salmond, Blair for example), along with a government of inexperienced ministers at all levels, is bound to produce wobbles.

But the public has a short tolerance span. They have to hit the ground running and he needs to start getting things right.

On top of that Cameron has to share governance with a party which, in reality, comes from the other side of the spectrum, and whose leader seems to be the only one of its members who feels at ease with the PM’s party’s policies. Cameron's own party gives the impression of being decidedly put out about Liberals being treated more leniently than Tories when they err (eg Vince Cable et al) and being allowed to announce all the “good” policies (according to John Redwood).

Cameron’s policies are controversially Thatcherite in nature. He’s brought nothing new to the table (apart from a seemingly greater tolerance of gays and ethnic minorities within his party). But he means to slash public spending to bring down the deficit, in Thatcherite fashion. It’s a risky strategy. The USA, China, Japan, and Germany (the four largest economies in the world) have all chosen the opposite way of getting out of their economic problems... by stimulating the economy.

So far his education secretary has put his foot in his mouth every time he has opened it, and his health policies are, to put it mildly, controversial with doctors and public alike. Additionally, at least in the early stages more money for less health will be the result.

Cameron can look forward to inflation taking off, interest rates rising, house repossessions, rents soaring, no housing for the people made homeless... and his hopes of private industry taking up the unemployed slack is probably a little farfetched to begin with, and will be even less likely if loans are even more difficult or expensive to get.

Most people, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, don’t believe that the “we are all in this together” slogan (which seems to have disappeared recently from the coalition rhetoric) was ever even vaguely adopted by the rich and super rich, which includes a large number of the government.

The Big Society, which seems to be Cameron’s only real idea, is another possibly well meaning, but extremely vague notion that few understand and those who do think will work well, where it work, and be a disaster most other places. Likewise the English local government reorganisations with Parish Councils getting more powerf and funding will probably do relatively well in the leafy lanes, and fall flat on its face in the inner cities.

The government seems to be pinning its hopes on a successful royal wedding, and Olympics, to make Brits feel proud, patriotic and willing to display “L'esprit de Dunkirque”.

It’s a flimsy base on which to build a government.

Pics: (1) Hard to swallow Dave? Now you know how we feel. (2) Wee Gove wanting to strangle the civil servants that allowed him to make such a fool of himself in his first ministerial announcement: The one he had to retract the next day, only to find out that the retraction was all wrong too! (3) Vince Nuclear Cable. If he had been a Tory there would be a new Business Secretary, much to the Tories’ chagrin. (4) I couldn’t resist another pic of wee Govey. He’s such a fine looking fellow!