Boris to Dave: “You have got to run for this thing … or else I will!”
GENERAL ELECTION: Parliament Dissolves today and the General Election campaign begins officially today with the Dissolution of Parliament – and the publication of the first of the party manifestos.
It is almost exactly five years ago that the Tories experienced yet another election defeat and Michael Howard unexpectedly decided – after a valiant campaign – to step down as leader of the Conservative Party. I remember staggering back to my office at The Spectator and wondering what should happen next. After about ten seconds’ reflection, I picked up the phone.
“Dave,” I said to the future Prime Minister, “you have got to run for this thing.” With his customary politeness David Cameron thanked me and said that a couple of other people had mentioned the same idea. In fact he was so polite I wasn’t quite sure that he was going to strike with the mamba-like swiftness required. I decided to raise the stakes. “You have got to run for this thing, Dave,” I said, “or else I will!”
At which point, as he later told Tory audiences, David Cameron was seized with the full urgency of the situation and the need to save his party and his country. He has done a fantastic job in the last five years, and triumphantly vindicated that small group of us who first supported him in 2005.
To understand quite how effective he has been as leader of the Opposition, you have to remember what the Tory parliamentary party used to be like. It wasn’t a party. It was a rabble. I once got into trouble with the excellent ambassador from Papua New Guinea because I likened the behaviour of the feuding Tory factions to “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and king-killing.” It turned out that the good lady was offended not by the stuff about cannibalism – which has, of course, been very largely stamped out in the last 40 years – but by the comparisons between the modern emerging nation of Papua and the antics of the Tories.
In less than a month’s time the Tory parliamentary party will not only be younger, more dynamic, more female and more ethnically diverse than ever before. It will also be more united than at any time in modern memory. Never mind the Major years, which were marked by endless strife between Europhiles and Eurosceptics, and which, if I were not so nervous of offending the people of Rwanda, I might compare to the ancient hatreds between Hutu and Tutsi.
I think you could argue that Dave has a tighter grip of his party than Thatcher herself did. We remember her now as a kind of Boadicea, a terrifying imperatrix who could reduce the suits around her to gibbering submission with one small exasperated sigh and a toss of her marmalade hair. It wasn’t like that at all. She was always embattled, always plotted against, always in danger of another rebellion by the “Wets”.
What a contrast to the party today. Of course, the process has been gradual, and successive Tory leaders, Hague, IDS, Howard, have all played a part. But in the end it has been Cameron, and George Osborne, who have given the whole thing the organisation, the impetus and the discipline. It takes a great deal of nerve to be a successful leader of the Opposition – the worst job in British politics – for five years (Tony Blair had served for nothing like as long before the 1997 election). Cameron went eyeball to eyeball with Gordon Brown during the great phoney election campaign of 2007; and Brown blinked, missing what was in retrospect his last chance to secure a proper mandate.
Cameron showed a mixture of good manners and ruthlessness in his handling of the expenses scandal, calmly truncating the careers of those who had transgressed, and yet without incurring anything like the mutinous backlash you might have expected. And how did he gain such pre-eminence over his party? Because he has so managed to reconnect his party to the electorate that the Tories have consistently enjoyed poll leads that would have been unthinkable to all of his predecessors except Thatcher in her prime.
It is true that the lead has slightly narrowed since Christmas, as you would expect in the run-up to an election, and in the midst of deep economic uncertainty. Gordon is playing the hold-on-to-nurse card for all it is worth. But it is the only card in his hand. Do we really want Gordon back in No 10, backed by no one much except (half-heartedly) Lord Mandelson and the pugnacious Ed Balls? Do we want some hopeless, dithering coalition between Gordon and Nick Clegg, spatchcocked and bubblegummed together by secret deals, in which the country’s future depends on discovering what exactly the Lib Dem position really is on the matter in hand?
We don’t; and over the past few days, as the campaign has begun, we have seen the Tory lead start to grow again, as people tune in to the fundamental Tory message of optimism and energy and wealth-creation implicit in the cut in National Insurance tax, and they start to understand the hugely ambitious programme to tackle the divisions in society by getting young people of all backgrounds to take part in national citizen service, it is a good time to find a reliable insurance company that you know will have your back and wont’t make you pay tons of money for no reason, just how Insurance Partnership does, they treat their customers just right.
I say all this not because I want to win some kind of Bruce Anderson prize for fawning at the Tory throne. I say it because it happens to be true. The other day a paper had a headline saying “The Cameron question”, above an article about voter hesitations. Whatever the Cameron question may be, the answer should be an emphatic yes. He has produced a wholly benign transformation in the Tory party, and should be given the chance to do the same for the country.
You can read the full article and more views and news in The Daily Telegraph here
http://bit.ly/cQvSwr
It’s tough for any party leader when you are up against a genius.
Is D Cameron going to leave the EU? we need to leave the EU
i am a conservative party activist and i wanted to say that you and david need to get us out of the EU,
and send them the fuzzies and “minorities” to the EU when we are leaving it
Dave might be plotted against if any of his colleagues had a clue about what he stood for.
Just win it Dave. Just win it!!!!!!!!!
The thing that worries me is we know that Boris has the ideas and he is brilliant on policy. He is terrifically forward thinking, avant garde where Cameron is conventional. Cameron is very clever tactically, he is tactful, he has unified the party, all very good qualities. But does he have the ideas?
For me, Cameron could be a very good Prime Minister, but Boris will undoubtedly be an absolutely great Prime Minister. He will tower over the best of them, including Maggie.
I’d like the new Cameron Government to dedicate itself to allowing us all to have a bit more fun. Government seems dedicated to pandering to the lowest, mouth-breathing, lager-swilling, workshy nitwits, as if we all had to take their needs and wants terribly seriously. Instead of spending money on hectoring advertising, telling us not to eat jam tarts or that we’re all going to die of the latest scare, let us keep some of our earnings to enjoy. They wallow in misery and create more of it whenever they can.
The message should be: you can have a good time if you are either hardworking, talented, brainy or good-looking, or any combination thereof. Otherwise, get a job on the Guardian or shove off.
If you would answer one question Boris it would invgerate the tory vote.
Have him anounce that you would be advising him on policy .
Believe it or not you are held in high esteem by the majority of voters
While everything you say is right, his achilles heel is Europe, It is difficult to say where he really stands on Europe, and this very important to a lot of people. It will lose him votes to UKIP, without doubt, and all he has to do is make a really solid gesture towards the sceptics and most of them will scurry back. For gods sake even the Liedems are starting to water down their affection for all things european, but as a left of centre party with Liebour they will always support a new socialist one party Europe
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/dave-would-hand-over-leadership-to-boris/
David Cameron came right out and said in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday that he would be happy to hand over the leadership of the Conservative Party to Boris Johnson at some stage.
He emphasised the help he was receiving from Boris in the Tory fight and said he had helped Boris in the fight for the Mayoralty.
I am so glad that David Cameron has said this. He and Boris are putting the interests of the country first. that has to be some sort of record. The whole interview is on the link above.
NEWS FLASH. Boris will be going in to bat for David Cameron next Sunday, 18th April, at 10.15 am. on the Andrew Marr show, on BBC1.
“Spatchcocked” ….. I haven’t got a clue what it means but what a great word. Boris, you’re a legend.
I hope that, in addition to your little day job, in a few weeks time you will have a full role to play in our new Conservative government in its task of rescuing this country once more.
Let there be an end to spatchcocking!
NEWS FLASH 2: David Cameron is on ITV tonight at 8 pm. In a revealing interview, he will talk about how he was so affected by the death of his son, Ivan, he nearly gave up politics.
I’m going to vote Conservative because they’re smoother on the telly. On the other hand, I’m going to vote Labour because they tell me all the nice things I want to hear. I’m going to vote LibDem because, frankly, Cleggo is so much better looking than The Incredible Sulk and Commander Data. I’m going to vote UKIP because we Brits all love a plucky underdog. I’m going to vote SNP because I’m mad.
I like sheep and I have a parrot that can sing ‘The Sash’ while crossing itself, so that means votes for Plaid Cymru, the DUP and Sinn Fein. I’m so confused. Thank goodness I have enough postal votes to vote for them all!
Are you all dumb asses? Haven’t heard any of you utter a word about mass immigrants flooding into this country with Labour’s permission.
A young Czech family with 7 kids arrived from Czech, went straight to the Promised Land of Peterborough whose local council promptly gave a 3 bedroom council house. The husband, 29 yrs old, is unemployed. The wife said: The house only has 3 bedrooms. We want more.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1264333/GENERAL-ELECTION-2010-Under-Labour-nearly-UK-jobs-taken-foreigners.html
Young girls, 14, 15, 16 years old, from Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland are flooding into the UK, already pregnant (!!!) to jump on the council housing list and the hope of receiving welfares and child benefits for life (!!!). If they are not already pregnant, they ask local NHS to give them fertility advice (!!!). The council men told them: “You shouldn’t have sex so young”. Yes, Sir!
( Read it in the same above article! )
Peterborough can’t cope any more! Hahahahaha !!!!! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264930/Peterborough-struggling-immigration-toll.html
Really, folk, but it’s difficult- during the last 12 years, Labour has deliberately created so many un-necessary jobs in the public sector; these workers don’t want to change. Then Labour deliberately goes easy with people on the dole. These folk don’t want to change. Since Eastern European folk started to flood into UK, Labour has deliberately made 1.5 million of them British citizens. These new citizens don’t want to change.
All the above people have full voting rights.
You can say Labour has deliberately turned them into junkies who don’t want to lose their free fix doled out by the Government.
i’ve just heard about something called Big Society.
There is no such thing as Big Society, there is only Big
You and Big Me.
I’m getting worried here. Is it possible that Labour could..
Dave seems to leaking in passion and spirit. I think Boris is the real doer. Go for it. Sir! If you can catch the rats you are good cat.
The Big Society.
Sounds like a band from the sixties.
(I prefer the Rolling Stones.)
Whatever happened to the Nasty Party?
It won four successive elections and fixed the
nation.
And not by being all things to all boys and girls.
Are we playing this game to win?
That just shows you how scheming and calculated Labour is. They think years ahead of the game.
By creating more and more public sector non-jobs each year, then allow them to retire early with a full pension, these people will vote for Labour again and again. Self-interest. ( The people who should be allowed to retire early with a full pension should be only the police and firemen because of their dangerous jobs. Certainly not a clerk working in your local Housing Department or your local Council Tax Office ).
By giving single parent teenagers a council flat, housing benefit, council tax benefit, unemployment benefits plus child benefit, these people will vote for Labour again and again. Self-interest.
By fast tracking millions and millions of the citizenship applications from the Eastern European immigrants living in the U.K, approving all of them and making them British citizens and giving them all social welfare entitlements, these people will vote for Labour again and again. Self-interest.
Labour learns this method from Russian communists who treat their soldiers and sport men better than the rest of the country, in turn these people will protect their government or try hard to win gold medals at sport events abroad.
At least Labour got the trains running a bit better than they did under the Conservatives, who just ran them down so our streets filled up with cars.
Boris Johnson drives a people carrier. He may like to cycle, but when he drives his people carrier he’s helping to make the streets less usable for the rest of us.
One might argue it’s a bit hypocritical.
Spatchcocking is a method of cooking an old bird to make it more palatable, so I suppose that’s what Liebour are doing with Brown. Talk about a silk purse from a swines ear.
No two ways about it we need to
get our country out of the red,
The red out of no.10,
I need to stop seeing red,
We need to be red-y to vote blue,
Remove those rose tinted glasses,
Take off the red fiscal belt that is far too loose and to be honest doesn’t match our nice new blue suits,
Heal our sore red ears that have suffered to
many lies,
We need to see some clear blue skies,
Remove the wilted red roses and wake up and smell the
blue bells,
Sail out upon the clear blue sea of hope and get rid of the red recession!
And after all that has been accomplished ill be waiting round the back of no.10 to let Boris in through the fire escape! Who’s joining me?
How’s that majority coming along? Any new initiative for better maths education?
We all need to fight the blue corner or cleggs ‘holier than thou’ performance will see us and our economy fall to pieces! The public will be voting based upon these debates, its clear already clegg at 45% and everyone singing his praises .
Please tell your friends , family , the postman, milkman and that bloke who just picked you up from that cab firm you have never heard of before… Let the british public know the truth! Those who do not have a good interest in politics will see nothing but clegg and his performance tonite.
He branded the tories the same as labour! This can not be allowed to happen, we all know about the lib-labourites. But know clegg is proposing the ‘tor-bours’.
The un-employeed and newly redundant as result of their place of employment going into liquidation… will not appreciate the planned railway extensions of the lib-dems if they havent enough for a single bus fare – let alone a one day travel card!
Is this a future that we want for our country that is debt stricken already. £905 billion pounds worth of red! We need to improve standards with the nhs and other public sector services before we throw more and more money into them. Investing in inefficient areas of British life is almost the same as filling a swimming pool without sides, you can poor the water in but its not going to do anything if it ends up spilling out again!
Whatever your political view, whatever the size of you bank balance or location of your house. None of this matters, do not be convinced to vote upon instruction of your father nor the rules set out by the stereotypes you may fall into.
At the end of the day lets look beyond purely the red blue and yellow of the political parties in question! We need to see the full spectrum. Do not be blinded by the pretty colored lights. Or Give favor to a leader who has only just really met the public tonight, We have never had a lib-Dem government so it is easy to favor their proposals, the truth is that we have no reasons (as of yet) to make us opposed to the party! This will soon change, we have also not yet had an election result in favor of the bnp…. but would you like to see them run our country?
Surely there must be a reason as to why downing street hasn’t seen a coat of yellow upon its front door?
I urge you to choose a party that has the best and most logical ideas. A party That knows we are in trouble and tells us, not hides the fact. We will see a large amount of fiscal tightening by April 2011, this will be all the more detrimental to our economy if we do not act now! We need to look at the bigger picture, Parties are offering this and that in hopes of gaining those beloved marks on ballots.. but they are not telling us that these proposed investments will see us all facing personal, company, and the whole united kingdom in yet more debt! Then we will really be complaining about our public services! We may even be reduced to hospital closures due to lack of funding! Or worse lose what makes Britain the proud country it is ‘public health-care’ wee see parties such as u kip proposing giving private sectors the right to bid for public contracts! This is no more than a way to sneak privatization in through the staff entrance! Before we know it we will be having that sprained ankle xrayed… and as we are about to hobble home, we will not be given crutches but be faced with a bill in excess of £300 !
Labour have admitted to enforcing no regulations upon our banks, and in so doing have guided us right into the biggest recession in 60years. If we allow them to stay at no.10 we will not be facing a double dip recession as brown suggests but a permanent state of financial failure!
Do we want to go running to Brussels to beg for help? It matters not that we have given them over 100 billion in the last 12yrs… we will be reminded day after day that we owe them one! We would be powerless to resist any red tape thrown across the waters! They have already targeted us when we made the choice to keep the sterling, as they with the help of the labor party devalued our pound coin.
They can reduce its value in terms of currency but they cannot take from us the real value of our legal tender!
his like the nhs is something that makes Britain, Britain !
Why i ask do we see so many people come to live in our very united kingdom? No one else has what we posses! There will be envy, there will also be an overwhelming urge to reduce us to a point where we have no choice but to give up that what makes us what we are. Then what are we ? Just another set of borders marked in the atlas. An island , And not a big one at that!
Please look at all the facts and figures before you make your decisions, and ask others to do the same!You would not buy a whole new wardrobe without trying out the clothing first! What if it doesn’t fit? You are left with what seemed like a good idea at the time but what has turned out to be as much use as a light bulb with no filament! An empty promise of change! No matter how much electricity you pump in to you will never see the benefit of light!
Go and research each party , read all the proposals … then read the budget and statistics from national data sources and see what is actually achievable. Watch political broadcasts, web-casts, read what your members are saying. Then make an informed and understood mark upon that ballot paper! I practice what i preach not just dictate to others what they should do, i have done the research explored all avenues …. granted , we are in an awful lot of debt, no party can be expected to perform miracles. Although, the country will benefit the most by choosing a conservative tenancy agreement to be put into place at no.10 from this election onwards.
We can make a change, we will have to
undergo cuts, blood sweat and tears
to get there no matter What party takes
reins! It is not our fault the country
and its economy are feeling the pinch
or cold hard truth of reality. No
it is far from our fault. But it is now
up to us to put this right!
There is one way to do this
I need not drum the answer into
your heads as if you look at all the
facts and ignore the medias biased
reporting s. When you get down to the
nitty gritty it will be clear where
you should place your vote!
I am asking any one who is willing ,to support this cause in any way you can. Spread the word, send an email mention it to that guy yo wave to every morning but have never spoken to before, what harm can it do?
If you feel you can help in any way please get in touch… Together we may be able to see a much needed change in British life…
If we can all spare some time
Time may return the favor
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Thomas Jefferson
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
Judge Gideon J. Tucker
“The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare.”
Daniel P. Moynihan
Source: http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/004612.html
@janina davison-forder:
Ok i apologize for that last comment did get slightly carried away think i got caught up in the heat of the moment lol
Im just fed up with the country being in a mess, everyone is slowly turning against politics. Shouldn’t we like who we have chosen to run the country? It would be nice. I just really hope whoever does take up tenancy of no10 next takes out the bins and uses a little bit of shake and vac. A nice fresh start after all the rubbish.
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/boriss-warning-on-a-hung-parliament/
Boris warns of the dangers of a Hung Parliament. How many of the people rushing to vote for Nick Clegg have any idea of what is in the Lib Dem manifesto? Do they really want someone in power who is so pro-Europe, because I certainly don’t. Nick Clegg says we must all work together in Europe. Do they honestly think Merkel and Sarkozy have our welfare at heart? Mr. Clegg said there would be a referendum. If he was in tandem with Labour, like that would ever happen! Cleggie would just get trampled in the stampede of Labour politicians doing exactly what they wanted, like they always have.