Sunday 15 May 2011

David Cameron: A Year in Office

One year ago David Cameron, self-professed middle-class old-Etonian public schoolboy millionaire and his entrepreneur wife, Samantha, was helped into office by the similarly-educated Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Here is some of what has happened since.

1. On his way to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, Cameron's Jaguar was papped by kids as he got stuck in rush-hour traffic.

2. He returned to Downing Street to a mixture of boos and cheers, with one woman giving him the thumbs down as he drove in. His first speech outside No. 10 was met by cat-calls and shouting.

3. On his first visit to America he appeared to have no understanding of the history of the 2nd World War by claiming that Britain was a junior partner to the U.S. in 1940. America didn't join the war until December 1941, after Pearl Harbor.

4. On his first visit to India Cameron criticised Pakistan and accused them of exporting terror, causing a diplomatic ruck.

5. As democratic uprisings erupted in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain Cameron accompanied a phalanx of British businessmen to the Middle East, promoting arms exports.

6. He and Foreign Secretary William Hague OK'd a US mission to rescue British charity worker Linda Norgrove, who was being held hostage in Afghanistan. She was killed by a grenade thrown by her rescuers. The media were initially led to believe she had been wearing a 'suicide-bomb-jacket' when she died.

7. Tory HQ at Millbank was trashed by protestors against the raising of tuition fees. The first in a series of fraught demonstrations. Cameron claimed fees of £9000 per year would only apply in exceptional circumstances. It would quickly become evident that, given the scale of University cuts, £9000 fees would be the norm.

8. The right-wing press ruthlessly targeted Lib Dem ministers in an effort to bring down the coalition.

9. Michael Gove announced the end of many school-building projects, reading from a hastily compiled list of schools whose funding would be removed that had been revised three times. It was clear the policy had not been carefully thought through.

10. Michael Gove expanded Labour's Academy programme to include high achieving schools. When asked what differences pupils would find at the new academies headteachers indicated 'not much'.

11. The economy ground to a halt as George Osborne imposed a swift programme of cuts and tax rises: a second recession appears to have been narrowly escaped. The coalition claimed the UK was on the verge of bankruptcy, a stance which has yet to be evidenced and appears to have knocked consumer confidence. Osborne later mysteriously found a spare £7bn to lend to Ireland.

12. The Armed Forces were cut savagely in a swift Strategic Defence Review, seemingly predicated on the idea that the UK would not be doing war for the next ten years. Cameron then immediately led a campaign to attack Colonel Gaddafi's forces who were brutally suppressing protests in Libya. Much of the miltary hardware assigned to the campaign was due to be taken out of service. RAF Tornadoes flew the longest mission since the Falklands in an effort to fire bunker-busting missiles at Gaddafi's compounds.

13. Mr. Cameron was reprimanded for consistently quoting false statistics in parliament.

14. The government was forced to curtail a sell-off of England's publicly-owned forests in the face of fierce cross-party opposition.

15. Andrew Lansley announced sweeping changes to the NHS which contradicted everything the Prime Minister had said during the election campaign. Cameron announced there would be a 'pause' in the process to 'listen and reflect' just prior to council elections in England.

16. The Prime Minister criticised a lack of applications for Royal Wedding street parties, blaming too much red tape. He perhaps forgot that the Criminal Justice Bill, introduced by the last Conservative government, effectively outlawed parties.

17. The Budget imposed savage cuts to council spending. Cameron's government then blamed the inevitable redundancies and closed services on mismanagement and inefficiency, even suggesting that the closure of libraries would be a survival of the fittest.

18. Made a speech in Munich (!) criticising multi-culturalism.

19. Made a speech prior to the local elections re-announcing his heavily compromised immigration policy. Journalists accused him of naked electioneering.

20. Mr. Cameron claimed that the Alternative Vote system would help the BNP. Oddly the BNP appeared to oppose the system. Cameron emphasised the need for winners in the first round of a contest to be elected, despite finishing second, to David Davis, in the first round of his own leadership poll.

21. In an ill-judged moment of temper he told Labour's Angela Eagle to 'Calm down dear' as he was barracked by Labour's front bench at Prime Minister's Questions.

22. The Conservative vote held up well in the English Council elections as the Liberal Democrats were punished heavily for entering the coalition. Cameron also won the AV referendum by a clear majority of 2:1 against. The Conservatives came a distant 2nd in the Welsh Assembly and were nowhere in Scotland.

No comments:

Post a Comment