Is Cameron becoming the lobbyists’ b****?
First we had the Hunting Lobby. Cameron committed himself to repealing the Hunting Act, only to cool his language in recent months. What did the Hunting Lobby do? Immediately threaten to withdraw considerable sums of funding and support in rural seats. Cameron had no choice but to start warming his language up again to placate them.
Then we had Murdoch. Cameron set about taking an increasingly tough line on the BBC, followed by rumours that he wants to scrap impartiality rules for broadcasters. Murdoch’s response? Get the Sun to hammer Labour as much as possible, even during their party conference.
Now we have the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) being the subject of a Channel 4 investigation. They have allegedly donated £10 million to the Conservatives in recent years, albeit through various channels. “The pro-Israel lobby … is the most powerful political lobby,” Michael Mates, a Conservative MP, told Channel 4. “There’s nothing to touch them.” According to the filmmakers, Hague fell out with CFI after describing Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon as “disproportionate” and supposedly faced threats to withdraw funding from Lord Kalms, a major Tory donor and CFI member. Cameron later gave an undertaking not to use the word again, the programme claimed. At a CFI dinner this June, Cameron made no mention of the death toll in the Gaza war – 1,370 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Instead he commended Israel because “it strives to protect innocent life”. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem and ambassador to Libya and Iran, said: “I don’t believe, and I don’t think anybody else believes these contributions come with no strings attached.”
Is anybody else getting just a tincy bit nervous about the direction that Cameron is heading in before he even gets to Downing Street? Anyone else getting flashbacks of a certain incident involving Blair, Ecclestone and a £1 million donation? Can we really trust Cameron to be impartial on these matters when he is already displaying weakness rather than principles in the face of funding withdrawals?
“Is anybody else getting just a tincy bit nervous about the direction that Cameron is heading in before he even gets to Downing Street? “
No. I was getting nervous long, long before now!
It’s interesting that you raise the term ‘principles’ in respect of the Hunting vote though. After all, he promised a free vote on this, did he not?
The ‘backlash’ came after that promise appeared to be going soft.
So tell me, what should people do when a politician appears no longer to consider himself bound by the promises he’s made to get votes? Shrug, and say ‘Oh, well, that’s life..’?
He already appears one step ahead of Blair, at least he waited until he was elected before going back on his promises.
I know he has to tread a fine line before the election, but it seems he cannot afford to upset anyone except his core supporters at the moment.
@JuliaM -
Of course he is. All our political class know how to do now, is whore themselves to the highest bidder.
The CFI program sounded like it was trying to be the next chapter in the ‘Elders of Zion’ protocol. You could have picked any one of about 20 special interest group ‘big hitters’ and made the same documentary.
This is how it is now. We vote in a party thinking they will deliver x, y and z when the reality is that our loaws are changed to suit whatever interest group is holding sway at the time.
“Can we really trust Cameron to be impartial on these matters when he is already displaying weakness rather than principles in the face of funding withdrawals?”
Anybody who trusts Cameron is an oxy moron.
Last time I checked this kind of courting of different interests in order to gain power was called politics. I don’t see much of a story here.
Yes, I have been getting increasingly nervous for years. Next question.
If he is more Blair then Blair than maybe he could be even more democratic and put Life Peerages on Ebay.
Politicians get in by promising something, however I am in favour of witholding a vote unless something is promised in the manifesto, if the conservatives want in they should promise bygetting the manifesto out, and start by saying cut taxes, bring back pistol shooting and fox-hunting, the right to self defence, ( when you beat the stuffing out of someone who pulls a knife on you, you are not the culprit)
Bloody simple to do and win!
This election campaign is nasty and messy, and none of it will make much sense. So what do we want. First we want the present lot out, and fast, the damage they have done is incredible. Then we want an administration that can function. So who else is there?
All politicians with a serious prospect of gaining or exercising power have to navigate the twin rocks of ‘lobbyist money’ and ‘populist polling’ in order to navigate the ship of state through the waters of policy (wow, I thought that metaphor would, ah, beach itself long before then!). What’s worse, playing to the Daily Fail’s predictable rent-a-mob of 10% of the population or altering your language to be less critical of an Israeli military operation in return for large sums of cash?
Leaders no longer lead. They follow either the polls or the urgency of whoever pays their party enough to stagger on in the absence of mass-membership. Very sad, imho, but what can you do?
The Albion Alliance is distinctly nervous about his direction.
It’s an issue that needs dealing with, currently getting into power is an expensive business and requires making promises to both the voters and the funders.
Of course most politicians feel free to breach promises to the voters, but not to their backers. Cameron’s hardly alone in being like this, he’s just the most obvious as he looks to be the next PM and so the majority of money is heading his way to buy some favours.
We’ve been flirting with corporatism for many years, over the last few years it’s accelerated and become more blatant though. Unless we can find a way of taking the financial element out of electioneering, it’s only going to get worse.
Can we trust Cameron? Of course not. He is a politician and he is showing himself as the “heir to Blair” he once cooed about.
That said, Hague’s comment was a disgrace.
To pretend that repeated attacks on civilians and housing areas plus a prolongued attempt to destroy Lebanon’s infrastructure in revenge for the capture of TWO P.O.W.s: now THAT’s disgraceful, and shows a sad absence of normal human compassion.
No, I don’t trust Cameron either and haven’t done for a very long time!
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. After all, nothing, nothing, nothing could possibly we worse than another five years of Brown.
He did keep his promise to withdraw the MEPs from the EPP group (even against huge establishment pressure). Frankly, I had suspected he would go back on that once he had been elected leader. And he’s done quite a few other pretty ruthless things too as leader.
I think he might just be enough of a bastard to make a success of being PM.
Actually he didn’t. His promise was to withdraw in months. It took him four years and one suspects that the withdrawal was based on appeasement rather than any positive purpose.