David cameron

Was the general election a vote against austerity? I was on the Today programme this morning to discuss this point, and in the course of the interview said that the lowest-paid did best under the Cameron years. This raised some degree of incredulity from Twitter, reported by Huffington Post. What planet am I on? I thought I’d answer. The Cameron years were tough, especially for those on welfare. But the aim was always to make people better-off by moving them into work. David Cameron did cut tax for employers, with corporation tax far lower. Liam Byrne, with whom I was on the Today programme, said that companies hoarded cash – but he didn’t say that they also employed a lot more people than they used to. So while 442,000 public sector positions were cut, 3.

The Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow (‘sons of Cornwall’) is not contesting any seats in the general election. Its leader of 20 years, Dick Cole, said its members were ‘exhausted’ after their local election campaign — it retained four councillors at ‘County Hall’ (Cornish nationalists always put County Hall in inverted commas, to avoid the inference that the Duchy is a mere county), and were only six votes shy of getting as many seats as Labour. It did not have the resources to fight an election so soon after 2015, when all its candidates lost their deposits. You might find it less surprising to learn that Mebyon Kernow is not standing than that Cornwall has its own party at all.

George Osborne’s decision to stand down as an MP is a sign of how impregnable Theresa May’s position is perceived to be. Osborne is the most politically formidable of the Tory sceptics of May’s Brexit plan, and his decision to quit the Commons suggests that he doesn’t think she’ll come unstuck in the next parliament. Of course, Osborne has others things to occupy himself with: the editorship of the Evening Standard and his lucrative work for Black Rock. But one suspects that he’d have been prepared to brazen out the criticism over his multiple jobs if he thought there would be a political sea change in his wing of the party’s favour in the next parliament. Osborne’s departure from the Commons will further denude it of experience.

‘But you promised!’ Anyone who spends much time with children (whether in an Andrea Leadsom-esque capacity as a mother or otherwise) will recognise that phrase. They’re the words of someone disappointed that the grown ups, who are supposed to be sensible, haven’t followed through. Today Theresa May broke her own promise about there being no early general election. Will helpfully reminds you of five of those promises, repeated by both the Prime Minister and her henchmen, in this post. She had been so adamant that even those who thought they knew her best after years of working together in Opposition and government had taken her at her word and were insisting until recently that May believed in keeping her promises and that there would be no snap general election.

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party is coming to resemble a drunk trying to get home on a bike. Most of the time he just pushes it along, but occasionally he mounts the saddle and whirls into action — only to find himself swiftly spread-eagled on the road. Take next month’s local elections. Corbyn launched his party’s campaign trying to bemoan the state of Britain. There are plenty of statistics which he could have trotted out to depict a country underperforming on living standards, debt levels and social mobility. But he chose to cite a supposed decline in life expectancy — which is demonstrably and famously wrong.

Given that Owen Jones, Glenda Jackson and Derek Hatton are just a handful of the figures to recently turn on Jeremy Corbyn, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour leader is turning people off Labour. So, Mr S was surprised to learn of Labour's latest recruit, in today's issue of the Times. Step forward Clare Foges. Yes, David Cameron's former SpAd and speechwriter -- who earned the affectionate nickname ‘the Prime Minister’s Larynx’ -- has joined... the Labour party. Writing in the Times, Foges says that she is as surprised as anyone by her decision: 'I tapped out the words somewhat guiltily, late at night.

Jean-Claude Juncker could have been invented by Nigel Farage's spin doctors. He is sneering one-man advert for Brexit, Frexit and any other kind of EU-exit. As Hugo Rifkind argues in this week’s magazine, he is a caricature of the arrogant Eurocrat: “smug, lazy, unelected and utterly impervious to anything.” He is a notorious boozer, and managed ‘head of state’ by running Luxembourg, which a country with a population about the size of Sheffield. His ascension to President of the European Commission embodied everything that was wrong with the EU, a huge signal that it was time to abandon ship.

Today George Osborne has managed to get MPs and hacks alike in a spin over his appointment as the new Evening Standard editor. Giving an interview to the BBC at the paper's headquarters in High Street Kensington, Osborne said he could see no issues balancing the role of MP with editor as he can do one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. As Osborne celebrated his new job, it turns out his old colleague David Cameron was just around the corner -- getting the weekly shop in at High Street Kensington Whole Foods. When an eagle-eyed hack spied the former prime minister browsing the ribs, they asked Cameron what he made of his mate's new job. Dave replied that it was a 'great move'. https://twitter.

As Philip Hammond faces a second day of negative headlines over his decision to break a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge and raise National Insurance for the self-employed, he can take heart that the latest YouGov poll gives the Conservatives a 19-point-lead. Still, not everyone in his party is pleased. On top of the growing number of Tory MPs letting known their dismay over the move, is David Cameron also rather unimpressed? Mr S only asks after ITV's Chris Ship shared a video of David Cameron talking to Michael Fallon at yesterday's Iraq service. Cameron appears to say something along the lines of 'breaking a manifesto promise, how stupid can you get?' Other interpretations will be gratefully received by Mr S. https://twitter.

Sir John Major does political intervention just right, doesn’t he? Never mind what he actually says. Once a year, twice max. Lob in a perfectly prepared hand grenade, wave and get the hell out. None of that terrible neediness of Tony Blair, still so stricken that he’s not in office. No children will cry, nor dogs howl, as they might at the biannual haphazard sight of Gordon Brown. Major is never hysterical, and never cheap, and he always disappears again within 24 hours. Precisely how an ex-prime minister ought to be. David Cameron, wherever he is, should be taking notes.

There has been an understandable, and justified, outcry about the Law Commission’s proposed changes to secrecy legislation. The current proposals present a serious threat to investigative journalism and whistle blowers. But Theresa May’s Number 10 is very keen to point out that this review was something commissioned not by them, but by David Cameron’s Number 10. ‘This is a consultation by an independent body instigated by the previous Prime Minister’ is how one May aide describes it—which is a clear attempt to distance the current Prime Minister from this whole business. I am told that it is highly unlikely that the proposals will be implemented in their current form.

It was a family affair at this year's Oldie of the Year awards. The magazine's new editor-in-chief Harry Mount -- who paid tribute to his predecessor, the great Alexander Chancellor -- was joined by his second cousin, David Cameron. The former prime minister told hacks at the reception how much he missed Larry, the No 10 cat. However, it was Cameron's mother Mary who stole the show. As Lord Dubs and Vanessa Redgrave took home gongs for being both old and politically active, Mary Cameron picked up the 'mothers know best' award. Presenting the gong, Gyles Brandreth commended Mary for managing something no politician -- bar possibly Diane Abbott -- has achieved: she got Jeremy Corbyn to take her advice.

Thanks to the Home Office's crackdown on hate crime, the Home Secretary recently found her conference speech officially recorded as a ‘hate incident’, after an Oxford University physics professor complained to the police that she was ‘picking on foreigners’. However, Mr S can't help but wonder if Amber Rudd will soon be joined by her former colleague David Cameron on the 'hate incident' list. In a speech at Davos, Cameron told the global elite how he tends to spend his days now he is no longer prime minister. The Mail on Sunday reports that Cameron said he had taken up shooting again -- with a specific focus on taking down 'Borises and Michaels': 'I have used the extra time to take up shooting again.

While observing reactions this week to allegations against America’s President-elect my mind has been ineluctably returning to 2015 and the story so inventively known as ‘pig-gate’. In case anyone has forgotten, this was a story which was pumped into the British press and then into the world’s media about the then Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron. A former Conservative party donor – Lord Ashcroft – had fallen out with David Cameron years before because Cameron would not give Ashcroft a position in the British cabinet. Being a man of means and owning a publishing house, among other things, Ashcroft had his revenge in an inventive and thoroughly modern manner.