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Is there a Sun blackout on Cameron’s dumping of ‘cast iron guarantee’ on Europe?
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3 November 2009
I just paid a visit to the Sun's online service, to see what they were doing with David Cameron's dumping of his 'cast iron guarantee' - made to the paper's readers - to hold a referendum on Europe.
If you take the front page and the main news page together, I reckon you're looking at going on for around one hundred stories. Only one of them mentions Cameron - a photocall he did with Gary Lineker yesterday about a plan to give tickets for football matches and other major events to UK troops.
But unless I am going blind in my old age, I cannot see a single mention of the abandonment of the pledge made explicitly and exclusively to Sun readers, which may well have played a part in the paper's decision to switch their support from Labour to Tory, alongside some of the changes the Tories have made to their media policies, many of them uncannily similar to calls made by Sky boss James Murdoch.
But whether it did or it did not, surely it is news. Surely Sun readers, who according to columnist Trevor Kavanagh put Europe at or close to the top of their political interests, have an interest in following every twist and turn of this story as Cameron tries to bring some coherence to his incoherent policy, even if he does bottle out of the announcement himself, leaving it to William Hague to let down his fellow sceptics.
'Cast iron guarantee' is quite a big statement to make. So how can it not be big news when it turns out to have rusted?
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I feel for Cameron – well, a bit. He is going to become the seventh Tory leader – all of them since Heath took Britain into the Common Market – to come a cropper on Europe. Why can they not sort out a sensible position? I agreed with what you said on the BBC about Cameron and Blair last week btw … to have a Tory leader actively campaigning against a former UK PM, seeming to prefer a federalist from a Benelux country, is absurd
One of the worst things about our papers – almost all of them, including your old paper the Mirror – is that they don’t cover things if they don’t fit their own agenda. At the moment the Sun’s agenda is just get Brown, support for Cameron – even if he goes back on the word he gave to their readers
Did you look at the Page 3 girl?
Manifesto promise? Pots and kettles
The more people see of Cameron the less they like him. Ok, I admit – the more I see of Cameron, the less I like him. He is a slimy lightweight
I hear that Hague is saying that “our campaign for a Lisbon referendum is over”. Yet it wasn’t a campaign, it was a “cast iron guarantee” given by Cameron. The Labour party should not let the Tories off the hook on this. Labour never promised a referendum on the treaty.
What’s the matter Mr Campbell – don’t like the Sun any more ? I wonder why ?
The next coordinated attack by Labour kicks into action. Let’s hope you have better luck with this after “The end of the recession” one went so badly wrong! Again from the public point of view the message they will hear and reinforced is the fact that Labour reengaged on a manifesto promise to hold a referendum on this issue. The louder you shout the easier it is for Cameron et al to remind a eurosceptic publics that Labour are to blame for this situation. You really need a descent strategist at the heart of No. 10.
Maybe the new Tory/Sun policy is to close their eyes, pinch their noses and cover their ears and Europe will disappear. Pitiful.
In other news:
I’ve never been accused of saying anything nice about Boris Johnson before, but I guess he deserves kudos tonight. Loads of grown men would just have walked on. In this world in which men are not taught to be chivalresque and heroic, Boris demonstrated he has the guts to do the right thing.
Maybe Pete and Jordon were revealing more of their “private” life to us. Maybe something big happened on the XFactor or Strictly. Who knows?
Much better to rely for your information on newspapers. As Ms Hardman said of the Sun… something about t*ts
Cameron looks very naive after today. It was always a long shot for the tories to think that there would still be an open treaty to have a referendum on next May even if he were to become PM. So why give a cast iron guarantee? Great short term PR but egg on his face now. Hague is describing this guarantee as a campaign which is now over. Interestingly, the BBC’s chief Tory, Nick Robinson led on the tory discomfort tonight. He even talked about a Cameron government “if ever there is one”. Perhaps the inevitable Tory victory is started to be doubted by the Cameron loving fleet street crew.
True, but i would have thought Cameron’s pledge to reign in the excesses of the BBC and to scrap OFCOM would have been more to the Digger’s taste than any pledge involving the Lisbon treaty.
Europe is messy for the Conservatives.Though presumably you won’t be talking about this too aggressively given Labour’s quickly forgotten/excused last manifesto pledge to hold a referendum? Credit to the Government for eclipsing theTories’ troubles today by doubling-up their bet on RBS and Lloyds – another £50bn, give or take, it all blurs after a while. The Sun does cover this story, though well down the main news section and under a headline about the loss of 3700 jobs. Anyway, who ever went to the Sun for news?
Well let’s hope that Gordon lands a cast iron fist on Cameron’s chin tomorrow at PMQ’s over this.
Cameron also promised there would be no spending cuts on Health, Education, International Development and Defence. He’s reneged on Education and Defence already.
I think you’re going to like tomorrow’s front page. As someone once said “Not a lot…”
a welcome distraction from yet more banking woes. Oh the joy of working for LTSB.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2712808/Britain-betrayed-as-hated-EU-treaty-is-finally-made-law.html
LOL – didn’t Gordon Brown make the referendum pledge in his manifesto? an then go ahead and (furtively) sign the Treaty anyway