Europe needs to get real on defence; Britain needs to get real on Europe
13 February 2025
Insight into Cameron’s style of leadership
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Post
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18 November 2010
There are two somewhat conflicting things you hear from inside government about David Cameron's style of leadership.
The first is that he has taken to the job of PM as to the manor born. Say what you like about Eton, you hear, but it gives people that inner and outer confidence that he puts to good use.
The second is that when it comes to policy detail, he does not go deep enough and so risks making it up as he goes along.
Trait 1 will carry him a fair way. But trait 2 is more important, and will catch up with him.
Today's Daily Telegraph report on disquiet among the military at the government's (not very) strategic defence review is the latest, and a rather more serious, example of Trait 2 getting the upper hand on Trait 1.
If Trait 1 were all that mattered, then the military top brass would be a lovely place for Cameron to be. They would respond warmly to all that good breeding, respect for history and tradition and shiny self-confidence which he possesses in abundance.
But one of the downsides of Trait 1 is that you are so confident that you overlook the need to do some pretty basic groundwork. And even taking into account the MoD's vested interest in painting a picture of itself as rather hard done by, it is clear the basic groundwork of proper consultation, and consideration of the impact of planned changes, just wasn't done.
And if he can be this careless on military matters, heaven knows how careless he is being in relation to changes planned to other public services not quite up there with defence on the realm.
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” Garibaldi or Nice”, Gordon Brown too faced difficult choices, but eventually elected for ” anything with a bit of chocolate on”, no doubt after consulting you!
Owing to your New Labour profligacy “There is no money”: …and difficult choices have to be faced by real politicians.
I met him at a NHS meeting before the election. I had the feeling of quite enjoying meeting him, but the minute he had left being unable to remember anything significant he had said. He talked with considerable passion but little knowledge
He also doesn’t like it when he is attacked or criticised, not a good sign in a leader, and I thought he demeaned himself when he put you in the same breath as Damian McBride yesterday, and in so doing seemed to distance himself from the Iraq war he supported and argued for
The main problem with Eton bred self confidence and to the manor born attitude would be the very elitist character trait that allows such people to believe a lesser ‘educated’ person could not possibly possess a superior intelligence. Eton does not and cannot teach ability.
By the way Alastair, anything further on the PM accusing you of ‘sexing up’ the Iraq dossier at PMQs and effectively accusing Labour of lying to take the country to war? Is this now the official government line, in keeping with Clegg’s previous despatch box views on the war?
Again Alastair you have hit the nail on the head with Cameron looking the part but on closer inspection the cracks start to appear. Having just read Tony Blair’s The Journey and Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli its clear that leadership and strategy make or break occupants of Number 10. With Cameron we have a politicain lacking experience who has been catapulted to the forefornt of British politics because he looks and sounds good. Future historians may welll look back and note how Cameron had a media strategy but no economic strategy. used the big society gimmick as a cover while he wasted social provision and undermined the strategeic defence of the west with his “no gun boat” diplomacy. He doesnt seem to realise that without the ability to project Anglo American athority the world will start to look to China & Co for leadership and that will impact on freedom, poverty and ultimately British jobs. At present he has purpose as the man dealing with the deficit but after that he will need more than a steady supply of gimmicks and sound bites if he wants to be rememebered as a good PM let alone a great one.
Still on the subject what Mr Cameron said at PMQs yesterday.
The US had half a dozen reasons to attack Iraq. WMD was only one of them.
According to Iraq Options Paper (March 8, 2002) despite sanctions Iraq continues to develop WMD, although our intelligence is poor. The paper also said that there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD.
According to the Downing Street Memo (minutes of a meeting on July 23, 2002) C (= head of SIS) stated that military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
The verdict of the Butler report was that doubt has been cast on the quality of intelligence assessments given to ministers and officials. There was weakness in the way MI6 carried out its checks on sources. Information from another country´s intelligence agency on Iraq production of biological and chemical agents were seriously flawed.
The Hutton report told that the 45-minute claim in the Iraq dossier was based on a report received by the intelligence services that they believed to be reliable. And that the central allegation made by Andrew Gilligan in his BBC report was unfounded.
Former diplomat Carne Ross has claimed that government intentionally and substantially exaggerated the threat from Saddam. According to him this process was gradual and proceeded by accretion and editing from document to document in a way that allowed those participating to convince themselves that they were not engaged in blatant dishonesty.
What conclusions can we draw from all this? It seems to me that there are two possibilities. Either something about which we are not yet aware happened in 2002 that increased the threat from Saddam. Or Tony Blair did not lie but exaggerated the evidence for something he believed to be true when he said that Saddam was “a current and serious threat”.
As for the Tories, they were shown intelligence and they also got information from their friends in Washington. After that they came to same conclusion as Mr Blair.
I agree with Graham Mellor.
Cameron was ‘on record’ laying the ground during PMQ’s yesterday and distancing his party from their support for the war (he wasn’t reading from a script for nothing) and has been attempting to do that for some time, it’s just a case of searching out the right circumstances and weasel words to achieve it.
I suspected his intention was to attain the ‘we were mislead’ status before the last election, but now, in cahoots with the Dems it will suit his purpose better to have that established for the next GE and conduct it as two anti war parties fighting pro war Labour.
If challenged now, how many Tory MP’s would still confirm their support for the war?
I gained an interesting insight into Government “strategic” thinking yesterday when I attended a Sure Start Centre for my first round of Childminding training. My tutor went to great lengths to explain that most of the documentation she gave out would be out of date shortly, the reason being that the new Government do not want to talk about “safeguarding children” anymore, but go back to “child protection”. The reason it was changed to “safeguarding” by the Labour Government is highly significant. It allowed potential for better inter-agency work covering a broader range of child related issues to be covered. A good example is a friend of mine who has a very severely autistic son. Her other younger child is not at risk of abuse, but he is at risk at times from his brothers’ behaviour. So there are regular multi agency safeguarding meetings to support the family. Thus far, the younger boy has been given a placement at a creche during school holidays when his brother is at home and his father at work. And when dad is home, the couple do the safeguarding strategies together.
I really hope that safeguarding as it now stands will not resort back to a very, very narrow remit concerned solely with abuse. Abuse is a crucial issue, but many children who need some form of safeguarding are not abused. Are we about to close the door on them? Is that the “strategy”? The other part of the strategy not thought about is the cost to local governments. Lincolnshire County Council are being forced to cut millions, but now have to pay for ALL of their child services based literature to be re-printed, with new logos on etc, saying child protection, not safeguarding. What a dire and dreadful waste of resources that could be going to people in need, not on sheets of paper.
Meanwhile. I also heard while at the Sure Start Centre the news I had been fearing and that I will end up being chained to railings for if need be. These precious, precious Sure Start Centres are under severe threat. I heard briefly on the ITN news this morning that local authorities are claiming that up to 80% of them will close.
What I really fear about Cameron is not that he not only suffers from trait 2 as described, but that he honestly does not give a toss about normal people, familes, children. He ignores us at his great peril.
Pathetic class war, the last refuge of the spiteful loser.
Bet you’re married to a Campbell……
Yes, difficult choices need to be made – but budget cuts don’t have to mean a slash and burn policy on public services. Compare the choices made by the coalition with those made by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) yesterday as they unveiled their draft budget in response to the CSR.
With inflation WAG are facing a 12% revenue budget cut over the next four years for services like health, education and local government, as well as a 41% reduction in capital funding.
They have looked at the evidence and the likely impact of the cuts they may make and decided, however, to protect as far as possible health, social services, child poverty initiatives and education and to retain universal benefits not available in England such as free prescriptions, free school breakfasts for primary school children and free bus passes for older people.
I know which choice I prefer.
When you consider that the majority of military personnel, right down to the ordinary squaddie on the ground, will have voted for the Conservatives because they believe (or are brainwashed into thinking) that the Conservatives always give the MoD more money (and Labour don’t?) this 7% reduction in Defence spending must all come as a bit of a shock! I suspect they are still coming to terms with it, and can’t quite believe what they have done.
No problem – that’ll be a “yes” to paying for the royal wedding from the public purse, then?
I’ve just found this articles as I’m intrigued by Cameron’s leadership style based on his response to the recent riots in the UK (August 11) He went for the blame option, rather than the “this is a minority, most UK citizens are appalled, we must not let this colour the reputation of our country” approach taken by other world leaders. It is interesting that Blair has admitted that the blame technique scores short term political points but is not good for policy.
If you look at Obama’s speech at the Tuscon Memorial after the shootings he is perhaps a little sentimental for UK audiences but he reassures and focuses on the positive aspects of life amid the tragedy. He talked about healing and compassion
It will be interesting to see which technique works best in the long term.