This is an extract from today’s Sun newspaper. I think it’s important that everyone reads it regardless of political affiliation. See David Cameron’s 10 point plan for Britain:
UPDATE:
1. See Financial Times for their take on the 10 point plan.
2. Liberal Conspiracy on Cameron’s typical family.
19 comments ↓
thanks, looks good to me.
So a simplist populist campaign for right wing media.
[...] Tom Watson points out, politicos of all colours should read Dave’s 10 pledges, laid out in a newspaper* [...]
Oh, that’s great! I can sleep easy tonight, knowing that if Cameron wins the next election, the country will be in safe hands…
Duh!
Magistrates already have the power to sentence people for up to 12 months in quite a few circumstances. I’m an ex-magistrate and I’ve done it. See http://tinyurl.com/y92lgb4
No. 10 looks like a really significant spending commitment. Our jails are crammed to overflowing. I wonder how they plan to pay for that…
[...] David Cameron told the Sun his essential manifesto. It had been shamelessly ripped by Tom Watson — Malcolm values his delicate membranes too much to handle the real [...]
[...] pop over to Tom Watson’s blog, where you’ll find a copy of David Cameron’s ‘10 Key Pledges‘ for the upcoming General Election, much of which the FT’s Westminster blog has already [...]
It’ll look mysteriously different in The Mail, The Dully Tele & etc.
It’s the Chameleon effect other leaders cannot emulate.
Chameleon, who escaped expulsion from Eton for smoking pot, will give Head Teachers final say in exclusions. H word: Hypocrite. So rich kids will escape while . . . .
Chameleon: Anyone carrying a craft knife in their satchel will be imprisoned.
He says he will cut corporation tax. It is still lower than under Mrs T, he just wants to build profits for his foreign billionaire backers.
Chameleon SAYS he wants to cut the number of MPs by 10%. Where does this figure come from? A PR handbook: he can say he will decimate them.
Interesting Chameleon wants to copy Straw’s Bill of Rights Don’t remember him offering any support or suggestions when Jack Straw mooted it.
http://twitter.com/Quietzapple
PRPRPRPR Chameleon.PR
1. At what cost to the average salary?
2. Because everyone on incapacity benefit is shirking right?
3. What ‘traditional liberties’? Be specific. And why is the current Act weak?
4. Quangos I agree with. Football Licensing Authority and its Chief Executive John De Quidt first please.
5. Why does this need to be from the state?
6. We will punish single parents (mothers). So thats Gordon and Dave in agreement on one thing.
7. Cost?
8. Thats two pledges. And define ‘protect’.
9. Whoopee. Forward thinking as always.
10. We will reduce the already low police accountabilty even further.
I see fox-hunting didn’t make it.
[...] gang rape. With the shepherd on his side, Cameron proceeded to woo the sheep, publishing his 10 key pledges in The Sun on [...]
The fox hunting pledge, over which he would have little choice because an overwhelming majority of Tory Mps would favour reintroduction, is a running sore.
There are more vegetarians and Brits sentimental about vermin than there are Countryside Alliance folk who will be swayed by such a promise.
And UKIP would act no differently to the Tories.
1. Living in Scotland, this won’t affect me (our council tax has been frozen for a while, now). However, I’d be concerned about how much real positive effect it has when councils are downright terrible at managing tight budgets. Cuts will be made, and usually not management consultancy fees.
2. Yawn. Who’s going to do that? The benefits system is a maze of forms and assessments and more forms and staff who are empire-building or simply. don’t. care. The people who need incapacity benefit often can’t get it because of the ridiculous hoops that need to be jumped through, while those who are gaming the system make a mockery of it.
3. Hilarious, frankly. The only thing wrong with the Human Rights Act is that it hasn’t caused the editor of the Daily Mail to keel over in a fit of apoplexy. “Britain’s traditional liberties” is a meaningless phrase, in any case.
4. Yes, that’s what we need—LESS representation!
5. I’ve never seen anything so transparent in my life.
6. Shrinking economy, and they’re going to reduce taxation revenue? What about a wholesale reform of the taxation system? No? Just benefits for the couples who choose to marry? No mention of civil partnerships, here. Will they qualify? If not, why the hell not? Moreover, with divorce rates as high as they are, should we really be encouraging couples to marry when they otherwise wouldn’t?
7. Spend, don’t save. “That is vital for the recovery”. I’m glad Gorgeous George has the answer to our woes. Genius.
8. That’s… it? Wow.
9. Yes, Europe’s bad. Tidying up several decades of legislation’s bad, too.
10. Ah, tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
Here are some hints:
a) if you want to ensure a teenager spends the rest of their life in and out of prison, show zero tolerance towards them.
b) prisons are full to beyond breaking point, and there are some shocking abuses of the system going on.
c) magistrates already can, as pointed out above.
d) what’s Crazy Dave’s plan for equalising the balance between “rehabilitation” and “punishment” that any sort of sentence is supposed to maintain? without the former, the latter is just worthless bile-filled vengeance.
Things That Are Curiously Absent:
1. ID cards/National ID Register
2. PFI and one-sided outsourcing contracts
3. Hunting
4. Gay rights
5. Poverty
6. Standards in state-sponsored education; dealing with SEBD; inclusion
7. University education: funding, alternatives, etc.
8. The white-collar skills shortage
9. Our approach to terrorism (pre-2001 vs. post-2001)
10. Trident
So, when’s Labour’s 10-point plan appearing? August 2010?
#8 “protect the NHS budget”
Let’s be clear about this. The “pledge” is for *two years only*. This means that Cameron will cut the NHS budget in year three. NHS finance officers know this. The ones that I have spoken to are already planning for a severe cut in two years time, and their response is to try and save some money in the first two years so that they can use the surplus to cushion the very unpleasant blow of the scheduled Cameron cuts in their budgets. This means that in practical terms, under Cameron, there will be cuts from day one in NHS services.
Also, both Osborne and Lansley have said that the pledge is not a guarantee. They have both said that the ring fence “depends on what Osborne sees when he gets to read the books” which is nonsense because the public accounts are public, but it does give Cameron the ability to announce soon after the next election that “the accounts are so bad that we will have to cut the NHS”. They are not to be trusted with something as important as the NHS.
Nothing about climate change policy. Remember the new green tree Cameron planted when he took over? There is the smell of sulfur in the air.
I wonder what line he would take on tax havens?
The Tory billionaires who bankroll the Tories (Laidlaw has dropped out because he feared he was embarrassing Chameleon) and the media barons are tax exiles for the most part.
I think we should be told . . . Oh, alrighty, lied to on this topic.
Well, Tom, d’you think you can get an answer?
Thats not 10 it’s 11 there are two on number 8. he does not give any pledges to older people so not to impressed here. NHS just squeezed in as after thought?
[...] (And readers may also be interested to note that abolishing the 1998 Act was pledge 3 of his 10 key pledges for readers of The Sun). [...]
[...] The Conservatives’ manifesto position was unequivocal: “To protect our freedoms from state encroachment and encourage greater social responsibility, we will replace the HRA with a UK bill of rights.” Cameron explained that this was needed “so that Britain’s laws can no longer be decided by unaccountable judges”. Indeed, famously, number three of Cameron’s “10 key pledges” in the Sun was getting rid of the HRA. [...]
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