Cameron’s ‘spineless’ jibe is doing Labour a favour
The last spineless character David Cameron met was the jellyfish that stung him in April 2014 – https://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/jellyfish-in-intensive-care-after-coming-into-contact-with-david-cameron/
The label could equally be attached to Cameron himself; he was notoriously unable to sack Iain Duncan Smith from his post as Work and Pensions Secretary in 2012.
David Cameron probably thought he was dealing a death-blow to Labour in Scotland by telling Gaelic Tories that Ed Miliband was “weak and spinless” – and willing to do a deal with the SNP.
In fact, he may have given Scottish Labour a boost.
Think about it; the SNP has been telling everyone that Labour in Scotland is pointless and that the SNP should have the people’s vote – while simultaneously saying they’ll happily do a deal with UK Labour that will put Mr Miliband into Downing Street. They’ve been tying themselves in knots over this for weeks.
Labour backbenchers have been saying they’re suspicious of any such deal, as the SNP would ransom key policy votes in order to gain an advantage for its own aim – independence – and would probably abandon any alliance at the worst possible time for Labour.
Now Cameron comes blundering in, saying things like, “they would wrap themselves in the flag one minute, and the next be prepared to work with a bunch of people who would rip up that flag given half a chance”.
So now, nobody in the Labour Party wants to make a deal with the SNP!
This means anybody in Scotland who votes SNP must do so in the knowledge that their party will not have any say in the future running of the UK.
If they don’t want another five years of Conservatives – and the Scots really don’t want that – but they do want a say in the way the UK is run, then they’ll be far better-off voting Labour.
BLAM! Cameron, shooting his mouth off again, manages to hit himself in the foot. Again.
Incidentally, if Ed Miliband is weak, how does Cameron account for his achievement in changing government policy on bombing Syria – from the Opposition benches? Mr Miliband is the only Opposition leader to achieve this feat in living memory. That is strength – not weakness.
If Ed Miliband is weak, how did he manage to force energy companies into cutting their tariffs? Clearly they believed he was serious in his threat to freeze energy bills.
If he is weak, how did he manage to stand up to the right-wing press – particularly over the smear campaign against his father – but also in general?
If Mr Miliband is weak, why is it Cameron who has lowered himself to name-calling?
He also told the one-day Scottish Tory Conference (presumably there aren’t enough of them to stretch the agenda any further) a bunch of lies about the benefit cap and Universal Credit making work pay when in fact it is depressing wages.
“We’ve won for Britain before – now let’s win for Britain again,” he said – another lie.
Cameron has never won a general election. He needed the help of the Liberal Democrats to get into office last time.
He’ll need a lot more help than that to win a majority this time.
Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
analysing the silly things politicians say.
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Thank you Mike,
I have enjoyed your article immensely. Unlike Tory lies, propaganda, and name calling, it is so accurate.
If the British electorate allow this lot of spineless jerks back in then they deserve all they get and that goes for those that don’t vote as well as misguided Tories.
Oh really. Politics is the art of the possible.
Labour will do a deal with the SNP
as Labour and Tories are only neck and neck in predicted seats gained,
with most of England’s election prediction map being blue Tory.
Could Labour please stop wasting time on this negative campaigning (that never works in the UK and actually generates votes for the opposition),
and focus on what Labour offers people in England,
where the bulk of the best Labour seats will be.
Plaid Cymru will also be useful to pad out a Labour government.
Otherwise, we get a hung parliament with the Tories on the same number of seats as Labour, and the Tories continue to rule.
The Lib Dems are the gone party.
Give up on Scotland and focus money and effort on England, please.
If Labour will not grant me a state pension in 2015
then Labour loses over 1 million grey vote of men and women aged 60-64
on some kind of welfare,
on benefits being lost more and more each day,
and equally liable to sanctions and workfare, even if disabled and / or chronic sick.
And on the working poor 60-64 on tax credits, being lost more and more.
The state pension is payable if remain in work or not.
See under my petition, in my WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT section, at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
There’s a long way to go until the election and a lot may change!
Labour is not carrying out any negative campaigning. The Tories are – against Labour. The SNP and the Greens have – against Labour. But Labour itself – no.
You see, you’re right that negative campaigning generates votes for the opposition.
Even sites like this, who may be considered to be negatively campaigning by supporters of other parties, are really only pointing out the flaws in their claims.
There is absolutely no reason to give up on Scotland and I wonder why you suggest it.
Labour may not be carrying out negative campaigning down your way Mike but it’s a different matter in Scotland. They vote down any SNP policy even if it used to be their own while at the same time adopting other SNP policies and claiming them as their own. Maybe negative is the wrong word; more like confused, to give them the benefit of the doubt.
That’s not negative campaigning, Joan.
Negative campaigning is, for example, when the SNP said Labour was the same as the Tories because Labour agreed to follow Tory spending cuts. This wasn’t true, of course. Labour had agreed to follow Coalition spending limits for the first year of a Labour government (for reasons I have explained here many times), and it turns out that the SNP would also follow the same spending limits, if it were in a position to do so.
Alternatively, look at David Cameron’s claim that Ed Miliband is “weak and spineless”, based on the possibility that Labour might go into some sort of alliance with the SNP.
Positive campaigning would involve both those parties – the SNP and the Conservatives – telling the electorate about their own policies. This would be extremely difficult, certainly in David Cameron’s case, as none of the Conservative Party’s current policies would be popular with the voting public.
What negative campaigning. I think you have made an error in your post. If anyone is doing so it is Tories not Labour. Labour has been setting the agenda if anything. I’ve heard no positive policies from the Tories. All I have heard is how they are going to take away from the ‘feckless’ unemployed and young people
“This means anybody in Scotland who votes SNP must do so in the knowledge that their party will not have any say in the future running of the UK.”
I don’t think this follows. Surely if they have MPs, they have a say, whether they’re in government or not.
Did Labour have a say in the imposition of the Bedroom Tax, or the imposition of privateers on the NHS, or the welfare uprating cap?
No.
In the end, Labour’s vote made no difference to the decisions that were made, because the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition has a majority, and in a whipped vote, the parties with the majority always win.
That is how your democracy works.
If you didn’t know before, well, you know now.
What are you going to do about it?
Yet you came Ed Miliband was able to influence key policies whilst in opposition – you can’t have it both ways!
I refer only to established historical fact.
I seem to recall that the vote on Syria was a conscience vote, and Mr Miliband put up such a good argument against taking bombers to Syria that he won the support of the House of Commons. That doesn’t contradict anything I said about whipped votes.
Obviously, energy companies make their own decisions (at least until Parliament passes legislation). Parliament has not passed legislation – they were reacting to the promise of an energy price freeze when Labour comes into office.
Would you like me to continue? I think the point is made.
I don’t think anyone takes any notice of what he says anyway, so I wouldn’t bank on it having any effect either way.
Of what who says?
Cameron. Even most Tories think he just spouts PR gibberish. Nobody takes anything he says seriously.
Mike apologies he is nothing more than a spoilt brat wants his own way and suffers severe hormonal problems equivalent to PMT sorry do not want to sound like a chauvinist but he has had is own way since he was a baby. Given his schooling he takes great pleasure in hurting others, gone on for years. Go back several hundred years and examine the “Jeunesse dovee” who put their rulers to the guillotine and I do not feel it will be much longer until the UK mounts a similar revolt, enough is enough and Greece is bringing this out in the open and I feel for their desperation. I need my tea now so must go.
Interesting post, Mike. I think you’re right that Cameron’s foot seems to have got in his mouth again, and that this will likely benefit Labour in Scotland. I also think you’re right that Labour won’t WANT to do a deal with the SNP; nevertheless, if that is what it takes to keep the Tories out of office, there is surely little doubt that they WILL do so. In that scenario, I wonder what concessions Mr. Miliband will be prepared to make.
There’s the catch-22 again, right there. If he makes any concessions at all, they will be in the direction of Scottish independence and he will be very ill-advised to make them; the Scottish people voted against it and it would place the rest of the UK under the Tory heel (unless enough is done to wipe them out electorally, first).
Unlikely. Jim Murphy and his band in “Scottish Labour” are to the right of Cameron, and will torpedo any chance of SNP voters wanting to vote Labour
That makes a nice story, but it’s all it is. Very few people indeed are to the right of Cameron and Murphy isn’t one of them.
Which way are you planning to vote in May?
And furthermore, John Clay, where in this left/right scale do you suppose the SNP are? I find it hard to credit that a nationalist party should be considered other than right wing themselves.