Clueless Cameron has never considered the true impact of his cuts – until now

Stupid David Cameron pulls a stupid face. He's probably just realised how stupid his letter to Oxfordshire Council Council really was. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Stupid David Cameron pulls a stupid face. He’s probably just realised how stupid his letter to Oxfordshire Council Council really was. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

David Cameron will go down in history as the British Prime Minister who was so out-of-touch with the impact of his own policies that the leader of his local council – who is a member of the same political party – had to spell it out to him “as if to a slow learner”.

Now, Cameron’s letter of protest to Oxfordshire County Council has prompted the Labour Party to accuse him of hypocrisy – supporting harsh cuts while pretending not to know their implication for the country.

In fact, it is more likely that he is just plain stupid – but neither explanation excuses him for what he has done.

Here’s Guardian columnist (and fellow Mid Wales resident) George Monbiot on the latest blunder of the Stupid Party:

In leaked correspondence with the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council (which covers his own constituency), David Cameron expresses his horror at the cuts being made to local services. This is the point at which you realise that he has no conception of what he has done.

Cameron complains that he is “disappointed” by the council’s proposals “to make significant cuts to frontline services – from elderly day centres, to libraries, to museums. This is in addition to the unwelcome and counter-productive proposals to close children’s centres across the county.” Why, he asks, has Oxfordshire not focused instead on “making back-office savings”? Why hasn’t it sold off its surplus property? After all, there has been only “a slight fall in government grants in cash terms”. Couldn’t the county “generate savings in a more creative manner”?

Explaining the issue gently, as if to a slow learner, the council leader, Ian Hudspeth, points out that the council has already culled its back-office functions, slashing 40% of its most senior staff and 2,800 jobs in total, with the result that it now spends less on these roles than most other counties. He explains that he has already flogged all the property he can lay hands on, but would like to remind the prime minister that using the income from these sales to pay for the council’s running costs “is neither legal, nor sustainable in the long-term since they are one-off receipts”.

As for Cameron’s claim about government grants, Hudspeth comments: “I cannot accept your description of a drop in funding of £72m or 37% as a ‘slight fall’.”

Again and again, he exposes the figures the prime minister uses as wildly wrong. For example, Cameron claims that the cumulative cuts in the county since 2010 amount to £204m. But that is not the cumulative figure; it is the annual figure. Since 2010, the county has had to save £626m. It has done so while taking on new responsibilities, and while the population of elderly people and the numbers of children in the social care system have boomed. Now there is nothing left to cut except frontline services.

Have you ever wondered how the prime minister sleeps at night? How can he live with himself after imposing such gratuitous pain upon the people of this nation? Well now, it seems, you have your answer: he appears to be blissfully unaware of the impact of his own policies.

Source: David Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how deep his cuts go. This letter proves it | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Amazingly, the stupidity does not even end there. In a related Guardian article, a stupid spokesman for stupid David Cameron said, stupidly: “There is still significant scope for sensible savings across local government to be made by back-office consolidation, disposing of surplus property and joining up our local public services; we will be discussing with Oxfordshire how this can be taken forward to help protect frontline services.”

What part of “the council has already culled its back-office functions” is in a foreign language to this stupid spokesman for the Stupid Party? What part of the information that the council “has already flogged all the property” available to it? What local public services does he envisage “joining up” – waste collection and adult social care, perhaps?

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28 thoughts on “Clueless Cameron has never considered the true impact of his cuts – until now

    1. Florence

      But what or when will the tipping point be reached? Hopefully Osborne has painted himself into such a tight corner, with his so-called “clever” politics, and his base nature will prevent him from a climb-down, perhaps, oh perhaps it will be soon. There are millions out there in harms way, to join the millions already who have had a good kicking by these political thugs.

      1. NMac

        The person making the complaint is also one Tony, so he must sick of his fellow cuts. Damn, I’ve missed the letter out again.

    2. Daniel Margrain

      I think we are beginning to see the impacts the cuts are having on many grass roots blue collar and lower middle income Tories who voted for them in the last election. Even some Tory councilors are complaining that working tax credit cuts are impacting on them personally.

  1. Daniel Margrain

    I take issue with the contention Cameron is stupid. It’s been clear for a very long time that the Tories are ideologically embedded to getting rid of the welfare state and using the cover of austerity to do it.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      Sure, but his failure to acknowledge the effect that his policies must produce indicates a lack of intelligence.

  2. thelovelywibblywobblyoldlady

    I’ve always thought CaMORON was “a bit lacking in the top storey” as my nanna used to say. I don’t think he’s ever had a rational thought, he is simply fed a line by the Whitehall mandarins and that is why he can never give a coherent answer to questions he is asked. I hope that more and more incidences like this will illustrate to everyone, that he and his like are not fit to run the country.

  3. markg

    This Richard head is in one because his council closed the petting farm he used to visit in times of stress. The Torys are true interbred scum. LOL

  4. David Bacon

    Does Cameron realise that when a council sells its property and gets some money for it, it can only spend that money once? Often properties are irreplaceable and should remain in the public domain. The Bulllingdon brat is a sandwich short of a party. And all that money that his poor parents spent on his education. Shame.

  5. digger

    why didnt Ian Hudspeth mention mass immigration as a new responsibility and a drain on resources as well as more old people and children in the social care system can he not see the elephant in the room?

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      Immigration is a boost to the economy, not the drain you seem to believe it is.
      However, it is also an exposed nerve on Cameron, so mentioning it might have produced a result. Who knows?
      In any case, Cameron has – wrongly – offered help from ministerial advisers so there’s not much else he could have offered.

      1. Barry Davies

        I’m not sure that flooding the bottom end of the jobs market with labour thus driving down the true value of incomes and increasing the number of unemployed, which is covered up by sanctions, is ultimately good for the nation as a whole although it might make a few people richer at the top. It certainly costs more in social costs which never get taken into account when people discuss the economy.

      2. Mike Sivier Post author

        That may have been true a few years ago but action has been taken to put an end to it.
        Are you saying the Conservatives have failed in this aim?

  6. roybeiley

    Dopey Dave is like the Billy Whizz of politics. You see him here, you see him there. You see the fool just about everywhere. No wonder he doesn’t join up the dots. He is too busy trying to dabble in everything that he forgets what he said before.

  7. shaunt

    On BBC evening news for the south-west on Tuesday, a lady from a charity (I think it was Scope) was asked what could be done to improve the provision of social services by local councils. Her first sentence contained the line ‘joining up our local public services’, but she quickly raced onto – however, what we need most is adequate funding. I got the feeling the last clause about adequate funding was quickly put in before the interviewer could cut her off. There’s a term used in the USA when Fox news and the Republicans jointly lead narratives with same key phrase – sorry I’ve forgotten what that term is Mind you if Murdoch gets his hands on the BBC I’m sure we’ll get to know the term all too well!

    shaunt

    1. Barry Davies

      If you ever are in the position to talk to the televisual news don’t expect everything lousy to be broadcast, and don’t be surprised at creative editing to make it sound like you said something the editor preferred you to say. Been there done that got a T shirt.

      1. Shaun

        From Shaunt. Thanks Barry, I suspect if I met a main stream my main problem would be not swearing when referring to government ministers and trying to throttle the journalist. Noam Chomsky is very good on media propaganda – gave a good talk at the British Library on the topic of propaganda.

  8. Chris

    He doesn’t care, he only needed the votes of 24% of stupid people on the electoral register to get a majority government … he’s laughing at you, the 76% who didn’t vote for him.

  9. shaun

    Whether Cameron is stupid or lacking in human decency is difficult to discern It’s not made easier by the exceptionally privileged background and upbringing he had. Such privileged education can make their recipients ignorant of how the majority live and boast the child’s academic achievements above those who have to learn in classes of 30 or more pupils; as opposed to 6 or 7 at Eton. There is also the best nannies money can attain. Put simply it’s as difficult for us to understand his upbringing as it is for him to grasp the real world the other 95% of the population live in. So stupid or inhumane is difficult to know, but what is certain is that there’s something missing in his mental capacities that make him most unsuited to rule Britain – though while at Eton he would have been brought up to rule, as a genetic right. Hence his willingness to demonize and stigmatize Britain’s population. The plebs as he would have been taught to think of us.
    shaunt

  10. mrmarcpc

    Many of the tory front bench should be removed, aren’t fit for office at all, none of them know a bloody thing, common sense isn’t in their DNA, time they were gone!

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