"No prime minister of modern times has been so deeply rooted in the Establishment. None has been so routinely tipped for greatness. And yet few retain such an enduring air of mystery".
Comparisons between Blair and Cameron were always overblown. Unlike the Labour leader, Cameron was not temperamentally drawn to change.
"Cameron had secured for his party "the right to be heard". But having cleared its throat and stepped up to the microphone, it appeared to have nothing much to say". It was the financial crisis of 2008 that was to give Cameronism the purpose it had previously lacked.
"Cameron affects to disbelieve in class; yet his career is a testimony to its continuing power".
"Like Thatcher & Major, Cameron has seen his premiership destroyed by the European question. No issue has been more toxic for the Conservatives or more corrosive of party loyalty. It has been esp destructive for Cameron, as it played to none of his strengths & all his weaknesses"
"As he picks over the rubble of his premiership, he will know that the worst of it is that this was a self-inflicted wound. Cameron once said that he wanted to be prime minister "because I think I'd be good at it".Sadly, it is a judgement that history now seems unlikely to share"
@lewis_goodall 1. The case for televising Parliament is that voters should know what their elected representatives are saying and doing in their name, so that we can hold them to account at the ballot box.
All those involved are public officials, who are directly responsible to those outside.
2. By contrast, court cases involve private citizens - most of whom have been accused of no crime, but who may be recounting situations of extreme distress, trauma or personal embarrassment.
Those involved are accountable for their conduct, not to public opinion, but to the law.
"The next war...will leave civilization a smoking ruin and a putrefying charnel house" (Ramsay MacDonald, 19292).
A great find, illustrating a point that's often overlooked in the memory of "appeasement": that "the next war" was widely expected to end European civilization. 1/5