Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests. James C Colins
I discussed yesterday the catastrophic consequences of David Cameron’s policy of austerity, one academic study claiming 333,000 excess deaths can be attributed to the cuts to public services and benefits inflicted by Cameron as part of his austerity package.
Needless to say, it was the poor that suffered while the rich became richer still. The hardships of austerity were for ordinary working people to endure, not the rich friends of the Tory Party.
“We often hear David Cameron say: "We're all in this together." The truth is that Mr Cameron and his cabinet of millionaires sit there in a pool of cash whilst there are over three million children in Britain living in poverty. Under the Tories, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Whether it's dinners for donors in Downing Street or giving millionaires a tax-cut, it's the same old Tories who leave all the ordinary hard-working people of this country to suffer.” (HUFFPOST: 25/01/14)
After a further five years of austerity nothing had changed:
“Rich getting richer while poor get poorer, official figures show – with ‘Brexit and benefits freeze to blame'." (Independent: 26/02/19)
Not only was Cameron (together with George Osborne) responsible for the devastating cuts to public service funding and benefit payments, but he also led us into the quagmire that was Brexit.
Whatever your views on Brexit, it has been an economic disaster for this country and the blame for this can be squarely laid at the door of David Cameron.
"Many will never forgive him for the almost offhand way he steered Britain into an unnecessary Brexit cul-de-sac, and the ramifications of his mistake continue to cast a pall over the country." (Evening Standard: 14/11/23)
The Evening Standard, is usually a Tory supporting newspaper but even they recognise that Cameron was being totally self-serving in calling for a referendum on our membership of the EU, a decision that had more to do with saving the Tory Party (and his premiership) from the consequences of a right-wing split and the rise of UKIP to Tory MP seats.
“Cameron chose to commit to a vote, not because the country’s population was clamouring for one but because a significant minority of his own MPs, many of them frustrated by the constraints of coalition, were demanding that he do so – some because they feared that UKIP would cost them their seat (or the seats of too many of their colleagues) at the next election, some because they wanted out of the European Union and were more than happy to leverage that fear to their advantage.” (ukandeu.ac.uk: Why David Cameron called the 2016 referendum – and why he lost’ : 04/10/22)
As if this were not enough, Cameron was not averse to using his political connections to potentially line his own pockets after he had resigned as PM. In 2022, MP’s condemned Cameron for lobbying on behalf of his banking employer, Greensill.
“The Treasury select committee said in July 2021 that it was inappropriate of the ex-prime minister to send 62 messages to former colleagues pleading for them to help the controversial bank, for which he worked and in which he owned stock options that could have been worth tens of millions of pounds.” (Guardian: 13/11/23)
Cameron also risked the security of this country by cosying up to China. Declaring that he was determined to make Britain Beijing’s partner of choice, he signed £40bn worth of deals with China claiming:
“What this really means is jobs, it means livelihoods, it means security.”
Whatever else it meant it did not mean security.
“China represents the "largest state-based threat" to Britain's economic security, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has told the BBC. It comes as figures show the government intervened in eight attempted takeovers of UK firms by Chinese buyers last year over national security fears.” (BBC News: 11/07/23)
It did however mean a job for David Cameron:
“Former British PM Cameron gets new job as vice-chairman of China-UK fund.” (The Straits Times: 19/12/17)
Cameron, like many Tories, is a man who, despite his patriotic rhetoric, is prepared to put the Conservative Party and his own career above the best interests of the country as a whole. He is a man of poor economic judgement, a man who acts for the benefit of his rich friends and is quite prepared to endanger our security of our nation for the short term benefit of making a few extra pounds. He is not fit to be Foreign Secretary and Rishi Sunak should never have appointed him.
