David Cameron
David Cameron is the current leader of the British Conservative Party, the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. At 43, he became the youngest person to become Prime Minister since 1812 when Lord Liverpool took up the post at the age of 42.
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[edit] Personal life
He's very much an upper class twat. He attended a private school rather than state schools, stacked his shadow cabinet with private school graduates, and he's even descended from an illegitimate child of King William IV, who incidentally loved his illegitimate children. Cameron is married, with a son and daughter - his oldest son died in February 2009 from a combination of cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
His lackluster parenting skills are a minor running gag among the press. In 2012, he accidentally left his daughter at the pub where they had been dining, only realizing after they'd returned home. There was also his wife's unplanned pregnancy in the run-up to the election; he swears he doesn't understand it either.
[edit] Leader of the Opposition
Relatively young and big on social media, Cameron took power in 2005 via posturing himself as a "progressive conservative," as the right-wing analogue to the centrist-right Tony Blair. [1] After winning the party leadership in December 2005, he "stepped up his modernization drive," indicating to move away from the old Tory platform of standing up for big business, scrapping (subsidized) private healthcare, and generally part from Thatcherite principles.[2] He vowed to make people "feel good about being Conservatives again" and said he wanted "to switch on a whole new generation," which he started by banning lavish parties, pools, spending, and consumption among all members of the Conservative Party.
He has also placed emphasis on his Party's previously vague environmental credentials[3] by cycling to work while a car carrying his papers follows him.[4] His stated desire to "stand up to big business" began with opposing a law that would make businesses more socially and environmentally accountable.[5] Nonetheless, he seems to have maintained the climate change targets introduced by Tony Blair since entering office.
To be fair, he's not that ideological of a person, Catholic or not. He practices social liberalism, supports ethnic diversity (ironic, we know), appears open to granting more autonomy to Scotland and Wales, seems interested in giving self-rule to England, and passed gay marriage as Prime Minister despite vehement protests by the more homophobic members of his party. Still, he quickly drew arched brows for his Euroscepticism, and supports a referendum on a possible British exit of the European Union.
[edit] The Election
The good people of Britain were not impressed. While all media outlets predicted Cameron would take the Conservatives to a comfortable majority, the voters apparently thought he wasn't sincere in his modernization, or felt he was too bland, and delivered hung parliament in May 2010. He pulled a Dewey by assuming that he was guaranteed victory so long as he didn't say anything stupid, which instead just convinced the voting public that he had no real policies. "Agreeing with Nick" certainly wrecked his chances too.
So, hung parliament? Too volatile for any party to experience in Britain, so he recruited Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister and moved into a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Clegg could not have formed a government with Labour, but remained kingmaker anyway, and presented himself as a tempering voice for the Conservatives.
[edit] Prime Minister
Those promises didn't fall through. Anchored by George Osborne, Cameron unveiled an austerity program targeting lower-class women, minorities, students, immigrants, and people with disabilities (despite having a disabled child himself).[6] Many are kicking themselves for allowing "business as usual" under a Tory government yet again. However the current austerity has lead to the UK having the fastest growth in Europe and massive rises in employment.
His domestic policies are four-fold. First, let's tackle education. Is he as horrid as the GOP for their outright hatred of education and promotion of bullshit rather than facts? No, but it is as close to a privatization as we've seen to date in the United Kingdom.
The Personal Independence Payment, which replaced the Disability Living Allowance, denied benefits to disabled citizens and required them to look for work; work they could not do because of their disability. The Education Act of 2011 abolished the General Teaching Council for England, the Training and Development Agency for Schools, the Qualification and Curriculum Development Agency, the Young People's Learning Agency for England, and the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, and transferred all of their powers to the Secretary of State; centralizing authority to an ideological branch who is not interested in free and fair education. It restricts the ability for students to report on allegations made against teachers, allows the school staff to commit Stop and Frisk on their fellow staffers and students, even if they are under the age of criminal responsibility.
Teachers are also given the power to examine data files on electronic devices and delete them if they "believe" there is good reason to do so. All new teachers in England to be required to serve an induction period conducted by the Secretary of State. New schools may not be built until approved by the Secretary of State. reduces the number of different categories of governors that must be elected or appointed to a school's governing body, whilst Section 39 makes provision for the procedure to dissolve the governing body of a single school within a wider federation of schools should the school wish to leave the federation in order to convert to academy status. The Secretary of State even has the authority to close any school that has failed to comply with performance standards, removes the requirement of the Local Government Ombudsman to consider complaints about a school from parents and pupils, as well as strengthening the Secretary of State's power to intervene when they are of the opinion that a governing body is acting or intends to act in an unreasonable manner. Schools are no longer allowed to "promote the economic and social well being of an area." What most people remember most is the raising of tuition fees on students attending higher education.
This is your greatest insight into his mindset on education. He insists that going to private school had nothing to do with his decision to pack the shadow cabinet with his privileged fellows. He flat out deleted all mention of their education. George Osborne was not educated at St. Paul's, just "in London", Jeremy Hunt went to school "in Surrey," specifically Charterhouse, and Cheryl Gillan describes Cheltenham Ladies' College as "educated at local schools". Fellow Etonian Oliver Letwin edits out his entire youth and the man himself "worked in business and government."
There's the "Big Society," his name for the austerity program. He hiked taxes on the middle and lower class, slashed spending on social programs, and cut more taxes on the rich while turning services volunteer-run - or rather, attempting to turn, as there is no evidence that this actually happened to any great extent, and the services just withered away. He holds great passion for it, championing it as "giving from the rich to the poor." With income inequality in the UK nearly topping the developed world (and with just as sluggish economic growth), it's not really good policy.
Taking a page from Bill Clinton, Cameron is now trying to end welfare as we know it. Thanks to Osborne, we now have the dreaded "bedroom tax," or Welfare Reform Act 2012, which reduces the benefits paid to claimants if they are deemed to have too much living space in the property they are renting while completely ignoring that these people are often unable to find smaller accommodation (typically due to the Tories' earlier right to buy policy all but dissolving the remaining social housing stock). Stay at home mothers are stripped of their benefits for their "lifestyle" choices (i.e. not being working mothers), as well.
He sold off thousands of houses over to the private sector, as well, and in the 2015 campaign, promised to extend the "right to buy" (previously instituted under the Thatcher government, and allowing tenants of council-owned social housing to buy their home at a knock-down price) to homes owned by housing associations - which means that not only will a new government under Cameron sell off the rest of what is a damn-near skeletal social housing supply, they will also sell off houses that *the government does not actually own*, given that housing associations are independent NGOs. To own a house, the private sector will charge extortionate fees to change stuff as simple as a light bulb. Social housing, the transfer of national housing stock into the hands of private landlords, is another one of Cameron's most punishing policies. [7]
[edit] Anti-transparency
Now, Cameron did remove the Identity cards under Tony Blair, but kept the anti-terrorism program intact, allowing the government to hound whistleblowers over the government's alliance with the American surveillance program.
David Miranda, an outspoken dissident against the intelligence apparatus of his country, cataloged encrypted files, including an external hard drive containing 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents, "in order to assist the journalistic activity of Glenn Greenwald." This included personal information that would allow staff to be identified, including those deployed overseas. Miranda was promptly detained and questioned by the Cameron government, who confiscated Miranda's computer and other electronic devices that attempted to blow the whistle on the extent of the British surveillance program. [8] [9]
[edit] Farther than Thatcher?
Sounds like a typical Tory toff, you say. What sets him apart from the others, you wonder? What is he remembered the most over, you ask? Taking a page from the Americans and privatizing the National Health Service - something even Margaret Thatcher would not dare to do.
Under the Health and Social Care Act of 2012, Cameron removed the Secretary of Health's responsibility over the health of citizens, which the post had carried since the creation of the NHS in 1948, thereby depriving the NHS of a direct system leadership. A new executive agency for the Department of Health, called Public Health England, was established to oversee healthcare instead. Cameron abolished NHS primary care trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), and transferred between £60 billion and £80 billion of "commissioning", or health care funds, from the abolished PCTs to several hundred "clinical commissioning groups," most of which are avenues owned and run by - who else? - private insurance. Yes, Cameron is trying to turn the revered British healthcare system into a two-tier, public-private duel that strips the public of its funding in exchange for empowering the private sector. If you're Britannian, be very afraid.
[edit] James Bondage
Okay, you say, Americanization is fairly uncouth, but at least he isn't as socially conservative as the GOP, right? Well... you'd be wrong. Cameron gained international infamy for his opposition to porn and penchant for internet censorship. He tried to force internet outlets to "filter out" porn on their services - it's more complicated than that, but because he dropped the matter over widespread condemnation, it's not that important to give details. No, no, do not worry, it's not like Cameron will suddenly decide to ban a more specific form of pornography rather than generally. After such rejection, and in the face of such dissent, it was perhaps better for Cameron to, shall we say, restrain himself from targeting a certain form of pornography made famous by a book that used to be a Twilight fanfic.
Oh. Wait. Of course he would. Instead of a straight up porn filter, we now have a BDSM filter. Among the things now listed as "life-threatening," and therefore explicitly banned, are spanking, fisting, caning, strangulation, aggressive whipping, penetration by any object "associated with violence" (you know, like the dick), physical or verbal abuse (even with consent), role-playing as non-adults, physical restraint (meaning bondage), humiliation, and Urolagnia (known as "water sports").[10] The acts themselves are not banned, but the recording of these acts, and thus, the publishing of these acts and viewership of these acts on the internet, have been deemed unlawful; beware the slippery slope.
And such slippery slope has now been crossed, but not regarding sex. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks, Cameron has proposed a ban on "end-to-end encryption," which would disproportionately target social messaging medium. Services like WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Cyberdust and more would be forced to change their services to ensure they could function in the UK. The law's doubtlessly broad wording could include any encrypted service that the government finds annoying. [11] Any person who communicates using encryption or sends encrypted files would be required to provide government officials access to cryptographically-protected information. Those refusing to hand over their password could face up to two years in prison.
[edit] Gerrymandering
On the even of the May 2015 election, Prime Minister Cameron implemented straight-up voter disenfranchisement, right out of the GOP playbook. Cameron barred everyone in a household from registering on one form. Colleges are banned from registering all their students. If people arrive with proof of identity to vote, they are still not allowed to register on election day. All told, over seven million people remain unregistered, mainly young and poor – and they don’t vote Tory.
[edit] Get wrecked
In 2014, he pushed for the UK to attack Syria during its civil war. Parliament voted no, largely on the back of Ed Miliband of all people. Cameron was the first prime minister in over 100 years to lose a foreign policy vote in the House of Commons.
[edit] Religion
Cameron is an avowed member of the Church of England. He attends Church but states that his religious beliefs do not affect his politics. Cameron has also stated that his religious beliefs were challenged by the death of his disabled son, Ivan Reginald Ian, but went on to say that in many ways the experience had strengthened his beliefs.
[edit] Other stuff
- Tough on crime - except while cycling
- David Cameron looks himself up on Facebook and gets a surprise
- Obama on Cameron: "What a lightweight"
- Mastering incompetence so early is tricky. But the Tories have pulled it off
[edit] Footnotes
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For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about David Cameron. |
- ↑ Tories in Birmingham, BBC
- ↑ Cameron says he is breaking with legacy of Thatcher, The Telegraph, January 2006
- ↑ Conservatives - Environment
- ↑ No, we're not making this up
- ↑ Conservatives’ green credentials exposed
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/david-cameron-betrayed-disabled-coalition-retrogression
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/14/extending-right-to-buy-conservatives-thatcherism-social-housing
- ↑ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/19/uk-court-david-miranda-detention-legal-terrorism-law/
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/19/david-miranda-detention-lawful-court-glenn-greenwald
- ↑ Many of these banned practices involve female enjoyment, by the way.
- ↑ http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/01/13/david-camerons-plan-ban-end-end-encryption-catastrophic-internet-freedom/