posted by Damozel |
I am just going to come straight out with it. I have a secret crush on David Cameron, leader of Britain's Tory party. I am totally naive about British politics (though I'm trying to educate myself) and when someone says "Tory," I still automatically picture Margaret Thatcher. I didn't like her, like, at all But Cameron is officially my TV boyfriend (superseding Gordon Ramsay, who superseded Ray Winston).
It all started with Prime Minister's Question Time (which Nicholas, an expat, regularly watches). My feelings for Cameron grew out of his verbal jousts with Tony Blair. I can't quote Cameron exactly, but his questions usually went like this: CAMERON: "Last week, the Home Secretary said abcd. Two days later, the Prime Minister said wxyz. Which one knew what he was talking about?" BLAIR: [Moonwalks for five minutes]. CAMERON: "All right, if the Prime Minister won't answer my first question, let's try another. Maybe the Prime Minister knows the answer to this..."
One reason I go on (shame-facedly) liking Blair despite all the reasons people tell me I shouldn't is because of the joy I experienced during PMQT watching a head of state artfully (I mean artfully compared to what I'm used to) dance around questions he was otherwise obligated to respond to. Blair and Cameron were magic together. And since David Cameron only became the leader of his party in December 2005, their time together was all too brief.
I know that most Brits won't understand how intensely I wish I had a hope of ever hearing similar repartee before the U.S. Congress. Nick certainly doesn't understand my cries of pleasure and approval during The Prime Minister's Question Time, e.g., "Well-struck, sir!" "Touche!" "A poignant riposte!" "Hahahahahaha! Well played, my friend; well played indeed!" etc.
I am sorry, British people, for this frivolous view of your politics,
which I am still learning to understand. But I think it only right to
disclose my fondness for Cameron and for his excellent website. Whenever I see his name in print, I get a little frisson.
I realize that many Brits see him differently. At The Guardian, which is unfriendly to Tories in any case, Charlie Brooker wrote:
David Cameron is an idiot. A simpering, say-anything, dough-faced, preposterous waddling idiot with a feeble, insincere voice and an irritating tendency to squat near the top of opinion polls. I don't like him. And I've got a terrible feeling he'll be prime minister one day. Brrr....
There is nothing to him. He is like a hollow Easter egg with no bag of sweets inside. Cameron will say absolutely anything if he thinks it might get him elected.... He's nothing. He's no one.
Once I got past the surprise of learning that Easter eggs in Britain have bags of sweets inside them, I have to say that I was really shocked by this. None of the many adjectives that this Brooker applies to Cameron (well, other than the "irritating tendency to squat near the top of the opinion polls") fit with what I've seen of Cameron. I personally think he's very good-looking, certainly good-looking enough for ordinary purposes. As I've been married to two Brits, I'm obviously prepossessed in favor of the British sort of good looks (which often though not always seems to involve more space between mouth and chin and between the eyes than one usually sees here and quite a lot more forehead).
As to his voice, which is the thing about him I like best....it may or may not come across as insincere to those who are better acquainted with the issues, but....feeble?
Exhibit A: Cameron asking (at something called "The Cheltenham Science Festival": "Do We Want to be the Generation that Ruined Our Planet?" . And, watching him make the case why not, you can see right there a major difference between British and American conservatives. Can I help it if the thought of a conservative who is friendly to science makes me swoon? (I admit that if he'd said "market failure" one more time, I'd have had to shut the video down, but it picked up as it went along.)
Exhibit B: Here you have "The big idea on which we'll build our whole government", which definitely makes me feel a bit squeamish. He may well be right; it's just that anything smacking of "family values" causes me to flinch reflexively. It doubtless means something completely different in Britain than it does here, but the whole speech is a bit too jam-packed with wholesome goodness to sit well on an empty stomach.
"The big idea" on which he thinks the government should be built turns out, by the way, to be "social responsibility." He might have explained how this is different from "individual responsibility," but if he did, I missed it, and this is a phrase I don't like hearing politicians use. I don't understand why politicians think "government control" (e.g., government responsibility) and "individual (or social) responsibility" can't coexist. Some things should be state-controlled to ensure (to the extent possible) uniform access to, and distribution of resources, and to allow the government maximum oversight. Some things should not. They can exist in the same universe. Woman of Mass Discussion can unfold a tale or two of privatized health care. The Crux could enlighten him about the cost of contracting out to private industry work that the government could do for much less money on its own.
Brit Spin at British Politics cruelly mocks this speech. Cameron 2--The Soundbite Strikes Back. I didn't think the speech qua speech was that bad, but of course in Britain the bar seems to be higher. They expect a lot, those Brits. They expect their politicians not only to speak in complete sentences that make sense, but to make speeches with actual substance. Not that I necessarily agree that Cameron's speech was lacking in substance....but imagine being reduced to analyzing the actual content, rather than just being able to fall back on making fun of the delivery or the unfortunate choice of words.
Anyway, I repeat: whatever you think about Cameron's politics----and just the little research I've done tells me that his politics are not my politics---you can't in fairness say his voice is "feeble."
Recently, Cameron annoyed a lot of people by suggesting that BBC Radio 1's rap songs contribute to the rising violence among young people. ""I would say to Radio 1, do you realise that some of the stuff you play on Saturday nights encourages people to carry guns and knives?" said Mr Cameron.(BBC News) Now that, I admit, could have been a lot more effectively framed. It's not a direct cause-and-effect relationship, but you could make a case that rap music sends a message that such conduct is acceptable and perhaps even normal. Of course, as this blogger suggests, you could say the same about heavy metal music and any number of films and television shows. This man, Lethal Blizzle, thinks that rap empowers kids and gives examples.
Apparently, he also has come down on stores for selling (I guess) thongs to prepubescents and for stores for not marketing fruit as aggressively as candy. This must be what he means by "social responsibility": businesses will do the right thing because it's the right thing and will give up designing and selling nasty black lace thongs to 10 year olds. (I agree they should, but unless there's a carrot I can't imagine this happening.) Meanwhile, at the Telegraph, a writer testily asks: What Will David Cameron Try to Ban Next?
It's interesting to me that people picked rap music to get upset about. I wonder if they're equally upset about his views on copyright? I would think that some of the laws he thinks are needed by (I guess) the recording industry or whoever might well have a direct impact on people who take for granted their right to, say, illegal downloads (with respect to which I do agree with him). I certainly don't see the necessity for any extension of copyright or some of the other things he's proposing. (David Cameron: A flourishing music scene plays a huge role in boosting the vibrancy of our culture) Sigh. I'm starting to realize that my affection for him may well evaporate in the chilling light of reality. Even so---I'll always have my memories of Prime Minister's Question Time.
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