Seems Dave’s old team didn’t get the memo. Here’s George Osborne’s front page:
Guido can give you Photoshop lessons, George. Meanwhile Cameron’s old comms chief Craig Oliver is also slagging off the arrangement:
This DUP deal will be unpopular in the rest of the UK – and not really solve the problem. Still only needs a few Tory rebels for chaos. https://t.co/9e7dTqXEjl
David Cameron has stuck his tuppence in with a comment that can be described as “unhelpful” at the least. With CCHQ’s strategy being to hoover up UKIP votes, his claim that a big majority would allow May to “stand up to people who want an extreme Brexit either here or in Brussels” is not entirely on message. It also plays into some Brexiteers worries that the formerly Remain-backing May is not as enthusiastic a Leaver as her current public stance would suggest. This is UKIP’s line being reinforced by Dave.
Nigel Farage was quick to jump in:
David Cameron lets the cat out of the bag. A big Tory majority softens Brexit.
May tried to rebut the line with a small revision to her standard line:
“No, the reason I called the election is that I think we need the security, the stability for five years of greater certainty to take us through Brexit and beyond.”
Guido suspects Cameron is projecting his hopes, his party is now irreversibly signed up for Brexit. There is however a kernel of truth in the idea that if May gets a big enough majority any Brexit hardliners in her own party can be safely sidelined. Though by rigging selections to exclude the likes of Daniel Hannan and David Campbell-Bannerman CCHQ is pre-empting that problem…
David Cameron is heading to Las Vegas next month to speak at an exclusive conference for hedge fund managers founded by a top ally of President Trump. Corporate delegates will pay up to $7,500-a-ticket to hear the former PM in conversation with the American financier David Rubenstein at the SALT hedge fund congress. Held over three days at the opulent Bellagio – of Ocean’s Eleven fame – Dave will speak for 35 minutes. His fee has not been disclosed…
SALT was founded by Anthony Scaramucci of investment firm SkyBridge Capital. Scaramucci was tipped for a senior Trump administration post after serving in the President’s transition team and donating during last year’s campaign. Dave “putting some hay in the barn“…
Twitter employee Joanna Geary was in the Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem last night when she bumped into the Foreign Secretary dining with an old friend. She says “I hadn’t seen David until Boris said “‘I suspect you’ll recognise my friend David’ and pointed in his direction”. Team Boris strongly deny allegations of dad dancing, though Reuters‘ Anjuli Davies alleges some standing on chairs:
UPDATE: A spokesman for Boris Johnson said: “The picture is of Boris trying to get out of a very tight seating area against the wall in the restaurant. Nearly all the other members of the group on that side had to do the same (step up and over) to get out.”
Modest advice to George Osborne from Piers Morgan on editing…
“Great columnists can make or break a paper, so hire some great ones. That means instantly firing dreary Nick Clegg, whose Standard columns are as inspiring as his broken tuition fee pledges, and hiring someone like me. Unfortunately, you can’t afford me. So go cheaper – Clarkson, Coren, or even your old mate Cameron. He’s got nothing better to do.”
I could be wrong-but at Iraq service today, it seems to me Cameron is saying something about “manifesto” and “stupid”. You decide… pic.twitter.com/ZuhYZ7F2yC
Great spot by Chris Ship – what is Cameron saying to Michael Fallon at the Iraq service yesterday? Certainly looks like the words “breaking a manifesto promise” and “stupid thing to do”. Fallon nods along. Lip-readers get in touch…
Theresa May’s spokesman has spent the morning awkwardly dodging questions about whether she believes politicians should keep their promises. The PM and Chancellor have forgotten the key lesson delivered to them by David Cameron after the 2015 election. In the days after the Tory victory, Cameron convened two meetings, one with the Cabinet and one with Tory MPs in Portcullis House. On both occasions Cameron had one overriding message – they must keep their election promises: “This document is the programme we have a mandate to deliver. All of it…we will be properly accountable. When you vote for something you get it… That is one of the most important things we can do to restore trust and faith in politics”. This was not just rhetoric, it had research behind it.
The reason Cameron was so resolute on this point was because the Tories had commissioned post-election polling from Crosby-Textor-Fullbrook asking the public what they expected of the government. CTF found that the key voter desire was for the government to deliver on promises. Whatever sophistry they now spin voters understood the Tory tax lock promise was no VAT, National Insurance or income tax rises. Theresa May was sat opposite David Cameron when he delivered his pollster’s key message whilst waving the manifesto in front of her – she is now defying Dave’s warning and allowing Hammond to trash the Tory brand…
Speaking before the election in April 2015, David Cameron could not have been clearer that a Tory government would not raise National Insurance. He vowed that the Tories would not raise taxes for working people and warned Ed Miliband would put up taxes:
“I make this pledge, that if you elect me as your Prime Minister there will be no increase in VAT, no increase in National Insurance, no increase in income tax… I know we can do what needs to be done without reaching into the wallets of hard working people and taking their money. So I make this pledge. I make the pledge on the card today…
Now here’s the choice: you get me, you get that guarantee about taxes. You get Ed Miliband and you’ve got someone who… would make a different cut. He would put up taxes, reach into your pay packet and cut your pay. That’s the choice.
I say working people in this country have paid enough tax. As this economy recovers I want you to be able to keep more of your own money to spend as you choose. That is the choice, take home pay going up with the Conservatives or take home pay going down because they put up your taxes with Labour.
That’s the choice, that is the choice at this election and I say let us be on the side of working people: you have paid enough tax, I’ll keep your taxes down, I’ll be cutting your taxes, you’ve paid enough, it’s time for waste in government to go, it’s time for reform of welfare, it’s not time for higher taxes on working people. That is the right choice. That is the right future for our country.”
The Tories even released this election poster:
Today, it is the Tories who are putting up National Insurance. Don’t believe the Treasury’s pathetic spin, it could not be any clearer that the Tories are breaking their election promise…
According to a tweet from the much followed EyeSpy.MP former PMs Major and Cameron were spotted lunching in the Goring Hotel dining room yesterday. The posh Belgravia venue is discreet (try the Cornish cod and lobster). Was Dave buying lunch by way of congratulations to John for his kicking of Brexiteers on Monday? There is no doubt May would have been on the menu.
Yesterday: John Major and @David_Cameron seen lunching in @TheGoring Hotel dining room yesterday.
Craig Oliver’s Remain campaign learnt “what it was like to be Ed Miliband” when you have the massed ranks of the right-wing media against you. Emily Maitlis revealed last night that David Cameron encouraged Jonathan Harmsworth to have Paul Dacre, an implacable Eurosceptic, removed as editor of the Daily Mail, after failing to charm him into pulling his punches. Maitlis speculates that when Dacre discovered this he redoubled his front page enmity towards Cameron.
Elsewhere Downing Street knew that the Express proprietor Richard Desmond was backing UKIP and Brexit every day in his papers. Cameron knew that Rupert Murdoch was also a lost cause, though he hoped that Rebekah Brooks might be able to temper The Sun’s attitude. The now Ukippy Brexit-backing Barclays-owned Telegraph was pulling its punches to an extent that confused their own journalists – many believed the CEO Murdoch MacLennan had been squared. Harmsworth (and the not to be underestimated Viscountess) were more supportive of Dave yet unwilling to guide Dacre. For the record Cameron’s attitude to Guido’s proprietor / editor in 2015 was all charm, smiles and wisecracks. In 2016 as our editorial line hardened on the referendum he turned curtly negative, sarcastic and cold. Hardly surprising…
Leave MPs are united on what they want from Brexit while Remainers are hopelessly divided and cannot agree a line. Not just the conclusion of anyone who watched yesterday’s Commons debate, this is the finding of a new survey by Queen Mary University. While there is a near consensus among Leavers on the importance of controlling immigration, Remainers are split on whether to prioritise the single market (47%) or border controls (31%). On paying into the EU budget, again there is a near consensus against among Leavers, while Remainers are divided. As Professor Anand Menon says: “Remainers are much more divided over what to prioritise – which may well make them less able to shape the debate”. A brief look at the varying positions of Anna Soubry, Chuka Umunna, Owen Smith, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and the two LibDem factions tells you much the same.
Another titbit in Philip Cowley’s survey: 70% of Labour MPs say they are now less supportive of referenda:
Chris Addison is the archetypal virtue signalling BBC lefty luvvie. Naturally, when David Cameron was appointed president of Alzheimer’s Research UK yesterday, Addison took umbrage, asking: “Imagine how much you could have helped that if you’d been Prime Minister for seven years or something”. If right-on Addison was as informed as he likes his Twitter followers to think, he would know that Cameron prioritised Alzheimer’s and dementia while in government, spent hundreds of millions on dementia research, set up the Dementia Research Institute, spent millions more on dementia care in hospitals and care homes, backed numerous dementia programmes including the 2020 Challenge and Dementia Friends, oversaw an increase in dementia diagnosis rates from 42% to 68%, hosted the first ever G8 dementia summit in 2013 and gave a major speech for Global Dementia Legacy in 2014. Perhaps Addison forgot all this. Still, at least he got some retweets.
UPDATE: The unthinkable has happened, someone on Twitter has admitted they were wrong:
@montie Done and done. Quite right. Play the ball not the man. Or at least Do Your Fucking Research. Tweet deleted and I lie chastened.
George Osborne has turned heads with his suit, jumper and trainers combo at Davos this week, complete with a white sole trendy some time in early 2016. He’s with Amal Clooney, fighting injustice in a Chanel haute couture ivory dress on sale at £9,875, styled with a pair of Paul Andrew “Escarpins en daim”, which retail at £290. David Cameron sits back and chillaxes in his natty suede boots, perhaps a new purchase paid for by his speeches in Switzerland this week. Then we have Gordon Brown, who has grown his grey locks long for a slightly Beatles feel. He’s chatting to Shakira, her Latin roots showing through her wavy honey blonde hair with sun-kissed highlights and strawberry blonde lowlights, kept healthy with sulphate-free shampoo. She also poses with Jamie Oliver, slightly out of place with his spivvy over-gelled hair and flasher’s mac. It’s the place to be seen…
Remainers, why all the moaning about UK possibly leaving Single Market? We all knew what we were voting for, sure Cameron & Osborne told us pic.twitter.com/w9wnmKOEKM
The Remoaners are claiming that Leave voters didn’t know they were voting to leave the single market – which incidentally means leaving the regulatory oversight of the European Commission – not abandoning exporting to the European market. This clip shows they can’t say Leavers didn’t know for what they were voting…
A co-conspirator who lunched at Wiltons on Jermyn Street yesterday sat a few tables away from David Cameron, meaning the former PM missed his successor’s conference speech. Dave was reportedly there just after midday, at which point Theresa May was at her lectern in Birmingham.[…] Read the rest
Philip Hammond uses a trip to Berlin to mock the Foreign Secretary:
“A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece. Wise words with some applicability to the Brexit negotiations although I try to discourage talk of “cake” amongst my colleagues.”
