I find myself increasingly unsure what to think of our new Prime Minister. Little he did before taking office impressed me, but the way he pulled together the coalition and some of his early actions and comments on the likes of civil liberties meant I was at least prepared to withhold judgement. And now?
Well, he seems to be a foreign policy disaster waiting to happen every time he gets on the plane. Its not just the gaffes (schoolboy errors though they may be), there often seems to be a lack of awareness of the wider picture. His comments on Pakistan might be accurate, but in complicated context of the region I'm not sure they are helpful or display any understanding of the different pressures any government of Pakistan faces. If anything I suspect that comments like that only help to strengthen the Taliban in Pakistan. His approach seems more George W Bush than anything else, and as such he'd be better off leaving Hague to run things.
On one hand, he has modernised the conservative party on social values and the environment, without a doubt. On the other hand this week he has both targetted benefit cheats (who, in context, cost the UK taxpayer really not that much - we lose more to error than fraud and probably save more in unclaimed benefits than we pay in either), whilst simultaneously recruiting a man (Philip Green) who's tax evasion through the use of tax havens probably single-handedly accounts for almost as much money lost as all the benefit fraud combined. And now I'm thinking same old tories - its ok to rob the tax-payer as long as you're rich.
Similarly we have had much touting of the return to cabinet government and genuine discussion through the coalition (which would make a genuine and welcome change from the Blair years) and then Cameron announces off-the-cuff policy ideas about housing without any consultation with his own party, yet alone his coalition partners.
My overall impression is that he is a man who doesn't really quite know what he's doing yet in the job and is letting his inexperience show at times. I'm also not totally sure whether it is him or Osborne who is the main driving force behind the scale and pace of the cuts we are facing. BUt that's a topic i'm planning on covering some time soon.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
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