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Economist front cover mocks Cameron

May 11, 2012 8:45 am

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If a government like Cameron’s is even being mocked by the Economist, who on earth is still backing them?

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  • Brumanuensis

    So Gainsborough painted one of Cameron’s ancestors? That’s rather handy…

    • treborc1

      Worse that’s Tony Blair’s house burning.

      • Brumanuensis

        Nicely played, treborc. Although surely house should be plural?

        • treborc1

           Perhaps all of Blair homes are burning.

  • Cari_esky5

    Will we see this quote on the front page of The Sun?

  • Hugh

    “If a government like Cameron’s is even being mocked by the Economist, who on earth is still backing them?”

    Well, er, the Economist for one. From that story:

    “What has gone wrong? Less than at first appears. Mid-term slumps happen.
    Margaret Thatcher’s government once trailed Labour by 24 percentage
    points. Mr Cameron lags by around ten points. Labour’s leader, Ed
    Miliband, is still unpopular and his party has yet to regain economic
    credibility shredded during the financial crisis. Above all, Mr
    Cameron’s government has still got most of the big things right. Both
    for the country’s sake and for his own, the prime minister needs to
    refocus his government on the clear, bold message that he began with.”

    http://www.economist.com/node/21554515

    • http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

      Sure, but it’s a sign of the times that the Economist and other media organs can only maintain journalistic credibility by being critical of Cameron.
      And the crisis has only just begun.

      We can expect the Tory vote to become increasingly disaffected. A furtive shuffling towards UKIP may yet become a stampede.

      • Hugh

         The Economist is frequently critical of the Conservatives. It’s not the Mirror; it supported Blair for two elections. Yes, the Conservatives are having a hard time in the media after a poor budget and local election kicking. No, that’s not really an insight.

        • http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

          “No, that’s not really an insight.”

          Of course, as with reporting on how the Economist supports Cameron.

          But Cameron has blown himself out of the water. And his grating aloofness, detachment from real life and political inexperience are now gruesomely exposed for all to see.

          Will you jump ship and abandon your support for Cameron? If not, what has he done to deserve your continued support?

          • treborc1

            I suspect he will change if he cannot he will be gone, I have no doubt the Tories have learned not to allow another Brown.

            But who have they got to take over look at them, I mean look at the battle between Miliband and Ed, not a lot of scope for change

        • TomFairfax

          The Torygraph has been criticising the Governments lack of a perceptible plan for growth since the end of 2010.

          Clearly a bonfire of red tape so far that saves business less than 50p a year each hasn’t struck them as a leap in that direction.

          Then whilst businesses are on the floor economically, the government decides to add to their costs with transferable maternity/paternity allowances. Hardly the right time for that. That’s a thing you do whilst things are good so firms get accustomed to it before the good times end.

          The rest are now joining in the criticsm. Are you suggesting things are not getting worse?

          • Hugh

             Is there heightened criticism from the press at the moment? Yes.

            Is the Economist piece particularly critical; is it particularly notable for the Economist to criticise the Tories; or is this cover a particular watershed moment? No.

            And, of course, does the criticism from the Economist or Telegraph lend any support whatever to Labour’s position? No.

          • TomFairfax

            Honestly Hugh you do seem to take a very narrow view of things.
            You are correct that they don’t support Labour’s position in word.  They don’t have to.

            Who benefited last week from the Tory vote staying at home?

            It’s the background mood music that is a key item. It won’t win elections on it’s own, but it certainly helps if the other side are the target for constant sniping.

            I think it’s accepted now, that even with the screw ups, what’s changed the situation is George Osborne giving a tax cut to the element of society least likely to notice it, whilst costs go up for the vast majority, who clearly aren’t in it together with George’s mates in the city who he’s just handed cash back to.

  • Winston_from_the_Ministry

    Probably should have read the article as well Mark…

    • markfergusonuk

      I did read it. A right wing magazine suggests that the government is “in trouble” and has lost its “boldness and honesty”. It’s not a pro-Labour article by any means, but why would it be – it’s the Economist.

      • AlanGiles

        And even The Daily Telegraph and City A.M. – neither of them Labour friendly – were critical of the Queens Speech yesterday, the latter suggesting like The Economist that they were not really fully aware of the seriousness of our situation.

        * Kathy Stobart (1925 –    )

        • Hugh

           The Telegraph being critical of Cameron isn’t news.

          • TomFairfax

            True. But a lot of the stay at home Tories read it. Rather more than read The Economist.

            Given the grovelling at the feet of the press of our leading politicians to assure support, are you really suggesting it has no impact?

      • Sotha

        The Economist is rightwing? How so?

        • Hugh

           Because it’s editorially committed to free markets.

      • Winston_from_the_Ministry

        Hardly mockery.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Colin-Ward/608722981 Colin Ward

    A take off of a Gainsborough, con-temporarily it should be LossthePlot !

  • http://profiles.google.com/roger.f.mccarthy Roger McCarthy

    But lets not forget the Economist like the FT was ‘pro-Labour’ in the Blair years.

    The Daily Telegraph front page a day or two ago asking where the ‘Plan for Growth’ was also an interesting straw in the wind. 

    Even the most die hard media ideologues would rather they were back in the days when however fake the boom was it was filling their coffers with advertising revenue. 

    • aracataca

      ‘Fake boom’ that’s a new one.

      • Hugh

        Really, what would you call a boom funded by cheap credit and based on assets that were worth far less than their face values?

        • aracataca

          What’s a real boom and when was our last one?

          • Hugh

             One that doesn’t end in a depression?

            The causes of the crisis were also behind much of the prosperity in the preceding years. Therefore if you want to give Brown credit for those years of growth, he also bears responsibility for the aftermath. You can’t have it both ways.

          • aracataca

            When was our last boom? Which boom has not culminated in a bust?

          • Hugh

            Quite a few of them have managed to avoid the steepest recession in half a century and managed to recover in a couple of years.

          • aracataca

            Astonishing. I’ll try a 3rd time.  When was our last ‘real’ boom and which boom has not ended in a bust? 

          • Hugh

             Fine, I’ll answer a third time: if you’re making the narrow point that booms are by definition followed by busts then there are no fake busts. If, as I suspect, you’re trotting out the usual Labour rote that Brown was a brilliant Chancellor who delivered us the longest period of economic growth etc… until fact cruelly intervened with a worldwide economic recession then that’s, well, baloney.

          • aracataca

            Classic Tory. Still haven’t answered my question and instead put words into my mouth. You been taking lessons from Cameron?

          • treborc1

             Nope Blair

          • aracataca

            Take it you’ve accepted that the term ‘fake’ boom is baloney and that all booms end in busts.

          • http://twitter.com/gonzozzz dave stone

            It’s the fake busts that interest me – no, I’m not on about the silicone ones – but the  badly managed ones that have been mismanaged due to a ham-fisted pursuit of an ideological goal.

            Owen Jones offers some interesting words on this in today’s ‘i’:

            http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-this-austerity-backlash-across-europe-could-transform-britain-7734670.html 

          • aracataca

            Really fascinating article Dave. I read something similar by David Harvey who quoted Bush as saying  ’Deficits don’t matter’ and produced empirical evidence to show that the 1980s were used not  to cut budgets but to drive down living standards and reduce labour costs and hence drive up profit margins.

          • TomFairfax

             Was it Brown or Bush that decided to let Lehman Bros go bust because his neocon allies refused to intervene due to political dogma and a complete lack of understanding of economics?

            After that obvious ‘fail’ Bush seemed to have no reticence in trying to prevent further damage by rescuing other institutions and even GM. Before Oboma took office.

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