I can't stand Cameron, and not just out of loyalty to Labour.

I find some of your views encouraging. But do you think that we should have let the Eastern countries build up their GDP first, before migrants were allowed to come and work here? I don't buy the argument that Poles are "stealing our jobs". My concern is that it depresses wages for the poorest workers.

You are right, his answer on the immigration question - or rather his answers, because he seemed to give about five of them as he squirmed away - was appalling.

I also think that there are good, left wing, reasons to have open borders inside the EU. Depressing the wages of Polish workers in Poland doesn't seem to me to be more left wing than depressing them in the UK. In the end the increased wealth open labour markets bring will benefit both Poles in Poland and Brits in Britain as well as the mixtures.

The Original Poster said  "Most people of all political persuasions accept that it is reasonable to pay tax for public services, when they can see the results and feel they're getting value for money. "

Agreed.
That's basically why Labour are in trouble.

Whether Cameron is vacuous, irrittating or patronising is a matter of opinion. But he is certainly not ignorant - and underestimating your opponent is a basic strategic mistake.  What he said about Polish workers undercutting was perfectly sensible:

a. The govt could have made transitional arrangements for up to 7 years but didn't.

b. So there is nothing we can do about Polish workers, but for future EU accession states we won't make the same mistake.

Hup, here we go…. Tory here, opening fire on your article.

“The worst part of the Newsnight film for me was Cameron's answer to the young guy about what he would do about "the Poles coming in and taking our jobs".  Most people including myself with senior roles in business know that the truth is we need immigration to compete as a location for international business.”

I partially agree with you, the problem however, has been the sheer weight of numbers that have come from elsewhere.

By the government’s own admission, these immigrants have taken many of the jobs that have been created under Labour during the upturn in the economy, instead of having those jobs go to the 3 million odd unemployed on the books.

We need a new direction, largely getting those inactive people out of dependency on the benefit state, and into work, if this means a few Poles cannot get jobs here now Poland’s economy has turned up, then so be it.

It’s not racist to say that we should be looking after our citizens first and foremost and finding them jobs, rather than bringing in another wave of migrants who work for less and utilize our NHS and various other state apparatus, increasing the population and thus straining the resources of the state, which leads to tax increases which annoy everybody.

Yes we need immigration, but do we need it on the scale Labour has presided over it?

I don’t think so. They’ve basically removed all migration stopgaps and only when their core vote, the working class, are beginning to leave them in droves because they haven’t been protected by the party of the working man do they actually do something about it. Even then rather than place a year-by-year cap on immigration, they change uniforms and introduce a new English language test. The UK was also just about the only state not to place the initial limit on workers from Eastern Europe, flooding the market with cheap labour from overseas, rather than trying to find a way of getting those inactive workers onto the market itself.

“Who is going to stand up for the needs of British business on this? Protectionism on either trade or labour matters will harm us considerably in the downturn.”

Yes and no. We’re a country working on a free trade premise but our labour matters are a little off-kinked at the moment, we have a very large body of workers on the benefit state.

We don’t need to protect ourselves if we can encourage those people in the downturn to find jobs, or if we can try to encourage business by cutting back on regulation and taxation then businesses will have more money to expand.

“And don't get me started on energy policy (which is the industry I work in).  We need to bear down on oil consumption, fast, by encouraging expansion of public transport, renewables, nuclear power and penalising gas guzzlers.  The more we can achieve now, the less pain we will suffer when the oil really does start to run dry (and it's not as far in the future as you think).”

I’m slightly out on what Oil precisely is, especially as the Russians are continuing to find vast oil deposits wherever they go by just drilling and keep drilling, then drilling some more [They’ve reportedly found oil 13km below the surface, while we in the West have only drilled down about 5km.] So as to it “running out” when it’s possible a composite of the two most common minerals on earth formed at high pressure I am not sure….

However, I agree we should be working on renewable energy simply because I’m a Tory, to be completely stereotypical I work in monetary terms [like many a working class man] and it‘s cheap.

What could be better than coastal energy? We’re an island with literal hundreds of miles of coastland and rivers, we should be deploying various generation schemes around the country to harness the power of the sea itself for our energy. Wind farms etc are a gimmick and I hate the fact that both Labour and Tories have fallen for wind power.

On public transport though, I disagree. Public transport is all well and good in the city, but you try and get somewhere in any kind of appreciable time in the countryside, or a semi-urban area. It’s impossible. Plus, should we really be punishing the people who buy the gas-guzzling cars, normally families, at the pump which has the highest tax rate on fuel on the planet?

I mean, I can only really blame Labour for this, during their tenure they’ve, via both EU legislation and taxation and regulation managed to shut down village schools, corner shops, post offices, the local bank and largely gutted out the core of village life. Which is fine… all folks then have to do is go and travel to the next town where the big, shiny and new schools bigger shops and post offices and banks are…. Which they can’t do due to the cost of fuel.

The busses are rubbish in the countryside also, in order to cover a service they have to stop everywhere.

The bus near me takes an hour to travel 4 miles, an hour! It takes me 15 minutes by car in those same four miles. Which am I likely to take, eh? Especially when it costs the same amount at present to travel via bus or by car.

“I don't know how many uncommitted voters there are who feel like me that Cameron just isn't up to the job, but this is a group of voters you guys in the Labour party should be wooing.”

The main problem shown so far seems to be that it’s Brown who isn’t up to the job in the eyes of the voters, even Alan Sugars supportive article on Brown in today’s Sun betrays a man who “knows too much”.

He’s over every issue like a rash in far too much clarity down to excruciating detail. If you know too much your mind becomes very cluttered to make sensible decisions, your mind is worn out from the amount of knowledge you know and then you start to make bad decisions.

The other problem right now is a lot of the problems of the economic downturn could have been smoothed out with either promises of lower taxation or less legislation, or even a freeze on both.

This is something that Labour simply doesn’t do historically and all of the reputation Brown carefully cultivated for 10 years is currently bursting into flames as the government promises to listen, to feel people’s pain, then promptly doesn’t do anything.

Instead, on food prices [of which have been falling for a few weeks now, but prices still haven’t lowered] we had Brown telling us to eat our crusts and make our food go further. This is in the same vein as Edwina Currie’s stupid “put on a cardie” to cold old folks in the winter.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t a sensible suggestion, it was the way it was delivered. Even then, on food, Brown telling us to eat our crusts resulting in a 4p saving a day per person is largely a pointless gesture.

On fuel we got a promise of a freeze in fuel duty, whoopee, folks want a cut, not a freeze right now, we should be getting a slight cut, even as oil prices come down.

I saw an episode of the brilliant comedy “Still Game” in which fuel at the time was 75p a litre and I marvelled at how cheap it was.

Personally, having watched Cameron Direct [I suggest you do the same, you can find recordings of it on the internets] and see Cameron answer some tough questions frankly and honestly I am quite sold on him, something I wasn‘t on Michael Howard.

Why are you all moaning about Cameron ?

It was Gordon Brown who said (and I quote) 'British jobs for British workers'.

All Cameron did was point out that, under EU regulations, you can't stop a Pole from working in England any more than you can stop a Scouser from working in Leeds.

David Cameron is an amazing leader of the oposition and he will win the next ellection. You can count on it. The press like him, everyone in their right minds does to. I subscribed to this website so I can tell you that soon we will win and when we doe you shall see how much better life is for everyone. Please got to www.conservatives.com for more infomation on the party.

Vote Conservative,


Thankyou