David Cameron Needs Better Friends
Downing Street has swiftly moved to declare Education Secretary Michael Gove’s proposal asking the taxpayer to donate £60m ($91.83m) to buy Queen Elizabeth II a new royal yacht ‘inappropriate’ (read Part 1 in this series).
In an internal letter Gove suggested that a yacht would be a fantastic way to honor the Queen and to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesperson, just hours after Gove’s statement was leaked to the press, said, “Clearly there is a difficult economic situation, there are scarce resources, and therefore we don't think [buying a yacht for the Queen at the taxpayers’ expense] would be an appropriate use of public money at the present time.”
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said, “We are not making any comment on this.”
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg commented, “I suspect more people in the country would think, given there's very little money around, that this isn't top of their list of priorities for the use of scarce resources.”
One might argue that David Cameron has made a real effort to change the way people see the Conservative Party and to actively – and openly – empathize with those suffering due to Britain’s unfavorable economic circumstances. Just this past summer he and wife Samantha took an absolutely no-frills couple’s vacation to Spain involving a budget airline (economy class, of course), staying in low-price hotels, and participating in absolutely nothing extravagant or potentially expensive whatsoever. Cameron must have had a private photographer on hand as the British media was drip fed photos of the Camerons having a perfectly ‘average’ time together. It must be said that this was a pretty corny PR stunt; however, it was also vaguely admirable…
But if only Gove and others in Cameron’s inner circle could follow in the Prime Minister’s footsteps.
Consider Gove’s gaffe in tandem with other notable incidents, beginning most recently with Aidan Burley – a former Conservative MP who was one of Cameron’s up and coming stars – who was recently forced to resign after it was revealed he was at a Nazi-themed bachelor party in France. In fact, Burley might even go to prison for the affair as participating in Nazi-themed events – even if they are meant in jest – is a serious crime in France.
Then there is Andy Coulson, Cameron’s former Communications Chief who was a News of the World editor, involved in and arrested for the phone hacking scandal that eventually shut the newspaper down and served up for media emperor Rupert Murdoch a huge piece of humble pie and massive losses in assets and influence in Britain and abroad.
Finally, there is London Mayor Boris Johnson who – to be fair seems to have done a decent job for London – publicly referred to his £250K ($380K) annual income for writing a column in the prominent UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph as ‘chicken feed’ – pretty poor considering that sum represents ten times the average UK salary and it is only one of his side jobs.
It appears that Cameron needs to do two things if he is going to change the public perception of his party and convince the country that the Conservatives actually care about the common man: firstly, smack Gove upside the head just before firing him; secondly, stop choosing company that makes him foolish and out of touch; because when all is said and done, the man might actually be a serviceable Prime Minister.