Is it me - or is Cameron language only of two sorts- reflecting perhaps his two experiences of life.
Firstly he talks often as if he were a prep school master - we are told to pay attention and sit up and think and even to pull our socks up. A language which would be unthinkable in a secondary school seems to have become then norm - it is even passed by a strangely quiessent media as if it meant something. Perhaps it appeals to the prep school boys amongst them? Certainly given their acequessence it makes all political debate strange. he problem is forever framed as f were all were a large stroppy class (say the remove), and all criticism is unjust or merely bad behaviour
His second only apparent strategy is to give names for empty concepts, such as the big society or even cuts to come, and then let reality or others fill the avoid. We are all then invited to habit (and so explain) what' his' idea of big society means or his vision which is a collection of platitude), or his duty (which is the same), or the sharp elbow of the middle classes (and this being a good thing?) while we are all invited to work out what cuts must happen and inhabit a nightmare policy agenda of our own. he keeps mum on both issues - or rather seems to pretend he knows and the rest of us must guess.
It kind of makes debate impossible- for how can one attack an idea that does not yet exist?
more interesting both these strategies will only work at the start of the government - once polices are their and have gone wrong, then they simply will not work. Cameron's ability to survive is then going to require he has more faces than these two. but then one suspects he does- that is after all what makes him such a quintessential political (or prep school master)....
I wonder when us naughty boys will manage get to the prep-school-master shout or 'Sterling Shake'?
But more critically when will he suffer that fate of all prep school masters who use such language - namely the mimic. we will quiet soon learn what he is doing and ape the language back, either in mockery or using it were he does want ti to be used (phrases big society or sharp elbows very easily turn into other things). If so again is he going to scream and shout or ignore it? what does the prep school teacher d? Or will he just lose control of the class he has made for himself.
Hope so.
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