New Times,
New Thinking.

  1. Politics
1 August 2007

Dave’s not in love with the common people

Try as he might David Cameron just can't avoid patronising the lower orders

By Martin Bright

There has already been much discussion of David Cameron’s wild performance on Monday as he toured the radio and TV studios to denounce the counter-revolutionaries. I hear the show trials begin in the autumn.

But there was another part of Cameron’s Today programme interview that really puzzled me and made me realise that he has yet to throw off the shackles of his patrician upbringing (if that isn’t too intricate a master-slave metaphor).

When he talked about his plans for children excluded from school he suggested using voluntary organisations to deal with them rather than state Pupil Referral Units, which he dismissed as unfit for purpose.

Does Cameron know any teachers who work with children with behavioural difficulties? To dismiss everyone who works in these units out of hand shows a quite breathtaking ignorance.

Little by little, the real David Cameron is emerging.

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