Tuesday 15th December
Some Politicians are lucky; Margaret Thatcher with the Falklands, which rescued her failing administration; Tony Blair with a resurgent LibDem party led by Charlie Kennedy eating into Tory seats and splitting the opposition; and now David Cameron, who suckered Clegg and the LibDems into supporting him, only for them to take the rap and the public discontent. Even he could not quite believe the scale of his victory in May. And despite what they now declare it was never an endorsement of his right-wing policies, but a vote for the lesser of two evils, and not a small portion of fear of the Scots ruling the roost with Ed Milliband (a ridiculous scenario, but scare tactics work far more often than positive messages do).
And now he is still lucky. The Tories were beaten in their attempt to cut Family Tax Credits (mostly for the poor) and were on the ropes, then they came up with the nonsense that they didn’t need to make these cuts after all, that the economy was actually doing so well that they didn’t need those cuts after all. And we swallowed it, and Dave came away smiling. So, they even turn defeat into showing how compassionate they really are (hahaha).
Dave, rather foolishly maybe, promised an in/out referendum in 2017 without specifying exactly what he was looking to achieve in the way of reforms in Europe. Eventually his aims were dragged out of him, and a pathetic little agenda emerged, with bland promises and only one concrete proposal – to limit in-work benefits from EU migrants for four years. At first I thought this was incredibly stupid, as it is clearly something the rest of Europe (and he needs them all) could never agree on. But Lucky Dave, even if he fails in this, will still hail his “negotiations” as a success. He will hold his referendum and with Labour, the LibDems and the SNP all campaigning to remain he should easily win. The alternative will scare far too many people. He will then announce his retirement date and go down in History as a successful Prime Minister. But my, how lucky he has been. Let us hope his successor is not so blessed with good luck.