to move Cameron up slightly (albeit from a VERY lowly starting point) in my estimation for his reaction to Lord Young?

[30andMerkin]

Every time I hear the radio quote him saying 'he wasn't speaking for the government and he'll be doing rather less speaking in future' I do a little .

I think it shows wit and lack of tolerance for Tory bollocks, and I usually HATE the man!

I expect Cameron was genuinely pissed off. He's still a Tory bastard though.

The 2007 bit? BBC website article on him resigning - its near the end.

"Lord Young told the newspaper that the government's spending cuts, totalling more than £80bn over four years, would just take state spending levels back to what they were in 2007 - a time, he said, when people were "not short of money"."

Yabu. Even the lowliest slug of an excuse for a human wd have found ld youngs comments offensive.

apropos of nowt but this keeps running thro my head every time I hear the news-

does anyone remember those old Viz t shirts- for Gnat West- The Frank Bank- that said "No job? No money?- then fuck off"

think the coalition should adopt it as their mission statement

they could have it in Latin, praps. Underneath that lovely Tory tree pic

DC is a pratt
anyone who can say "we are all this together" whilst living like he does, is a pratt

"....most people with a mortgage who were paying a lot of money each month, suddenly started paying very little each month. That could make three, four, five, six hundred pounds a month difference, free of tax. That is why the retail sales have kept very good all the way through."

Dare I say that this is manifestly true for many people? To say it's true for "the majority of people" is untrue - better to have said "most homeowners" - but the core of his sentence is indeed true.

And his description of the 100,000 job losses as a rounding error is perhaps unfortunately blunt, but nevertheless true.

The sooner government (and I mean any government regardless of party) stops reacting in such a kneejerk manner to every criticism of their plans, the sooner we will start tackling this mess. Every single industry and profession in the UK will plead that they deserve special treatment but unfortunately savings and cuts have to be made somewhere and a vastly bloated public sector is the best place to start.

2shoes- I wish he'd say " you're all in this together" then I might gain a sneaky bit of respect for the chap, just for honesty

Politics of envy is out here. How dare he have more money than me.

but lord young was right.

And there are many others coming out in support of his comments today.

It wasn't the tori's that put us in a recession was it?

it was their wanky banky mates. Near as dammit, I reckon

wannabe, are labour to blame for greece's situation too? and Ireland's? and americas? it is/was a GLOBAL recession. the economic high was extended thanks to the internet boom, thats died down and has created a natural dip in the glabal economy.

Speaking as someone whose mortgage payments did go down and who is still employed I would say that this is only one of the many factors that affect how "well off" I personally feel as a result of the recession.

Balanced against that is the fact that neither DS or I have had a pay rise for 3 years while inflation especially re fuel and food means that our wages do not go so far. Add to that job insecurity, worries about our children's prospects as soon to be adult with learning disability and (hopefully) soon to be university student.

Furthermore as a property lawyer I can vouch for the fact that there are no cheap new mortgages and a cheap mortgage doesn't help much if you are in negative equity.

Lord Young was so, so wrong and it was right that he was sacked

no, but a lot of the reason why we're having to undergo such massive spending cuts is because the labour govt have overspent for the past deckade on gimics intended to win votes. Child trust fund vouchers, health in pregnancy grants, non means-tested winter fuel allowances... how many billions have been wasted on those?

And a lot of people are in financial difficulties because, in a word, they were greedy. No-one held a gun to peoples' heads and made them take out 125% mortgages thus ensuring they were in negative equity before they even took possession of the keys. Yes it could be argued that these mortgages shouldn't have been available in the first place, but ultimately people do have a choice, and somewhere down the line some (not all obviously) people do need to start taking responsibility for their own financial situations.

YABVU. DC is all hot air and fuck all else. He is a true Tory, and as horrid as the rest of them.

Lord Young's remarks simply didn't fit in with the 'we're all in this together' belt-tightening bullshit mantra.

DC has objected because it undermines his party's policies. Why on earth would that make him a better person?

Not quite 'all' mortgage holders, Cat, only the ones who didn't make the choice to fix their mortgage rates. I'm not blaming the Tories for this, it's just our hard luck for trying to be prudent. I do blame those in the cabinet for being bloated, smug, horrible wankers, though.

DC can't win. he's acted swiftly to dismiss somebody that spoke out of turn and he's still being criticised.

There were pictures of him on the DM website yesterday crying at a memorial for his son - and all the comments were about him playing up for the camera

I loathe DC. Loathe is perhaps not strong enough a word.

However, I would not wish the pain of losing a child on anyone, and it's unfair to align any opposition to or criticism of his reaction to Lord Young's remarks with the spiteful DM comments.

i don't see how he can possibly - in any way at all - be criticised for his actions over Lord Young.

see above.

Just to clarify Nancy, it's not that I think less of him for the way he's handled it, it's just that I do not think more of him simply because he objected to his party's own interests being undermined by one of their advisors, as per the OP.

that's fair enough.

But I do think that even if he single handedly solved world poverty he'd be accused of doing it for selfish reasons.

Does seem to be a real agenda against him merely because he's posh

If he solves world poverty, I promise to get an 'I love David Cameron' tattoo. On my forehead