To never want anyone to champion Jack Monroe again?

[SuperScrimper]

After what she has tweeted about David Cameron. here

Like him or loathe him to describe the way he talks about his deceased son as 'misty eyed' and used for political gain is disgusting.

The greatest loss any of us can imagine is the loss of a child. Shock horror, even politician have real feeling. It's just awful that she would say that about another parent.

I don't care what she can do with a bloody lentil. Something's are just too low.

Yes, anyone who cares about the fate of disabled children, please do this ^^

It takes seconds via ths website

Will do that, MrsD.

Landrover, I'd like to have a PM who, whatever his or her own personal experience, retained compassion for other people's experience of disability, caring, and bereavement, and who did not actively pursue ways to make their lives worse.

YANBU For a mother to sling the death of a much loved child as a weapon, and to refer to that child as 'his dead son', rather than using his name and acknowledging his life how ever short, is vile. It's Samantha I feel for the most tbh. She did not ask to be born to a wealthy family, she did not ask for a sick child, and I'm fairly sure that she did not set out to marry the Prime Minister. She has as much control over government actions as any other mother, and yet she has had her personal tragedy used against her and her family. My heart breaks for her.

All those posting in support of Monroe who's faux pauvres act is wearing paper thin and is how others have said wildly exaggerated she lives with Allegra Mcevedy, who's not exactly got muck under her nails and owns a restaurant chain, so they can't be that hard up What would you say if Samantha came on here with a nickname and posted:

AIBU to think that the woman who threw my son's death in my husband's face during a debate at work is beneath contempt?

I am pretty sure that nobody would post along the lines of: YABU, you and your husband are over privileged twats who know nothing about what caring for a child is really like. and if they did, they would be given pretty short shrift by the other posters and be deleted/banned by HQ.

Very easy to sit behind a keyboard and forget that the Cameron's are a real family, however wealthy.

Marmite, I've seen nobody here dispute that the grief DC and Sam feel is anything but genuine. i've seen nobody here say that it's a walk in the park having a severely ill child, or say that money completely insulates you from grief or loss.

I have said, and seen others say, that money does insulate you from some aspects of having a disability, or being a carer for someone with a disability. And I will carry on saying that, because it is true, and it's the thing which is the difference between DC's experience and the experience of many other carers of people with disabilities.

The one thing everyone on this thread has in common is that we don't want the lives of people with disabilities - including children with disabilities - or their carers to get worse. And that's what DC is doing. And he first brought the subject of his son to the table to help him do it, not Jack Monroe.

I still stand by the fact that the words she used were a disgrace and as a mother herself should have known and behaved better. I work in disability rights and law myself so know about the effect of cuts on individual people and the social group as a whole. BUT Samantha has no choice in the argument whatever people feel about her husband.

I think she was absolutely right.

I'll correct that for you Marmiteandjamislush:

AIBU to think that the PM who used his son's death during a debate in Parliament is beneath contempt?

Perhaps Samantha might have a view on that too.

Why should you correct it? You can add it. But my post is not incorrect. I was giving one perspective, you the other. Both are equally valid.

I don't think Samantha Cameron sits by and lets David talk about stuff she would be acutely uncomfortable with, I just don't think that's how you go about being a politician's wife. There will be a tacit agreement between them both at what he may or may not discuss in public regarding their private lives and children.

I'm not saying whether they particularly deserve the comments but he has spoken about his son before in regards to issues with the NHS so has set the precedent for it to be used against him

There will be a tacit agreement between them both at what he may or may not discuss in public regarding their private lives and children.

...and you know this how?

"Very easy to sit behind a keyboard and forget that the Cameron's are a real family, however wealthy."

HE IS NOT A RANDOM MAN IN THE STREET HE IS THE PRIME MININSTER

His son used the NHS during his life. Those experiences are real. Why shouldn't he refer to them?? Vilify his policies, but not his family and don't use the loss of a child as a low blow when you yourself have made milage out of your own situation, Ms Munroe.

They are still a grieving family Samcro and deserve compassion, regardless of the job they do.

and yes they have my compassion.

but where is his compassion for parents in the same circs as he was?
where is his compassion for disabled people??

no where he just shuts down debate.

From the linked blog post:

He has presided over an unprecedented, concerted campaign against the NHS. So much so, that the very unit in which his child died is threatened with closure. To do this while citing his personal experiences to silence his critics, is unspeakably wicked.

To stand there, at the dispatch box, and invoke his plight as the parent of a disabled child, then minutes later announce the closure of 36 Remploy factories (not via a statement by the relevant minister, but by placing a letter in the library) is utterly cowardly.

The net result? A conversation about Ivan in which nobody dares speak up for Ivan. A muted debate, in which the interests of children like him are not fully represented in our Parliament

Of course I don't know for sure but like most figures in the public eye I doubt DC will discuss things which also impacts on his wife without first running it past her. Why would he not afford the mother of his children this basic respect?

My DH would never discuss things that I would be acutely uncomfortable hearing or embarrassed about so I assume DC as a understanding husband and partner would also not put his wife in this position.

You can feel compassion towards them for the loss of Ivan but still think he is an absolute arsehole for the way he uses that loss to shut down debate on the NHS or disability. He is the prime minister, it is proper that he should have to answer questions about these things. He shouldn't be able to say 'I don't need lectures from anyone about looking after disabled people.' in a debate, not about 'looking after' disabled people, but about whether disabled people don't deserve the minimum wage, anymore than a minister for education who has children should be able to shut down debate with "I don't need lectures from anyone about sending a child to school" or a minister for health who once had their tonsils out should be able to answer a question on the NHS with " I don't need lectures from anyone about hospitals."

His son used the NHS during his life. Those experiences are real. Why shouldn't he refer to them?? Vilify his policies, but not his family

I've got no problem at all with him talking about his son or the way the NHS helped him - of course I don't. I have every problem with DC using that as a trump card to try to shut up other people talking about other sons (and daughters) and how they'd like the NHS to continue to be able to help them.

And I haven't been vilifying his family, I've been vilifying him.

Oh, AshesOfRoses, that's some excellent, necessary writing you quoted, thank you.

Marmite, I too work in disability rights law and deal with extremely vulnerable people. I see daily the havoc that Cameron's government is wreaking in their lives. I absolutely cannot agree with you that Jack Monroe is in any way throwing Cameron's son's death in his face. It is not she who repeatedly introduces this topic into debates on the Health Service. It is not she who introduced an emotional passage about Ivan into Cameron's keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference, purely to support the outright lie that Cameron isn't taking vital health services away from other children.

When someone deliberately uses his dead child to try to deflect criticism and to mislead the electorate, they simply cannot expect to have a free pass. It would be wrong to allow the very fact that they choose to use such a sensitive subject as a reason not to mention it.

I agree that Samantha Cameron's grief should not be exacerbated by this. But when you saw her crying during the Party Conference speech, whose fault was that? Cameron didn't have to mention Ivan, he must have known it would upset his wife, but he judged that his political career was worth that. If she is badly affected by all this, she has only one person to blame.

Thank you, Annie. I'm not very articulate but it spoke for me, and for my son who is disabled.

And as someone up-thread pointed out - the piece is two years old. This tactic from Cameron is calculated.

Significantly, in the debate on the NHS today in Parliament, Cameron went through the whole debate without mentioning his son. Very uncomfortable he looked, too. If that's down to Jack Monroe, I say good on her.

people keep mentioning sam cameron crying(and omg I feel for her)
BUT how many parents are crying and having sleepless nights because of the stance this government are taking on disabled people ??
??
they also have my compassion.
and quite rightly they need a PM who will not shut down debate, but who will discuss, the terrible things that are happening to disabled people.
I as a parent of a severely disabled child, I feel for their loss, i have been to many funerals to not do so.
but I will never forgive him.
he has sold our children out,
how he can ever look the parents of the children he will have met through his child in the eye.......as he
shuts down debate
words fail me

There is a monstrous disjunction between what DC says and what he does (come on, we all know how this government's policies have impacted on disabled adults and children).

I think JM illuminated that fact with her tweet. She used a bomb to explode an iron smoke screen obscuring the facts with the inevitable fall out. Anything less than a bomb may not have been so efficient. I'm sure it's given DC and his spin team pause for thought.

DC created a highly unusual situation by sharing such a tragedy in the context of justifying his actions as PM — the emotion obscured the very real actions. Most regular, feeling people would not think it appropriate to share their personal tragedies if they thought it might give them an advantage at work and other politicians, even when in the pits of popularity polls have not so much as whispered their personal tragedies in public (Gordon Brown comes to mind).

I'm indifferent to JM, I have little familiarity with who she is, what she does etc. but I do admire people who are able to cut through the crap and say it like it is regardless of what others think — something that seems impossible for our politicians to do, with out first checking the temperature of floating voters.