David Cameron's conference speech - live stream from 11.15am today

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hello,

David Cameron's conservative party conference speech will be live streamed here at 11.15am today, if you're interested in taking a look:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19890459

MNHQ

[claig]

One of the themes was 'hard work', that the Tories are the party of 'hard work'. What does that say? That the millions of Labour voters aren't hard workers. 'Hard work' will get us out of this was one message. But nothing about what got us into this? People were working hard, before the bankers ruined the economy, when Gordon Gekko gamblers gambled with teh public's savings while regulators looked on with 'light touch regulation'. The gamblers made 'easy' money off teh hard work of the public and then when it all crashed, they held out their hands and got bailed out with the fruits of the public's hard work. At least Miliband wanted a full enquiry into the banking crisis and asked questions about what got us where we are today.

All the hard work under the sun won't be able to put Humpty back together again unless we sort out the rate rigging in the financial system.

[cakeandcustard]

I watched a bit and then gave up, I got fed up of being talked to like I was a slightly backward child.

[slug]

Eh?? I made no comment about borrowing Fishwife.

But since you brought it up...

[chipstick10]

cakeandcustard i felt like that lisnening to harriet harperson, i feel like it when we are lectured by Yvette bums mouth cooper. Its what Labour do best, patronising, nannying and lecturing like we are all slightly incapable.

[PetiteRaleuse]

It was a lecture, not a speech. He was patronising and didn't come across at all as a nice person. He appeared hectoring, smug and dismissive of ordinary people. Admittedly I wasn't a fan before the speech of him or any of his colleagues. I can't get my head round the way they despise the poor and people who claim benefits. They seem to have bought into and be encouraging the myth that people want to just live off benefits and not work. It plays to the daily mail and express audience and is horribly simplistic.

And the arguments that Labour caused the recession are getting boring. Had the Tories been in power the banks would have had as much if not more freedom to gamble away their clients' money. Wanting to privatise even more public services when the ones which have already been privatised aren't working out is just stubborn and illogical.

They appear to be helping each other out, and forgetting about the rest of us, and nothing he said today changed my mind on that.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

slug When the money's already been borrowed and spent by the previous government, the incoming government still have to service that debt. As you surely must know, borrowed money = interest payments added onto the original debt, therefore borrowing goes up.
Anybody with an ounce of brain realizes this and therefore understands that this increase in borrowing is unavoidable and not down to reckless spending in an attempt to buy votes a la Blair/Brown

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

Petite I don't think we watched the same speech.

[PetiteRaleuse]

I think we did, but everyone comes to these things with some kind of opinion already.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

Yes, they do, don't they.

[PetiteRaleuse]

I watched it having followed the speeches made by his colleagues earlier in the week, wondering if he would prove himself to be any more human than some of them, or any more likeable than I have ever found him in the past. I was disappointed.

Maybe if I was a true blue Tory I would have been able to pick out parts of the speech I agreed with. As it is I remember what life was like under Thatcher and Major, hoped thios lot would be better and have been disappointed.

[slug]

If they'd stuck to the Labour spending plans rather than the tory ones they wouldn't be having to borrow at the rate they are now. All those unemployed people cost the state an awful lot of money you know.

[BridgetBidet]

Good speech but despite the fact I tend to lean towards the Tories this speech has not done enough to dispel the spectre of George Osborne's speech earlier this week. After that speech which went much too far in saying that ALL the responsibility of reducing the deficit must fall on the shoulders of the poor Cameron could not really have said anything which would repair the damage.

Didn't like the dead baby being wheeled out and the story about his Dad's disability. It seemed extremely exploitative to me.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

Thatcher and Major, that would be the Conservative government that took over after the Callaghan years. Yes, I remember those too. Callaghan's Labour government induced such rampant inflation that it had to grovel to the IMF for money and then allowed the unions to hold the country to ransom over the winter of discontent.
Thatcher's Conservative government then had to sort out the godawful mess the previous Labour government had left behind. Bit of a pattern emerging here.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

Are we talking about the unemployed people made redundant by public sector cuts? The ones who were being paid by the state from the tax receipts raised by the private sector anyway?

[threesocksmorgan]

did he really use his child agaiN?
what a vile man

[ttosca]

Boboli-

1. Sometimes is right to call a spade a spade. I have no trouble calling a party 'scum' when they attack the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, causing them misery and death. Yes, death. The attacks on disabled people by this government is killing them. Sometimes there are worse things in life than being rude - killing disabled people is one of them.
   

1. You miss the point. I couldn't give a crap what Tory toffs got up to except insofar as they make policies which destroy people's lives. The Tory party receives 50% of its funding from the City of London, and 1/4 of of Tory's are rentiers. You'd have to be naive in the extreme to think that these factors don't shape Tory policies. Yes, it's very much about class warfare - and the Tory's are waging it. That's the reality of politics.
   

If you criticised the Labour party for being influenced by unions, you'd also be right. That's the way politics works. Under Capitalism, the nation is divided by class. Either you support policies which make the richest 5% wealthier and make it easier for them to extract more money from the rest of us, or you support the 95% who have to earn a wage to survive and make a living. I know whose side I'm on.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

And who decides when "sometimes" is ttosca ?
Who gets to decide that it's fine to label all Tories scum, but God forbid you mistakenly use the wrong term to refer to a disabled person?
Why can't you just posit your case without insults, you would emerge all the more credible for it?

[ttosca]

I refer mainly to the Tory party which has the power, and uses it, to destroy people's lives.

However, if a disabled person wants to enable cuts which kill other disabled people, then he or she is also 'scum'. I have no problem with that.

Why can't you just posit your case without insults, you would emerge all the more credible for it?

I can do both, and it's perfectly reasonable to be angry at a group of people who are destroying lives.

[BridgetBidet]

threesocksmorgan Yes he did. Makes me very, very uncomfortable when it's a speech like this which is vital for votes. It just seems like exploiting the child's memory. And SamCam cried. It all feels like a cynical attempt to win the female vote so as well as being exploitative of the child it's deeply patronising.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

But this speech was to the Conservative Party Conference, Bridget and threesocks. Quite literally, preaching to the converted. He already has these peoples votes.
Could it be, that rather than a cynical plot, he was just demonstrating that these experiences are part of the man he is? Oh no, of course not, because he and his wife are tory scum, out to kill disabled people.
Sheesh! but the Tories are the inhuman ones!

[morethanpotatoprints]

Sunflower, correct.

Tory scum taking money of the poor to give to the rich. You can't get much lower. Apart from using your dead sons memory, of course.

[BridgetBidet]

Sunflowers if you think that the party conference speeches are designed purely for the people in the main hall you're either naive or deluded. The fact we're discussing it on here might be a clue, as is the fact it's one of the top stories on most news outlets as were Milliband and Clegg's speeches.

Party conference speeches are an opportunity for the parties to set out to the wider pubic the parties agenda and to win votes whilst the speech itself is given a decent reception before a sympathetic audience. The speeches certainly aren't designed purely to appeal to just to the delegates when they know it will be reported to a much higher audience.

I don't have a problem with him discussing Ivan (or his father's disabilities) in the right context but when it's done in a speech which is vital for winning support for the Tories it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.

And I say this as someone who tends to support the Tories, I just don't like it, it's crass and exploitative.

[sunflowersfollowthesun]

Party conferences are held to rally the troops. Obviously they will receive some degree of coverage by the news, but they are not party political broadcasts.

I'm really at a loss to understand how such comments as
the dead baby being wheeled out
is fine, but him refering his own real, life is wrong.

[BridgetBidet]

They ARE party political broadcasts. I suspect you are being disingenuous pretending that this isn't the case. They are the main showcases for the party's policies, of course they are intended as party political broadcasts.

And yes I used the phrase 'the dead baby being wheeled out' because it seems descriptive of the cynical attitude of using this event in his life to drum up votes.

His son's death although incredibly sad doesn't affect how good or bad his policies are. Child mortality isn't just exclusive to virtuous people who would be good at running the country.

If he wants to win votes he should stick to his policies rather than courting the sympathy vote.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

What I liked about the speech was that, unlike Labour, at least the PM doesn't try to make out that there is some easy solution, some government magic wand that will suddenly create prosperity. I really don't understand the hostility towards a man referencing his late son in a speech when talking about the legacy of the Paralympics. If he never mentioned the child presumably the same people would be accusing him of being cold-hearted?