Countdown to Humiliation?

Neville Chamberlain was apparent a man of almost-infinite vanity, who believed of himself the quotations [from Shakespeare's Hotspur, and others] that he used to extol his success at the time of national humiliation in the days of the 1938 Munich Agreement. Perversely, public anger then and at the outset of war was directed to his predecessor as prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, who had in fact had a much clearer view of Hitler and initiated the process of rearmament and [in particular] the expansion of the RAF and the widespread development of airfields that were to save the country in 1940. Chamberlain handed over to Churchill only when his illness made continuance in office impossible, and his death was buried in the fraught news of the nation's survival and eventual victory.

Mrs May may be equally delusional with Chamberlain, but I do not believe that she is. She is, however, mortally wounded [in political terms] by her failed general election: since which, she has seemed like a doped rabbit in the headlights, buoyed-up by a remarkable self-belief that she is unable to communicate to the nation that she very rarely troubles to talk to. Even during the election, that she called herself, she did not face up to confrontation, but took a tedious road-show around the country making absurd claims about her own strength and stability and risking losing the oldie vote by a totally silly launch of a plan to pay for home care with a 'death tax'. That might be a sensible basis for consideration: but it would have to be pondered deeply and planned carefully, not drawn up on a fag packet and launched during an election campaign that was already failing to match that of the antediluvian Marxist who had repackaged himself to capture the inexperience of younger voters.

Now Mrs May is gearing up to make only her second major speech this year in the Brexit issue: the one matter that will determine her reputation and the durability of her tenure of office. Early in the year, at Lancaster House, she vaguely talked about the sort of outcome that she hoped for from the negotiations with the EU on how Britain would stand after March, 2019. Many months later, she is to go to Florence tomorrow to make a speech whose content and tone - so it is rumoured - will be determined in the Cabinet Room in Downing Street today. Given Mrs May's propensity to take up pusillanimous positions with the advice of a kitchen cabinet of close advisers, there is a possibility that what is decided in Cabinet may be transmogrified en route to Florence: but the probability of Cabinet resignations may rule that out. However, some Cabinet members in the past have brought down prime ministers and government by resigning; and at least one egotist might be tempted to go - in the hope of future glory - if he is dissatisfied by her remarks.

Rumours about the content of her draft speech are scarce; but they include the suggestion that she will offer a [low] sum of money to the EU as a divorce settlement, spread over a couple of years after March 2019, if the EU will agree to a transitional phase that could well end in British membership of a redefined European Economic Area.

It still appears to be the case that a small number of Conservative buffoons in the Commons actually believe that Britain can walk out of the political AND economic aspects of the EU and survive economically from April 2019. If they were to have their way, supported as they are by a larger number of other MPs who would be prepared to risk a 'hard Brexit' with crossed fingers and justifiable doubts, they would be open to the same treatment as the Rumanian dictator got from the people after his fall.pe

Silly Speaking

So: David Cameron made a last-minute deletion from his Great Speech, toning down his pre-announced  admonition to the British people to pay off their debts. What a cock-up!
Tens of millions of those people are net debtors: their mortgages plus unsecured debts greatly exceed their assets. Many people do not even have one month's income in reserve. Meanwhile the overwhelming majority of the population have declining real incomes;  their wage or benefit increases - if they have any - do not meet the rise in prices and taxes that they must pay. If they are able to pay anything off their debts [and some people are being required to do so] this is a small sum each week, and it causes them to reduce their standard of living commensurately
Until today The Prime Minister's silliest utterance was his repetition of the meaningless 'Big Society' tag, which has never had any meaning for either the media or the public.
Now he has just avoided plunging headlong into a display of profound incomprehension and insensitivity. He and his team clearly have no understanding of everyday life under his own regime. Unlike the greatest Tory Prime Minster, the Marquis of Salisbury, David Cameron does not have daily conversations with the grooms, keepers and tenants whose lives were entwined within the routine of a great estate and who were used to speaking with complete frankness to the great man. Unlike Disraeli, Cameron clearly does not have the common sense that enabled the founder of modern Conservatism to say - and to mean - 'Trust the people'. Harold Macmillan was much criticised in the establishment for the 'vulgarity' of his adopting the phrase 'You've never had it so good': but it resonated with the mass of the population and ensured an election victory. Stanley Baldwin had managed a steelworks before he went into politics and he kept the lessons in mind. Winston Churchill was brutally blunt with aides whose recommendations showed an absence of common sense or a failure to appreciate the public mood.
David Cameron's intended admonition to people who simply can't do it to 'pay off their debts' shows a profundity of ignorance that is comparable with Marie Antoinette's 'Let them eat cake'. It is comprehensible [though it proved to be inexcusable] for an eighteenth-century Habsburg to have lived in ignorance of the condition of the people.  It is inexcusable in a twenty-first century Prime Minister to allow a similarly silly assertion to get into the text of a major speech. It may be comprehensible, given Cameron's origins and the fact that he has spent almost all his adult life in the political bubble; but it will not be forgotten as he and his chosen Chancellor stick to their increasingly isolated programme.