Cable: PM fast becoming most irresponsible politician ever
Responding to confirmation the Prime Minister has delayed her meaninful vote on Brexit, Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable said:
Theresa May is fast climbing the league table of the most irresponsible politicians our country has ever had.
Kicking the can down the road will only heighten fears and anxiety of businesses and people right across the UK.
MPs must this week rule out a damaging Brexit and then urgently bring this mess to an end with a People’s Vote, including the option to stay in the EU.
18 Comments
No matter what she does she will never beat Cameron.
I wonder who writes this stuff (style not content).
May is bad, yes, but predictably so. She is a single-purpose, accidental, and intellectually limited PM without further perspective. The MPs that put her in power knew all that. What would one expect? She is pursuing her single purpose, what else?
Irresponsible are the majority of well-intended MPs who were weak enough to take their instructions from an uninformed and misled electorate, and now follow the lead of a 3rd rate cabinet and shadow-cabinet. Their chances of redeeming themselves are quickly running out.
Going to form a new charity and a new award – donations and crowd funding welcome.
The RSPCC (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Cans) – bound to get reported given Prince Harry and his Mrs hit the BBC news headlines this morning for ‘meeting a group of Moroccan School girls’.
And, given Tony’s concerns, the LDSH – (Liberal Democrat Speechwriters award for less than original hyperbole).
I fear the can is beyond hope, a quick visit to the vet is the only solution for it.
Girls education in Morocco feels like blessed relief from the domestic farce. Just seen Heseltine on the box adding to a weekend procession of former Deputy Leaders/Deputy PMs telling us what their party leaders should be doing. Hopefully an afternoon of door knocking might restore some perspective.
Former Labour MP David Owen has a long article in the Sunday Times. My sympathies would have been with any SDP2 canvasser who needed to remember all this detail. The TIG do not have a manifesto yet, so this may be D. O.’s conditions for joining them. They should be warned that he is liable to want all his policies installed, without compromise, or he will disown them.
Historian looking for a league table of Prime Ministers should read Jim Callaghan’s memoirs. As a former navy man and a former Chancellor of the Exchequer he wrote that he had found enough money to keep one old ship afloat cruising around the South Atlantic.
After the 1979 general gave the Tories an overall majority they decided to economise by scrapping this ship with the consequence that the Argentinian Junta perceived that the UK government did not care about the Falklands. They invaded.
The PM did care, but she had made a mistake. Her defence secretary advised her that the UK lacked air cover for an expedition, but he was undermined by “men in uniform” who went to see her and told her that they could “Do it”.
They nationalised the QE2 for use as an unarmed troop ship. They bought French missiles from the international arms trade, for fear that the French would sell them to the Argentinians. They took about 250 casualties among British troops. Despite the PM’s fervent denials in the Commons and on the media a ship sailed into a UK harbour flying a piratical flag, the skull and crossbones. HMS Conqueror was acknowledging that they were the submarine that had sunk an Argentinian navy ship with “the highest authority”.
This war could and should have been prevented.
A Hambro (banker) compared Harold Wilson (Labour) with Lord North (US independence). Lord North did not have telephones (nor SatNav). Sending supplies across the Atlantic took weeks or months. The war might have been prevented politically, but not militarily.
David Lloyd-George was uniquely experienced to argue for a change of Prime Minister in the Commons in 1940, that is except for the incoming PM.
Former PM Margaret Thatcher told Tony Blair that to be a great PM you need to fight a war. He agreed to the invasion of Iraq (which was illegal) jointly with George Bush (son of George Bush).
No deal Brexit. A lot of people seem to believe it means we will not leave the EU. This is incorrect it means we are out and have to start sorting out trade deals all over again. Yes some could be rubber stamped but not all. The voter MUST be accurately informed what No Deal means.
The BBC has lost the plot and is becoming a paper tiger dominated by careerist journoes who cow tow to Govnt orders
@ Arnold Kiel,
“She is …… intellectually limited PM”
Look, it’s OK for us Brits to call Ms May “intellectually limited”, but you should just butt out and show some better manners. She is our PM and not yours!
On the other hand, you can be as rude as you like towards Ms Merkel, but I and other Brits should naturally be much less inclined to comment on whatever she might be up to in her domestic policies.
@ Nigel Hunter,
The BBC has lost the plot and is becoming a paper tiger dominated by careerist journoes who cow tow to Govnt orders
Maybe these journos are worried about the projected shortage of dairy products after Brexit, and are trying to move cattle to where they’ll be more productive?
May has a personal problem with immigration that she is inflicting on the country; it was apparent when she was Home Secretary and it is responsible for the shameful and racist treatment of the Windrush generation: Anna Soubry was absolutely correct to point this out. Her behaviour has gone beyond irresponsibility and indeed betrays a limited intellect.
I do not think there has been a time in which the combined cognitive competencies of the Prime Minister and Leader of the opposition have been so low. It would be interesting if a historian might offer comparable examples from the past.
@ Geoff Reid “Girls education in Morocco feels like blessed relief from the domestic farce.”
That’s not the half of it, Geoff. I can now tell you, having seen it, that they’re looking at horses and in a very royal way – looking interested – and patting them on the nose (the horses – not each other) – such is one of the four main stories on the BBC News today. I wouldn’t mind, but we’re paying for this Moroccan jaunt….. flunkies ‘n all..
Bless Peter you can’t stop the world having views on Mrs May or Brexiteers in general. That those views are likely to be less than flattering is your problem not Arnold’s.
Look, it’s OK for us Brits to call Ms May “intellectually limited”, but you should just butt out and show some better manners. She is our PM and not yours!
On the other hand, you can be as rude as you like towards Ms Merkel
Double standards Peter! Arnold is Dutch, Ms Merkel is German and all of us are currently members of the EU…
Arnold Kiel is a very rude man. But not out of place in a party that throws insults around like confetti.
@ Roland,
OK Arnold Kiel can be as rude as he likes about Mark Rutte then!
But he should show a modicum of respect – whatever our EU status. Our PM has a title. She isn’t just ‘May’. She is either Ms/Mrs May, Theresa May of maybe PM May. I would never refer to her by just her surname no matter how much I was in disagreement.
Peter Martin,
you are right: I should have said Ms. May, or the PM. My sloppy wording shows the disrespect I indeed feel. I also need to correct myself in another matter: the PM’s emotional limitations are probably even more dangerous than her intellectual ones.
I am born in Germany, btw., but reserve the right to judge any powerful individual on this planet. That’s how these citizens of the world are.