David Cameron : the luckiest politician ever ?

[Justin Smith]

I'm far from being a Cameron fan, so you're barking up the wrong tree with that one. I just believe that calling people lucky or unlucky is just a cop out, the reason behind someone's success run far deeper than simply putting it down to luck. For example Cameron's campaign took advantage of Labour's weakness spectacularly, so I don't think that his government gaining an unpredicted majority is lucky.

 

I don`t agree with you. Thatcher`s big break was the Falklands war, but that wasn`t "lucky", it was her resolution and strong will (and I`m anything but a Thatcher fan I can assure you) which meant she was prepared to take the big risk.

With Cameron everything except the Liberal`s stich up has just fallen into his lap. Excepting the latter, what risks has he ever taken ? What skilled politics has he ever indulged in ?

 

---------- Post added 09-12-2015 at 11:32 ----------

 

I think David Cameron was unlucky the televised leadership debates began in 2010 otherwise the Conservative party would have easily won the extra 19 seats needed for a majority .

 

Unlucky ? Are you kidding ! Then the Liberals wouldn`t have imploded and who knows what might have happened at the 2015 general election. In my view the fact he was still the PM but in a coalition during the worst years of the economic downturn was very lucky. He then gained at the 2015 election by many of the electorate blaming the Liberals*. That`s an extra huge dollop of luck he had that I failed to mention in the opener. I`ll consider going back and adding it !

 

* Somewhat unfairly in my view, apart from the tuition fees thing.

 

---------- Post added 09-12-2015 at 11:34 ----------

 

It's funny though, however hard I worked at my homework as a boy, I never got to Eton.

 

Very good.

[Eric Arthur]

what risks has he ever taken ? What skilled politics has he ever indulged in ?

 

Preventing the dissolution of the 400 year old United Kingdom seems like an important achievement with risk attached.

[Justin Smith]

Preventing the dissolution of the 400 year old United Kingdom seems like an important achievement with risk attached.

 

Err, there`s two things about that I don`t understand.

 

1 Who is saying Cameron personally prevented the dissolution of the UK ? If any single person did so (and that`s doubtful) it was probably Gordon Brown with his powerful interventions late in the campaign.

 

2 What risk was attached to what Cameron did ? Quite apart from anything else I`d define risk as when you`ve got a choice. Like Thatcher and the Falklands, she had a choice, send or don`t send the taskforce.

[Eric Arthur]

If you're not already relating it to the the basics of what a PM does, and Cameron did in that instance, there's not much point going into any detail. Your mind seems to be already made up, but if it is I'd say that you've got it wrong.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Eric Arthur

[Jonny5]

Then the Liberals wouldn`t have imploded and who knows what might have happened at the 2015 general election. In my view the fact he was still the PM but in a coalition during the worst years of the economic downturn was very lucky. He then gained at the 2015 election by many of the electorate blaming the Liberals*. That`s an extra huge dollop of luck he had that I failed to mention in the opener. I`ll consider going back and adding it !

Cameron managed to get plaudits for every good thing that the ConLibs did and then got all the bad things to stick to the Lib Dems.

 

That's not luck, it's political savvy.

 

Also Cameron has an incredible knack of getting people to forget all the bad publicity that he gets. This is the guy who let Andy Coulson into number 10, an incredibly bad move, yet no-ones seems to hold it against him.

 

Cameron is a very skilful politician. Luck is only one factor in his career.

[foxy lady]

Looking at the two before Cameron:

 

Blair would possibly never have become PM if Smith hadn't have died. He was lucky in a way.

 

 

That doesn't mean to say that Smith would either.

[Justin Smith]

If you're not already relating it to the the basics of what a PM does, and Cameron did in that instance, there's not much point going into any detail. Your mind seems to be already made up, but if it is I'd say that you've got it wrong.

 

Sorry, I don`t understand what you`re saying or what relevance it has to :

1 Cameron being a lucky politician

or

2 Specifically why it was him who kept the UK together

 

---------- Post added 09-12-2015 at 16:51 ----------

 

Cameron managed to get plaudits for every good thing that the ConLibs did and then got all the bad things to stick to the Lib Dems.

 

That's not luck, it's political savvy.

 

Also Cameron has an incredible knack of getting people to forget all the bad publicity that he gets. This is the guy who let Andy Coulson into number 10, an incredibly bad move, yet no-ones seems to hold it against him.

 

Cameron is a very skilful politician. Luck is only one factor in his career.

 

I really do not think there are that many people (outside the media and politicians bubbles) who are really that bothered about the fact Cameron employed Andy Coulson. Other than what he (or the Tories) got out of the LibDems what has he done that`s so politically skilful ?

[I1L2T3]

That doesn't mean to say that Smith would either.

 

It was highly likely. I don't think anybody seriously doubts it would have happened and as the months counted down to 1997 and the Tories more mired in sleaze every day the Tories were never going to win. He wouldn't have got as much of a majority as Blair I grant you.

[Eric Arthur]

If there is such a thing as a lucky politician, John Smith is it.

 

He died before he ever had to do anything useful or memorable and became a saint of the left for all the things he never did.

 

In every respect he was the perfect left wing politician for being full of promises that he never had to deliver on.

[foxy lady]

It was highly likely. I don't think anybody seriously doubts it would have happened and as the months counted down to 1997 and the Tories more mired in sleaze every day the Tories were never going to win. He wouldn't have got as much of a majority as Blair I grant you.

 

I don't see how you can know when Smith had never led his party into an election. No one can know how he would have stood up to that scrutiny. All we can say is that it is very unlikely that Blair would have been Prime Minister, and Labour would have gone into the 1997 election on a very different set of policies.

 

Blair & Labour probably gained a great deal of sympathy vote because of Smith's death. It is also said that Blair was rather more of an orator than Smith. Smith would have had his life under the spot light on the run up to an election, and like Kinnock before him the favourite 2 years before the election doesn't always win it.

Edited December 9, 2015 by foxy lady