Lesson of Cameron’s failures: listen to the honest fears of voters
RNLI steams into perilous waters
DAVID CAMERON’S confessions, mixed with self-justifications and catty sideswipes at former political colleagues, offer a worrying insight into our governing elite.
From his bizarre preparatory school, a curious mixture of snobbery, cruelty and squalor, to his cannabis- clouded days at Eton, Mr Cameron lived at an impossible distance from the experiences and problems of normal British people.
What is far worse is that he does not at any stage seem to have realised just how little he knew of the world outside his own magic circle, at least until it was too late to do him any good.
The little private island on which he smoked marijuana, until he was, in his own words ‘off his head’, is a fitting symbol of his remoteness from reality. His refusal to this day to say whether he took cocaine is, likewise, a reminder of his considerable arrogance.
And so, when he was wafted into office on a cloud of skilful public relations and little else, he lightly dismissed the huge, unavoidable European issue as a boring diversion about which people should stop ‘banging on’.
And this was why it caught him in its talons and tore him apart. He did not understand how much nati onal i ndependence and secure borders meant to so many people. He thought the EU controversy was just a Tory internal war and could be deflated by a referendum which he, the brilliant communicator, would easily win. Likewise, he imagined that he could, by his own charm, negotiate concessions from Brussels that would pacify his critics. When this turned out not to be so, he reached for the crude weapons of Project Fear. And when that did not work, he never really knew what had hit him. But he was gone, back into his cushioned, relaxed world of assured privilege.
What do we learn from this? That there has been for many years a type of politician in this country – in all the major parties – who has sneered at what he did not understand. The era when such people could claim to rule us by effortless superiority has gone, for it turns out that they were only lucky, not clever.
Like a cold, cleansing wind, the EU crisis has at least swept all that away. If only politicians will learn from this and listen to the real, honest fears and concerns of voters, it will have done some good. But we have paid a high price for this wisdom. WHY do so many respected charities fall victim to political meddling? In recent years, several of them have gone far beyond their original purposes and begun to engage in politically correct campaigning.
Now we learn that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), one of the oldest and most beloved of all, has made this mistake.
It funds‘ anti-drowning’ schemes: in Tanzania, which gives devout Muslim women full- length burkini swimsuits and swimming lessons; and it pays for creches in Bangladesh, which it claims will stop children swimming in the sea.
Meanwhile, it is cutting staff numbers here in the UK, and there is also evidence of volunteer lifeboat crews finding it hard to submit to a humourless PC regime.
The millions who donate to the RNLI believe their money is given to save lives in the waters around our coasts, and for that alone. Its ruling bureaucrats have no moral right to divert it to other purposes, however noble they may think they are.