Should Cameron be in Rwanda?
David Cameron (along with Iain Dale among others) is in Rwanda at the moment, on a trip the purpose of which I'm not entirely sure anyone could sum up in a few words. He's learning about stuff, and seeing it for himself. That sort of thing. He's receiving a fair bit of stick for this, such as on the front page of the Daily Mail, for being off on an overseas trip at the time of the worst floods in England in living memory. The implication is that he really ought to be in his constituency and not in Central Africa.
Interestingly, the people saying this are the same ones that decry Cameron for 'style over substance', 'all media presentation' and the like. So what do they think Cameron should be doing in Witney about the floods? I rate Cameron's capabilities quite highly, but turning back the flood waters is probably beyond him. So basically, the demand is that Cameron should come back to Witney and be photographed looking concerned. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
posted by Tim J at
9:57 am
2 Comments:
Of course there would be no point in Cameron playing King Canute. But the Rwandan trip - which ought to have attracted a modest amount of positive publicity like his trip to Norway - has backfired doubly: first of all because of the negative why-isn't-he-here reports and secondly because the trip itself has been overshadowed by events at home in any case (even the Africans were asking him why he wasn't at home).
Along with the by election results, unsympathetically interpreted though they might have been, surely this looks to be the nadir of the Cameron incumbency to date?
No question of that - but if he had cancelled a trip that has been planned for months in order to return to Witney and look caring, the same sort of 'style over substance' headlines would have been used. He has little options but to squae the shoulders and accept that the next little while is going to be tricky.
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