Are these the last days of Cameron in charge?

Who would ever have thought the Conservative Party, once a symbol of loyalty, should have deteriorated into a brawling rough-house?
1995 library filer of Chris Moncrieff. Photo by Peter Smith/PA1995 library filer of Chris Moncrieff. Photo by Peter Smith/PA
1995 library filer of Chris Moncrieff. Photo by Peter Smith/PA

The word ‘liar’ has been bandied about, while insults have been hurled back and forth in a manner you’d find hard to believe among people who had always been regarded as close friends.

Cameron says the party will easily be able to return to its traditional unity once the EU referendum campaign’s over – but how can he be so sure? The deep-seated nature of the insults makes it virtually impossible to achieve a 100 per cent rapprochement. But it might well not be David Cameron who will have the task of restoring unity to this badly fractured party.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The June 23 referendum could be followed by a vote of no confidence, which could well and truly see him hiring a pantechnicon to shift his furniture out of 10 Downing Street.

In short, the Conservative Party is in a shambles, while David Cameron’s position at its helm looks ever more unstable as each day passes.

Brexiteers suspect Cameron’s efforts to get reforms for Britain from the EU were at best half-hearted, that no one in Brussels seriously listened to him, and that he came away with nothing.

Whatever the outcome, this whole sad saga will leave a nasty taste in the mouth for years to come.

And the Tory Party will never be the same again.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

That ugly word ‘fracking’ has reappeared, and it is likely to generate controversies that are no less ugly. Fracking is a contentious method of extracting fuel, namely shale gas, from subterranean sources. Wherever the method has been contemplated, there has been an outcry.

People fear it will cause earthquakes, and will have a devastating effect on the local environment.

However, North Yorkshire Council have just given the go-ahead to fracking in their locality, despite a petition signed by 4,000 people urging the council, in vain, to refuse the application. This country is in urgent need of the fuel which this practice will hopefully produce.

If entrepreneurs in Victorian times had encountered this kind of protest, the Industrial Revolution might never have taken place on the scale which it did. And where would that have left us?