So, is he a Hamlet or a Coriolanus?

The 'he' I refer to in my title is David Cameron, the man most likely to be our next prime minister.  Anyone who has studied the play will know that Hamlet was never hesitant or undecided, all he wanted was proof before he acted, but popular mythology will have it that he was a 'bottler' so for the purposes of this post I will bow to public opinion.  So, if Hamlet was incapable of taking a decision, then Coriolanus took his instantly, angrily, perhaps thoughtlessly, but always courageously according to his own lights.  The question remains, which is Cameron?

I am obliged to Fraser Nelson of The Spectator for doing the sums and providing us all with a clear description of the butcher's bill that awaits the government (whoever forms it) in 2011.  Nelson, in turn, leans on an analysis provided by the Institute of Fiscal Studies who have painstakingly trawled through the budget books and teased out all the nasty little details which Brown wants to keep well-hidden in the midden.  The result is, in effect, the government of 2011 will be forced to institute cuts of 7% over 3 years - "the sharpest, most sustained budgetary retraction attempted by any post-war government."  And that savage regime is only on the basis that the figures and estimates provided by Brown's glove-muppet, Darling, are correct - 'Elf 'n' Safety Warning:  Don't hold your breath!

Apparently, 'Boy' George Osborne has in mind some cove called Phillip Hammond to act as his Butcher-in-Chief with a remit to take his sharpened steel knives to any and every departmental budget.  At this point, reading Mr. Nelson's essay I began to feel rather cheerful and even wondered if I should put the 'Speccie' down and indulge in some delighted hand-rubbing to match my unaccustomed smile.  Then I read on and the smile vanished!  Apparently that awful wet, Andrew Lansley, has been told that his NHS budget is sacrosanct.  This means that Education, Home Office and Defence will have to cut by an average of 3.7% year on year for 3 years.  No mention, so far, of the social security budget!

I can see the predicament in which Cameron finds himself.  No electorate likes to be told the truth, but they are equally savage when, as it always does, truth finally comes out and they are shocked to have been kept in the dark.  It might be a risk to the Tories to start spelling out some of the butchery they will be forced to execute but at least for the next 12 months they can keep jabbing their fingers at Brown and the Labour party as they blunder their way towards the cliff edge like so many loony lemmings.  Indicating the depth of the cuts to come might cost the Tories something on the electoral fringes but instead of worrying too much about the coming election, which is as near a dead cert as any since the war, Cameron should worry about the election after that.  If he obfuscates the grim details now he will be hated by those taken by surprise, but if he spells it out now at least a section of the electorate will remember that he was honest and straightforward and, to quote a saying of our 'cousins', he told it like it was!

Finally, I would offer one suggestion that no-one else, as far as I know, has put forward.  He should publicise the national debt figure starting now, rather like those idiots who keep running totals of what they think the Iraq war costs.  Cameron should keep hammering home the message that this is Brown's debt which he and the Labour party have bequeathed the nation.  Then he should keep the running total going through his administrations to show the figure diminishing so that the message is rammed down the throats of every voter that although things are tough they are slowly but gradually having a good effect and the Tories are cleaning up the dog pile left by Labour.

But still the question remains and nags away, is he a Hamlet or a Coriolanus?

Comments

[North Northwester]

"... if he spells it out now at least a section of the electorate will remember that he was honest and straightforward and, to quote a saying of our 'cousins', he told it like it was!"

'If.'

Let's try it out for size then, shall we?

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Now that fitted Maggie down to the last detail... except, of course, for that last line!

But call me Dave?

Start praying.

[David Duff]

I'm not so sure about that last line - it was said at the time that she had bigger balls than anyone else in the cabinet!

What a terrific poem that is, thank you for reminding me of it.

[North Northwester]

My pleasure. In the culture wars, 'If' is the anti-'Imagine', imho...

[David Duff]

Anything is the anti-Imagine even Stockhausen at a pinch, er, of the nose that is!