A Different Sort of Tory

Davy Cameron slips Leftward and downward:

Downing Street said that Mr Cameron’s view is now that the clubs “look more to the past than they do to the future”.

Mr Cameron was previously a member of White’s gentlemen’s club and his father was its former chairman.

The Prime Minister has given his full support to Maria Miller, who has said she will boycott the Open Championship in Muirfield because of its men-only policy.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “The Prime Minister has a great deal of sympathy with the view that exclusive memberships of this sort look more to the past than they do to the future.”

In days gone past the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was the holder of an august office. The pronouncements that emanated from No. 10 had world wide effect. The fate of nations and continents hung on the very words uttered by Britain's head of government. That was many years ago, a distance in time and understanding that is utterly vast. Mr Cameron, remarkably, has captured that distance perfectly. From grander to triviality in about a generation.

It is hardly likely that Peel, Gladstone or Churchill would have thought the membership qualifications of a private club, like White's, a proper subject of Prime Ministerial commentary. But again they were statesmen.

Cameron is the first self-hating toff to serve as Prime Minister. Whereas in generations past men sought to hide or downplay their modest upbringing, we now witness a graduate of Eton and Oxford desperately trying to pretend he is an ordinary bloke. Since Davy is not an ordinary bloke, and is a very weak actor even by political standards, he comes off as being a complete fake.

The membership requirements of White's are not the sort of thing that average blokes, not even in the posher precincts of the City, spend too much time worrying about. I doubt that it is all that vexing a question even within the elegant confines of the club itself. Not allowing women into a place that men don't want them to go is consider a high crime in modern Britain. It is, of course, understood that should women discriminate in a similar manner such behaviour is to be regarded as completely acceptable. In more advanced portions of society it might be regarded as a high virtue.

Just as only white people can be racist, only men can be sexist.

A deeper thinker than Davy Cameron might question the hypocrisy of that line of thought. But Davy is mercifully free of deep thoughts. He is an ambitious man with little to be ambitious about. His burning desire has been to be Prime Minister. Why? Because it's a grand old job. But there is a great problem with pragmatic politicians: Once they get power they have no idea how to wield it.

A mere schemer might plot his way into the highest office in the land, he is not likely to stay there very long. He must offer something else to the nation. If not an actual vision, then at least a reasonable facsimile. If we cannot have Churchill we might, for a little while, contend ourselves with a Harold Wilson or a Stanley Baldwin. What any of those men would have made of Davy Cameron is hard to guess at. Perhaps a little boy keen to ingratiate himself with the headmaster, thereby earning the ire of all the other schoolboys

Whether White's wants women, or does not want women, is beneath the purview of your office Mr Cameron. Your nation is broke, its sovereignty steadily eroded by Brussels and the social fabric has been frayed by the failure to integrate large numbers of non-European immigrants. These are your concerns Prime Minister. They are the burdens of the office you so long sought. Do try to remember that. Certainly the electorate will in 2015.