On Prime Ministerial holidays
I don't always agree with Nadine Dorries MP, but I thought she was right on the money when she referred to criticism of David Cameron for taking a holiday this week as "ridiculous." In fact I would have used a stronger word were it not likely to cause offence.
Labour MPs Sarah Champion and John Mann who criticised the Prime Minister for taking his children away on a short holiday this week - and don't forget that this is half term week - only proved in my eyes that they are either hypocrites who expect David Cameron to abide by a standard they would never apply to themselves, or it is fortunate for the country that they are not ministers.
When Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered, the PM came back to Britain immediately from a summit in France, chaired a meeting of COBRA, condemned the murder, and sent a message of condolences to the family. That was right and proper. But once this was done and the necessary reviews had been started and the police starting to round up those suspected of involvement in this horrible crime, what real benefit could there have been in his cancelling his children's holiday, or sending them off without their father?
In this day and age, nearly everything which would once have had to be put in front of the Prime Minister at number ten or Chequers could equally be sent to him electronically. A number of the PM's staff members have accompanied the Camerons on their holiday, and as Simon Kellner put it in the Independent,
"It's safe to assume they haven't been dragged along to make up the numbers for beach volleyball."
I would no more want the people who take vital decisions about the safety of our country to do so in a state of exhaustion than I would want to be operated on by an exhausted surgeon.
(BTW, it has not exactly done wonders for my morale that a survey showing people are much more likely to remain alive following an operation at the beginning of the week than after one on Thursday or Friday had to be published this week - when I am going into the Cumberland Infirmary for a minor operation tomorrow - Friday! More of this later).
It would appear that most of the electorate sees it the same way: a YOUGOV poll found that a majority of voters, including 88% of Conservative voters and 70% of Lib/Dem voters, agreed with the statement that
""people do their job better if they take regular breaks, and with modern communications he can still keep in touch"
Quite.
Labour MPs Sarah Champion and John Mann who criticised the Prime Minister for taking his children away on a short holiday this week - and don't forget that this is half term week - only proved in my eyes that they are either hypocrites who expect David Cameron to abide by a standard they would never apply to themselves, or it is fortunate for the country that they are not ministers.
When Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered, the PM came back to Britain immediately from a summit in France, chaired a meeting of COBRA, condemned the murder, and sent a message of condolences to the family. That was right and proper. But once this was done and the necessary reviews had been started and the police starting to round up those suspected of involvement in this horrible crime, what real benefit could there have been in his cancelling his children's holiday, or sending them off without their father?
In this day and age, nearly everything which would once have had to be put in front of the Prime Minister at number ten or Chequers could equally be sent to him electronically. A number of the PM's staff members have accompanied the Camerons on their holiday, and as Simon Kellner put it in the Independent,
"It's safe to assume they haven't been dragged along to make up the numbers for beach volleyball."
I would no more want the people who take vital decisions about the safety of our country to do so in a state of exhaustion than I would want to be operated on by an exhausted surgeon.
(BTW, it has not exactly done wonders for my morale that a survey showing people are much more likely to remain alive following an operation at the beginning of the week than after one on Thursday or Friday had to be published this week - when I am going into the Cumberland Infirmary for a minor operation tomorrow - Friday! More of this later).
It would appear that most of the electorate sees it the same way: a YOUGOV poll found that a majority of voters, including 88% of Conservative voters and 70% of Lib/Dem voters, agreed with the statement that
""people do their job better if they take regular breaks, and with modern communications he can still keep in touch"
Quite.
Comments
or did that bit, like so many other bits, just kind of slip under the RADAR?
It was not supposed to be you I was referring to about not noticing things. It was supposed to be a reference to how the EU tend to slip in more and more regulations under the RADAR, and as it does it receives hardly any if any coverage at all in the press.
Take your point about the propensity of the EU to slip things under the radar.