David Cameron: A Professional Who Plays Like Anmateur

Who will trip David Cameron up? The most likely answer is “himself”.












The Prime Minister’s scorn for his opponent, and laughter at his own jokes, suggest a man without a care in the world.

The ease with which Mr Cameron dominates Ed Miliband is becoming a bit offensive. It is like watching a one-sided cricket match: any spectator of a sporting disposition is bound to wish for a closer game.

The Labour leader runs in to bowl six of the most awkward deliveries he can devise – this week to do with police commissioners and NHS waiting times – but is met by an impregnable defence.

Mr Miliband’s questions are not bad, but Mr Cameron’s retorts are better. The Prime Minister has a long training in this not very glorious kind of warfare: in September 1988, straight out of Oxford, he joined the Conservative Research Department, where much effort was devoted to digging out quotations which could be used to suggest that the Labour Party was mired in a set of absurd contradictions.

So when Mr Miliband said elected police commissioners are a waste of money, Mr Cameron hit him with a remark by Gordon Brown: “The Home Secretary will bring forward proposals for directly elected representatives to give local people more control over policing.”

Mr Brown said this in the Commons on 14 May 2008, but Mr Cameron cleverly implied that it had been in the Labour manifesto of May 2010, written by Mr Miliband, whom he proceeded to accuse of “a complete U-turn”.

When Mr Miliband switched to the NHS, Mr Cameron was once more ready and waiting with an inconvenient quotation, this time by John Healey, the shadow Health Secretary, who had apparently opined that “what Labour says matters less than what almost anyone else says”.

Mr Cameron’s professional technique is hidden by the swagger with which he plays his shots. The Prime Minister’s scorn for his opponent, and laughter at his own jokes, suggest a man without a care in the world. At one stage he committed the atrocious mistake of referring to “my housing minister”: the man is the Queen’s housing minister.

Confidence can easily degenerate into over-confidence, which is why Mr Cameron could one day get himself out by attempting a ludicrously risky shot. He is not averse to taking risks, as he showed in a reply to one of his backbenchers.

Nadine Dorries (C, Mid-Bedfordshire) complained that “the Liberal Democrats make up 8.7 per cent of this Parliament and yet they seem to be influencing our free school policy, health and many issues including immigration and abortion”, after which she issued a challenge: “Does the Prime Minister think it is about time he told the Deputy Prime who is the boss?”

Mr Cameron began, “I know the honourable lady is extremely frustrated,” whereupon he was interrupted by rude laughter in which he joined, after which he ended: “I’m going to give up on this one.”

The Prime Minister had not answered the question. Since it was an unanswerable question, or unanswerable without insulting Nick Clegg who was sitting next to him, perhaps that was the best way to leave it.

Tory backbenchers complain that Mr Cameron listens more to Mr Clegg than to them. Mark Reckless (C, Rochester and Strood) demanded that the Prime Minister “now listen to Conservative colleagues and take the opportunity to hold a referendum on Europe”.

Mr Cameron refused to do so. Perhaps it is his own side who will one day trip him up.

Nadine Dorries' Abortion Proposals Heavily Defeated In Commons

Abortion amendment that bids to strip termination providers of their counselling role loses by 250 votes with supporters divided












Nadine Dorries debates plans to bar abortion providers from giving advice to pregnant women.

An attempt to strip abortion providers of their role in counselling women was heavily defeated in the House of Commons this afternoon after a split between the original supporters of the amendment.

MPs voted by 368 votes to 118 – a majority of 250 – to reject the amendment by the Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries after she lost the support of her co-sponsor, the former Labour minister Frank Field.

Dorries managed to win the support of three cabinet ministers – Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, Liam Fox, the defence secretary, and Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary.

Field withdrew his support for the Dorries amendment after Anne Milton, the health minister, said the government would try to implement the spirit of her proposal.

Milton told MPs: "The government is … supportive of the spirit of these amendments and we intend to bring forward proposals for regulations accordingly, but after consultation. Primary legislation is not only unnecessary but would deprive parliament of the opportunity to consider the detail of how this service would develop and evolve."

Dorries hailed Milton's undertaking as a victory. She told the BBC's Norman Smith: "We lost the battle but we have won the war."

Milton distanced the government from the amendment towards the end of a stratchy debate in which Dorries said that David Cameron had initially encouraged her.

Dorries claimed that the prime minister had advised her on the wording of her amendment by saying that she should describe abortion counsellors as independent.

Dorries said: "I went to see the prime minister regarding this amendment and he was very encouraging. In fact it was at the prime minister's insistence that I inserted the word 'independent'. I attended a meeting at the department of health and at that meeting it was decided what the outcome, the process that would be implemented, to make this a reality."

The Dorries amendment would have stripped non-statutory abortion providers such as Marie Stopes and Bpas from offering counselling to women. This was designed to provide greater opportunities for independent counsellors, some of whom are influenced by pro-life groups, to provide counselling. NHS abortion providers would still be free to offer counselling.

Dorries claimed that the prime minister changed his mind under pressure from Nick Clegg, after the deputy prime minister was lobbied by the former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris. Dorries said: "Basically the Liberal Democrats, in fact a former MP who lost his seat in this place, is blackmailing our prime minister. Our prime minister has been put in an impossible position regarding this amendment. Our health bill has been held to ransom by a former Liberal Democrat MP."

A senior Lib Dem source dismissed her allegation. The source said: "That is utter rubbish. [Nick] doesn't need Evan to tell him the problems with her amendment."

The defeat was welcomed by Bpas. Ann Furedi, its chief executive, said: "Bpas is pleased to see Nadine Dorries' amendment so overwhelmingly rejected. We look forward to being able to focus our efforts on the issues which pose a genuine problem for women considering ending a pregnancy."

Dorries insisted that she did not want to restrict access to abortion. "I do not want to return to the days of back street abortionists," she said. "I am pro-choice. Abortion is here to stay."

The MP said that it was wrong for abortion providers to counsel women with unplanned pregnancies. "It must be wrong that the abortion provider, who is paid to the tune of £60m to carry out terminations, should also provide the counselling if a woman feels strong or brave enough to ask for it. If an organisation is paid that much for abortions, where is the incentive to reduce them?"

Diane Abbott, the shadow public health minister, said: "This amendment is a shoddy, ill-conceived attempt to promote non-facts to make a non-case – namely that tens of thousands of women every year are either not getting counselling that they request or are getting counselling that is so poor that only new legislation can remedy the situation. In matters of this kind, if legislation is the answer then you have almost certainly asked the wrong question."

Public Reject Dorries' Abortion Proposal

Tomorrow, MPs will debate whether to prevent abortion providers from counselling women seeking an abortion. The motion – put forward by Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries as an amendment to the Health and Social Care bill – is being opposed by the government, and pro-choice groups are backing a rival amendment, which reinforces the status quo. The amendement's author, Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert says:










"The present system which allows women access to evidence-based guidance works, therefore I cannot see why we need to change it. I do not want to see us opening the door to anti choice organisations which could prevent women making their own decision on such a momentus issue."

And a YouGov poll released today shows that, were the public to be voting instead of MPs, they would be much more likely to back Huppert's amendment than Dorries'.














Fewer than one-in-four people support changing the law to prevent charities like BPAS and Marie Stopes from providing counselling, while 40 per cent oppose it. And, strikingly, Conservative voters are no more likely to support Dorries' motion than the public as a whole. In addition, a majority dismiss the notion that "it is too easy for women to obtain abortions in Britain":














These results are hardly surprising in a country that is predominantly pro-choice, as shown by a poll yesterday showing more than three-to-one support for the claim that "if a woman wants to have an abortion, she should not have to continue her pregnancy".

Why Cameron Must Stop Running Scared Of These Abortion Zealots

Many who gaze across the Atlantic have long been amazed at the way in which the toxic issue of abortion fundamentally distorts the U.S. political agenda.

With a certain amount of smugness, the British have told themselves that things are very different in the UK.

Here, such issues are settled not by divisive decisions of the courts, as in the U.S., but through the democratic and unifying route of Parliamentary debate and votes.

Yet now it appears that abortion hysteria is beginning to distort British politics, too.



















Amendment: Frank Field and Nadine Dorries have been pushed the law changed, yet it looks as though their proposals will be lost after a screeching u-turn.

Just one week ago, an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill drafted by Tory MP Nadine Dorries and Labour MP Frank Field looked set to sail through the Commons on a wave of general approval.

Their amendment — to be debated in the Commons this week — aims to break the stranglehold of abortion clinics which are the sole state-funded providers of counselling to pregnant women who are contemplating abortion.

The measure would open up to independent counsellors this optional process of advice and guidance to avoid any possible conflict of interest by abortion providers.

According to opinion polls, no fewer than 92 per cent of MPs, along with around three-quarters of the public, said they supported the amendment. For its part, the Government let it be known that it was already developing proposals to introduce independent abortion counselling for women.

Nevertheless, the amendment now seems likely to be lost because the Government has performed a screeching U-turn and urged MPs to vote against it.

In an unprecedented letter to Tory MPs, Health Minister Anne Milton said that ministers would themselves vote to block it. This has been interpreted by some Tory MPs at least as a covert attempt to whip them all into the ‘no’ lobby.

Yet abortion has always been decided by free votes rather than the imposition of party lines. So why has the Government suddenly decided to wreck both the amendment and this sacred constitutional protection for issues of conscience?

















Unprecedented: Anne Milton sent a letter to Tory MPs saying that minister would vote to block the proposals.

It has been suggested that this was yet another example of Nick Clegg forcing David Cameron to adopt a Left-wing position. Well, maybe.

What seems more plausible, however, is that with the Prime Minister’s antennae so finely tuned to the Guardian/BBC agenda, he simply took fright at the vitriol being hurled from the Left.

If so, this demonstrates once again the power of the campaigns of instantaneous demonisation and denunciation now employed to silence those who uphold a socially conservative position by tarring and feathering them as swivel-eyed bigots. It is particularly instructive that the amendment’s co-sponsor, Frank Field, has not been subjected to the abuse being hurled at Nadine Dorries.

For Field is a decent and principled man of the Left. But those seeking to characterise the measure as an import from what they portray as the knuckle-dragging, U.S. Right-wing Christian fundamentalist agenda cannot acknowledge Field’s involvement.

For this would destroy the demonisation strategy by suggesting the amendment is motivated by sound and decent principles. So, tellingly, Field has been all but airbrushed out of this venomous campaign. It is Dorries, the Tory bogeywoman, who receives the hate mail and death threats.

The impetus behind the amendment is a change in British attitudes. While only a minority would want abortion made illegal once again, thus returning to the evils of back-street butchery, there is now widespread revulsion over two aspects in particular of the current situation.

The first is the unmistakeable humanity of the foetuses subjected to late abortion. The second is the enormous abortion rate, which last year amounted to more than 200,000 terminations in England and Wales.

According to Dorries, up to half of those women who have independent counselling change their minds and decide not to abort. However, when women are referred straight to an abortion clinic for counselling, that number can be as low as 8 per cent.

It does not follow from these figures that the two abortion clinics providing most of the available counselling, Marie Stopes International and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, are subjecting vulnerable pregnant women to pro-abortion propaganda.

Maybe they do exude a more subtle ethos of pro-abortion sympathies — but that would hardly be surprising, since they are, after all, abortion clinics.

The reason for the different rates might merely be that women who seek out independent counselling have a more open mind in the first place and so are more likely to decide to have the baby.












Counselling service: Statistics appear to show Marie Stopes and other clinics to be be pro-abortion and therefore offer advice that way - but it is not surprising given that abortion is the very reason they exist.

Whatever the explanation, surely only a zealot would be complacent about the huge number of abortions — a number which was never envisaged when the procedure was legalised.

Dorries has been pilloried for declaring that she wants to bring the number down. Yet how can any decent person not want to bring down the huge rate of what should only be a procedure of last resort?

Some of the objections used in the past week — that if tens of thousands more children were born as a result this would put pressure on social services — have been spine-chillingly callous.

They are sobering evidence of the brutalisation of attitudes that abortion virtually on demand has brought in its wake.

So if independent counselling would reduce this toll, who could possibly object? Only the pro-abortion zealots, whose visceral hostility to faith-based counselling is based on the fact that this changes some women’s minds.

This is no more than opposition to thinking independently. To put it another way, to the pro-abortion lobby, if a woman decides against having an abortion after counselling, she has been brainwashed, but if she decides to go ahead with it she has reached her own decision.

Now we can see the vacuity of the pro-abortion slogan: ‘A woman’s right to choose.’ From the reaction to the Dorries-Field amendment, a woman only has the right to choose counselling that is pro-abortion.


















Compromise: Louise Mensch has put forward proposals suggesting women should be able to receive support from faith based charities and abortion clinics.

Having said that, it does seem unnecessarily divisive to prevent abortion clinics from themselves offering counselling. Surely women should be able to access counselling from both faith-based charities and abortion clinics, as another compromise amendment by the Tory MP Louise Mensch is suggesting.

This would seem to allow various folk to climb down from their respective trees. After all, Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported providing women with more counselling about their pregnancies, but didn’t want to shut down what was provided by Marie Stopes and the BPAS.

Nevertheless, the Government has refused to back even the Mensch compromise. By way of explanation, the Department of Health came up with a prize bit of obfuscatory waffle about there being no need to define independent counselling.

This makes little sense. The real reason is surely that this Conservative Prime Minister is running so scared of the ‘nasty party’ tag that no compromise with the Left is possible.

But what is nice about thinking there is nothing wrong with 200,000 abortions a year? What is nice about wanting to prevent pregnant women from accessing different types of counselling? What is nice about demonising people in order to shut down debate?

Surely this is what is really nasty. The country is crying out for leadership to stand up to this kind of bullying and intimidation. The Prime Minister should get up off his knees and support women’s genuine right to choose.

Health Ministers Vow A United Front Against Plans To Tighten Up Abortion Laws

Health ministers promised yesterday to vote en masse against Commons moves to tighten up Britain’s abortion laws.

Backbenchers are seeking an amendment that would change the law to stop charities carrying out abortions, such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, from offering advice to women considering a termination.

In a letter to Tory MPs last night, public health minister Anne Milton said she and ministerial colleagues would not support the change.




















David Cameron said that the was sympathetic to the proposals on abortion made by Nadine Dorries and other MPs, but he would not in favour of them.

She said she had no evidence that organisations such as the BPAS were causing ‘any harm to women’, despite claims from pro-life groups that the charities are biased because they earn money from terminations.

And she said she did not want to create an extra ‘hurdle’ for women seeking an abortion.

Mrs Milton reiterated that the Government would put forward proposals this year to ensure women had access to independent counselling.

The Health Bill amendment, to be tabled by Tory Nadine Dorries and supported by Labour’s Frank Field, aroused fears that faith groups opposed to abortion on moral grounds would start to offer counselling.












Offering advice: Charity Marie Stopes, based in central London, is against the backbench proposals.

David Cameron has already signalled that he will vote against it.

Mrs Milton said in her letter: ‘We are very sympathetic to the aim of ensuring that all women requesting abortion are offered impartial, informative counselling.

‘However, on the issue of preventing abortion services from offering counselling, we disagree with the amendment.

‘What matters is the quality and independence of view of the advice given. Counsellors should stick to the facts, not promote a particular view, and most importantly help to support women to make their own decision.

‘It is important to be clear that the Government’s position neither represents a criticism of existing counselling services, nor hopes to create an extra hurdle for women to pass before successfully requesting an abortion.

‘We have no evidence that existing abortion counselling services are causing any harm to women.

‘If pressed to a vote, my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health and I will vote against the amendments. This is because the amendments exclude existing abortion services from offering counselling.’

Tory backbencher Louise Mensch has said she will also put down an amendment, saying women should be offered counselling by independent organisations that are neither abortion providers nor faith groups.

A source at the Department of Health said that although ministers had not yet seen the text of this amendment, they were likely to vote against it because they did not see the need for legislation defining independent counselling.

Christian Activists Poised To Win Concessions On Abortion After 40 Years

An influential network dating back to Mary Whitehouse's Festival of Light looks likely to capitalise on David Cameron's big society.












An anti-abortionist protest in 2007. Today, a new health bill is likely to give churches a bigger voice in abortion counselling.

Cliff Richard was a supporter while other luminaries included Mary Whitehouse, Salvation Army leaders and senior clergy. Even Prince Charles sent his "good wishes".

But despite tens of thousands of Christians taking part in September 1971's Nationwide Festival of Light, a month-long campaign against Britain's "moral breakdown" and the permissiveness ushered in by the previous decade, it eventually ran out of steam. After torches and hilltop bonfires were lit around the country, the culmination was a spectacular Trafalgar Square rally.

Exactly 40 years on, however, the Christian network it evolved into is quietly wielding political influence alongside other social conservatives, while gearing up to play an increasingly significant role in the provision of public services under the umbrella of David Cameron's big society agenda.

What's more, the possibility of the first major change to abortion rules for more than 20 years now means it is on the brink of chalking up its most significant victory to date.

An amendment that Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries and Labour's Frank Field have put forward to the health bill would strip abortion providers such as Marie Stopes of their pregnancy counselling roles, opening them up to tenders from "independent" organisations. And now the government has confirmed it will change this key area of the rules anyway.

Bids will almost certainly come from the network of pregnancy counselling centres (CPCs) linked to churches and run by CareConfidential, which became an independent entity in July after spinning off from Christian Action Research and Education (Care). A charity tracing its roots back to the Nationwide Festival of Light, it funds MPs, provides them with interns and has lobbied hard on issues including gay rights, abortion and embryology research.

Other bids could come from the anti-abortion charity Life, which runs its own CPCs and, separately, was appointed by the public health minister, Anne Milton, in May to an expert forum advising the government on sexual health.

Supporters of existing abortion rights and those eager to preserve secularism in public services are, to say the least, rattled, while Labour's frontbench spokeswoman on public health, Diane Abbott, suggests a more profound trend.

"I think that the myriad of encroachment on a women's right to choose that we are currently seeing is best understood in the context of the American phenomenon of so-called 'culture wars'," she said.

"The point for the British politicians pursuing the abortion issue is not just the amendments themselves but that they see it as part of a general approach to politics which has worked so well for the right in America."

As Abbott and others see it, social conservatives in the UK have been borrowing from the tactical playbook of the US Christian right, establishing a network of organisations across a range of fronts and rebranding their traditional "pro-life" language (Dorries and Field's campaign to change the law on abortion is called "right to know").

Certainly, many often-interconnected individuals and organisations pursing a Christian agenda dot the political and legal landscape. Crucially, the Tories now have a strong socially conservative current. David Cameron himself has expressed support for a review of the legal time limit on abortion, as have rising stars of the party such as Louise Mensch.

Of the new crop of Tory MPs elected last year, 12 are members of the Christian Conservative Fellowship (CCF), an influential grouping inside the party. The CCF was founded by MP David Burrowes and the influential blogger and activist Tim Montgomerie, who edits the powerful grassroots Conservative platform ConservativeHome.

MPs from a range of parties also unite on the All-Party Pro-Life Group (APPG). It receives monthly funding from Care, which also (according the most recent register) provides interns for Burrowes and other five other MPs: Sharon Hodgson, Fiona Bruce, Andrew Selous, Gavin Shuker and Gary Streeter.

Beyond parliament, a energetic lobby on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and others exists in the form of groups such as the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) and Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF).

The latter backed high-profile legal actions taken by Christians such as Lydia Playfoot, the teenager who (unsuccessfully) took a case to the high court alleging that she had been discriminated against when a school banned her from wearing a ring symbolising chastity, associated with the UK offshoot of the US Christian Silver Ring Thing movement. Her case was funded through donations gathered through the LCF's sister group, Christian Concern for our Nation, whose members created Nadine Dorries's website for her 2008 campaign to restrict abortion.

The Silver Ring Thing is also one of the groups on a new umbrella body, the Sex and Relationships Education Council, along with Lovewise, Life, Right to Life and Evaluate (an off-shoot of Care).

Nine parliamentarians attended its launch in May in parliament while the education minister, Michael Gove, sent a message saying he was looking forward to working with the group.

Gove, whose support for faith schools has already endeared him to the Christian right, reminded the launch that the Tories had ensured the Labour government "were stopped when they wanted to remove parents' right to remove children from inappropriate lessons".

Secularist concerns that the big society idea could lead to faith-based groups playing a direct role in provision of sex education were already heightened in April. The Tory-controlled Richmond council awarded a contract for counselling of school-age children to the Catholic Children's Society, which requires its counsellors to "uphold and promote the Catholic ethos of the agency".

Another hub is the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) thinktank, founded by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Montgomerie. Although not necessarily faith-based – David Blunkett joined last year – its advisory council includes Field and a key social conservative, Philippa Stroud, who was also involved in its founding.

Formerly the CSJ's executive director, she was appointed as a special adviser to Duncan Smith after he became secretary of state for work and pensions. She was a director at CareConfidential while her husband, David Stroud, is a leading figure in Newfrontiers, an evangelical church network that has played a key role in supporting the Christian charity's network of crisis pregnancy centres.

Montgomerie admits to nervousness at how easily the network of politically engaged Christians could be portrayed as a conspiracy, adding relationships owe more to the "two or three degrees of separation" in politics.

"There isn't a secret meeting where we all plot," he adds, stressing differences between the UK Christian right and its US equivalent.

Faith-communities in the UK, for example, are at a different stage in terms of acceptance of homosexuality, he says, although opposition remains "an article of faith" to many. He emphasises the value UK Christian activists attach to causes such as social justice and international development, rather than focusing entirely on thornier "conscience" issues such as abortion. That said, he casts the "significant" Christian impact on the Tory party as "natural, organic and very real" and a product of 13 years of opposition. He counts Duncan Smith, "a very serious Catholic", as the third most important figure in government.

Montgomerie agrees that a moderation of language and positions by Christian civil society groups has led to the point where they are in position to make the most of the opportunity presented by the big society, or "the opening up of a monopoly".

In some ways, Care and Life exemplify this eschewing of past confrontational tactics for a more discreet approach to influencing public policy.

In other ways they do not. For example, in correspondence between Life and Anne Milton, released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, Life used language at odds with the conciliatory public words it later used to describe its engagement with pro-choice groups on the sexual health forum.

"We are reducing the amount of abortion. Abortion providers are not. On the contrary, they promote abortion. It is obviously much in their interests to do so. And yet they receive hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money every year," wrote Jack Scarisbrick, Life's chairman.

A former employee at Care meanwhile insists that this "politically savvy" group relentlessly lobbies behind the scenes, drawing up lists of sympathetic MPs and briefings. It views the network of crisis pregnancy centres as being able to give it "the authority" to campaign on abortion.

"People support Care to the tune of a couple of million quid a year and there are individuals who see Care make a difference primarily in parliament. That is their big appeal."

"Their latest tactics are a new development. The have obviously seen an opportunity in the big society."

He adds that while the charity has visibly softened its hardline language over the years, its grassroots are still hugely suspicious of secularism.

"They look back wistfully to a bygone age when the nation was supposedly more Christian and we did have criminalisation of homosexuality, abortion was much more restricted. They do want to turn back the clock."