mehru
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I really like this Cameron direct guy. A very entertaining PM indeed.
This recent gaffe by him is Gaffe NO.4. Start counting guys. More will come.
The British Prime Minister's Gaffe-Prone Start
By HUGO RIFKIND
London
The spin, from Britain's Conservative Party, is that Prime Minister David Cameron did not commit "gaffes" on his recent, whirlwind world tour, but was in fact just "speaking his mind."
I am always wary of people who say "I speak my mind," as though that was a good thing to begin with. It's a better strategy, surely, to think your mind, pick out some edited highlights, and speak those. Otherwise, what's the point of having a mind at all? You might as well just have your mouth wired up directly to somewhere else entirely.
Of course, hardly anybody actually does "speak their mind." Of those who have a reputation for doing so, most are actually doing their best to speak the minds of other people, so as to be more popular. Take Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps Britain's greatest cultural export, a motoring expert and general reactionary pundit, who is forever spraffing on about why women can't park, global warming doesn't exist, and foreigners are inherently amusing, especially Germans and Americans. His fans don't love him because he speaks his own mind. They love him because he speaks theirs.
So it is with Mr. Cameron, now home after his whistle-stop trip to various countries, each one of which he stopped in just long enough to make something that would subsequently be reported as a "gaffe." Mr. Cameron said this was just "plain speaking," which is a bit like saying "I speak my mind"—exactly what he wasn't doing. For this wasn't "plain speaking." It was very complex, loaded, meaningful speaking. Where there were gaffes, they were gaffes of style, not of content. He said exactly what he wanted to. He just sometimes used the wrong words.
Consider Gaffe No. 1. That was in Washington in July, when he referred to Britain having been America's "junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis." I felt for him with that one. He'd been trotting out the "junior partner" stuff for weeks, and obviously felt it was doing the trick. Only that morning, he'd written in this newspaper about Britain being the junior partner "in the 1940s." That's contentious enough to the Clarkson-ish British mindset, which prefers to consider America to have been our junior partner in World War II, despite it being so much bigger and stronger, in much the same way that Obelix was the junior partner of Asterix. But in 1940 itself? The U.S. wasn't even in the war then. Russia was still on the wrong side. That was the year that Britain stood alone, more or less, and the national persona swelled with pride, and then basically ossified. Junior partner? Lordy, no.
Definitely a gaffe, then, and particularly for a prime minister from the Conservative Party, with its instinctive bent toward nostalgic patriotism. My favorite response, though, came from Kevin Maguire, of the Labour-leaning Daily Mirror. He set a mock history test for Mr. Cameron. "Nelson's column," it asked, "was named after which famous British Admiral?"
Then we had Gaffe No. 2, a few days later in Ankara. Here, after saying everything the Turks wanted to hear about EU enlargement, Mr. Cameron earned their adulation, and Israeli ire, by describing the Gaza Strip as a "prison camp." This was probably a bit further than he'd meant to go. Again, he'd said the substance before, calling Gaza a "prison" weeks ago in the House of Commons. What he hadn't said before was "camp."
This, I think, is my favorite gaffe, just because of the sheer awful, cringing psychology involved. He's midway through a world tour, he's tired, he's on autopilot. His subconscious mind plucks the word "camp" out of its Israel-related Rolodex and just throws it in the mix, knowing that it belongs in the discourse somewhere, but . . . where? Not there, Dave. Not there.
Gaffe No. 3, by contrast, wasn't really a gaffe at all. Mr. Cameron was in Bangalore, India by now, and talking about Pakistan. He suggested that Pakistan "looks both ways" when it comes to the global struggle between democracy and Islamism, which it does, and suggested that this was something Britain has issues with, which it should. The sense of gaffe came not because what he said was wrong, but because he seemed to be saying it in a manner that presumed that, because he was speaking in India, Pakistan just wouldn't notice. As though Pakistan didn't have a TV.
There was a lot of this sort of thing on this trip. At times, the British prime minister was curiously reminiscent of one of those Middle Eastern politicians who agree with everybody; who spread one message in English, and another in Arabic. Only Mr. Cameron was speaking in English, and in English. Everybody could hear everything.
That, I think, is where the gaffe theme for this trip came from, far more than the few words he got wrong. Yet, which of these messages was really a gaffe? It's a decent rule of thumb in politics that you can always afford to annoy the people who need you the most. British Conservatives need David Cameron, so he annoyed them to agree with America. Israel needs British support, so he annoyed them to agree with Turkey. Pakistan needs Britain in Afghanistan, so he annoyed them to agree with India.
True "plain speaking" could never manage so many twists and turns. This was David Cameron speaking his mind by speaking the minds of other people. Gaffes aside, to my mind, this was a pretty impressive performance. Not that I'm speaking my mind, of course. No. This is just the edited highlights.
Hugo Rifkind: The British Prime Minister's Gaffe-Prone Start - WSJ.com
This recent gaffe by him is Gaffe NO.4. Start counting guys. More will come.
The British Prime Minister's Gaffe-Prone Start
By HUGO RIFKIND
London
The spin, from Britain's Conservative Party, is that Prime Minister David Cameron did not commit "gaffes" on his recent, whirlwind world tour, but was in fact just "speaking his mind."
I am always wary of people who say "I speak my mind," as though that was a good thing to begin with. It's a better strategy, surely, to think your mind, pick out some edited highlights, and speak those. Otherwise, what's the point of having a mind at all? You might as well just have your mouth wired up directly to somewhere else entirely.
Of course, hardly anybody actually does "speak their mind." Of those who have a reputation for doing so, most are actually doing their best to speak the minds of other people, so as to be more popular. Take Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps Britain's greatest cultural export, a motoring expert and general reactionary pundit, who is forever spraffing on about why women can't park, global warming doesn't exist, and foreigners are inherently amusing, especially Germans and Americans. His fans don't love him because he speaks his own mind. They love him because he speaks theirs.
So it is with Mr. Cameron, now home after his whistle-stop trip to various countries, each one of which he stopped in just long enough to make something that would subsequently be reported as a "gaffe." Mr. Cameron said this was just "plain speaking," which is a bit like saying "I speak my mind"—exactly what he wasn't doing. For this wasn't "plain speaking." It was very complex, loaded, meaningful speaking. Where there were gaffes, they were gaffes of style, not of content. He said exactly what he wanted to. He just sometimes used the wrong words.
Consider Gaffe No. 1. That was in Washington in July, when he referred to Britain having been America's "junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis." I felt for him with that one. He'd been trotting out the "junior partner" stuff for weeks, and obviously felt it was doing the trick. Only that morning, he'd written in this newspaper about Britain being the junior partner "in the 1940s." That's contentious enough to the Clarkson-ish British mindset, which prefers to consider America to have been our junior partner in World War II, despite it being so much bigger and stronger, in much the same way that Obelix was the junior partner of Asterix. But in 1940 itself? The U.S. wasn't even in the war then. Russia was still on the wrong side. That was the year that Britain stood alone, more or less, and the national persona swelled with pride, and then basically ossified. Junior partner? Lordy, no.
Definitely a gaffe, then, and particularly for a prime minister from the Conservative Party, with its instinctive bent toward nostalgic patriotism. My favorite response, though, came from Kevin Maguire, of the Labour-leaning Daily Mirror. He set a mock history test for Mr. Cameron. "Nelson's column," it asked, "was named after which famous British Admiral?"
Then we had Gaffe No. 2, a few days later in Ankara. Here, after saying everything the Turks wanted to hear about EU enlargement, Mr. Cameron earned their adulation, and Israeli ire, by describing the Gaza Strip as a "prison camp." This was probably a bit further than he'd meant to go. Again, he'd said the substance before, calling Gaza a "prison" weeks ago in the House of Commons. What he hadn't said before was "camp."
This, I think, is my favorite gaffe, just because of the sheer awful, cringing psychology involved. He's midway through a world tour, he's tired, he's on autopilot. His subconscious mind plucks the word "camp" out of its Israel-related Rolodex and just throws it in the mix, knowing that it belongs in the discourse somewhere, but . . . where? Not there, Dave. Not there.
Gaffe No. 3, by contrast, wasn't really a gaffe at all. Mr. Cameron was in Bangalore, India by now, and talking about Pakistan. He suggested that Pakistan "looks both ways" when it comes to the global struggle between democracy and Islamism, which it does, and suggested that this was something Britain has issues with, which it should. The sense of gaffe came not because what he said was wrong, but because he seemed to be saying it in a manner that presumed that, because he was speaking in India, Pakistan just wouldn't notice. As though Pakistan didn't have a TV.
There was a lot of this sort of thing on this trip. At times, the British prime minister was curiously reminiscent of one of those Middle Eastern politicians who agree with everybody; who spread one message in English, and another in Arabic. Only Mr. Cameron was speaking in English, and in English. Everybody could hear everything.
That, I think, is where the gaffe theme for this trip came from, far more than the few words he got wrong. Yet, which of these messages was really a gaffe? It's a decent rule of thumb in politics that you can always afford to annoy the people who need you the most. British Conservatives need David Cameron, so he annoyed them to agree with America. Israel needs British support, so he annoyed them to agree with Turkey. Pakistan needs Britain in Afghanistan, so he annoyed them to agree with India.
True "plain speaking" could never manage so many twists and turns. This was David Cameron speaking his mind by speaking the minds of other people. Gaffes aside, to my mind, this was a pretty impressive performance. Not that I'm speaking my mind, of course. No. This is just the edited highlights.
Hugo Rifkind: The British Prime Minister's Gaffe-Prone Start - WSJ.com
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