David Cameron - Notes de cours PDF

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→ David Cameron (2010-2016)Cameron was a Conservative Prime Minister first from 2010 to 2015 and from 2015 to 2016.Between Tony Blair and David Cameron there was another Primer Minister whose name was Gordon Brown (from the Labour Party) from 2007 to 2010.In 2007, Tony Blair who was aware of his unp...

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→ David Cameron (2010-2016)

Cameron was a Conservative Prime Minister first from 2010 to 2015 and from 2015 to 2016.

Between Tony Blair and David Cameron there was another Primer Minister whose name was Gordon Brown (from the Labour Party) from 2007 to 2010.

In 2007, Tony Blair who was aware of his unpopularity gave up the leadership of the Labour Party. He was replaced by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who immediately became the new Prime Minister.

These 3 years were dominated by problems mainly linked with the 2008 financial crisis. This crisis marked the end of 10 years a buoyant UK economy. He managed to avoid a banking collapse and to alleviate (=alléger) a recession.

However in 2010 he did not manage to convince British people to choose him as Prime Minister. The 2010 general election lead to a coalition government. This was totally exceptional. It was called “a leap into a political unknown”.

There had not been a coalition government since World War II.

→ 1945 : last coalition government by Churchill (War Cabinet between 1940-1945)

→ 1931 : During the Great Depression

Coalition government are only set in period of crisis.

There was a coalition deal between David Cameron (and the Conservative Party) and the 3rd Party of the UK : the Liberal Democrats, lead by Nick Clegg (he became the Deputy Prime Minister).

In the coalition deal there was a 5-year-fixed term, meaning that the government stays in office for 5 years. It also gave 5 Cabinet posts to the Liberal Democrats (25% of the government to the Liberal Democrats).

David Cameron hat to govern by making compromises with the Liberal Democrats. While the Conservative Party had been in opposition between 1997 and 2010, it had attempted to change its image as the “nasty party” and also had attempted to modernize itself.

David Cameron came the leader of the Party in 2005. He was in favor of new values such as the defense of the environment, opening at the party to ethnic minorities, advocating reelection of women MPs. He's also in favor of same sex marriage. The combination of modern values particularly concerning lifestyles and personal choices, and of traditional conservative principles mainly in the economy. The social values change but the economy remains conservative.

Once he became Prime Minister, he seems to be inspired mainly by Margaret Thatcher and her economic policy as he introduced a rigorous policy of public spending cuts. These policies defined what David Cameron called “big society” (a combination of his authority measures in economy and of a severe attachment to individual efforts). David Cameron was saying that, society does exist but it is not the same thing as the state. It means that people should not expect everything to come from the state.

His attitude towards Europe was much the same as Thatcher's = euroscepticism. David Cameron constantly criticize the functioning of the European Union as Thatcher has done ! In line with this and in a context of increasing influence of the nationalist party, UKIP.

In 2013, David Cameron announced that he would organize a referendum on BREXIT after the 2015 general election. The idea was : “vote for me if you want the referendum”. David Cameron was influenced by UKIP in other aspects of his policies and notably in his standing against immigration which was inspired by Nigel Farage's racist statements.

The European Union was the main bone of contention (=objet de controverse) within the coalition government because the Liberal Democrats traditionally were in favor of Europe (Europhiles). They were in favor of the European Union because they didn't want to alienate a deeply eurosceptic public opinion. On the whole, the 5 years of the coalition government were not good for the Liberal Democrats and lost most of their power/influence as party....