David Cameron on the Phone-In
In the run up to the local and European elections we're talking to all the major parties on the Breakfast phone in. This morning your chance to question the Conservative leader David Cameron.
After 12 days of revelations about MPs' expenses, the reputation of British politics has never been lower. Claims for moat cleaning, horse manure and mortgage repayments have led to unprecedented public outcry. So what do you want the Leader of the Opposition to do? What would convince you to vote Tory in the upcoming elections?
Maybe you're more concerned about the state of the economy or our relationship with Europe. Whatever you want to ask David Cameron get in touch with Nicky on the phone in. You can call on 0500 909693 between 9 and 10. You can text 85058 or email breakfast@bbc.co.uk.
Update - You can watch part of the interview below:
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I am really angry.
The Daily Telegraph is dictating the political agenda. The rest of the media follows, in breathless thrall. Journalists, pundits and Jocks are wetting themselves over the sheer volume of juicy nuggets - 50 Profumos at once, it's just so easy to come up with an angle - or a trouser press.
Then, humbly, they support the Public outcry. Finally the people have a forum their whinges. Like Orwell's sheep and chickens they bleat and squawk their gripes in the daily indignation meeting.
Meantime Brown and Co., the government, lie supine and Cameron slides in to fill the vacuum.
OK. Some MPs have been on the fiddle - surprised? No, of course not. The solution is fairly easy - if they've broken the rules, the Law use the appropriate sanction. What is more sinister is the hi-jacking of our democracy by the Fourth Estate.
I too am angry.
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No the Speaker should not go as he did not make the rules for expenses.
However if the "Speaker" is removed from office then we should look deeper into the MPs expenses prior to 2000 and see if the abuse of the system was due to Martin becoming "Speaker". If there was no abuse of the system prior to 2000 then fair enough he should take some blame, however, if MP's are shown to be abusing the expenses system prior to 2000 then the current "Speaker" is not to blame at all. Let the truth be known! Until this is disclosed the unethical MP's and House of Commons are a sham!
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Question for Mr Cameron: You called for a general election, what makes you think Gordon Brown will listen to what the public wants as he has never done this before?
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Everybody's angry. Before the Telegraph started releasing details, David Cameron was trying to make this a political issue. He also tried to get it resolved behind closed doors in a cosy meeting between Brown, Clegg and himself. Rightly, Brown was having none of it and supported independent review.
It's amusing they've turned on the Speaker. It's like the bank robbers turning on their look-out because they got caught.
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So, effectively Mr. Cameron says nobody has done anything wrong because it was "in the rules". You didn't say anything about it until you and everyone else got found out.
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Mr Cameron you have failed to convince me that you have changed from the orgins of your party at the begin of the 19th Century! In this period the conservatives were wealthy aristocrats and business men, who cared nothing for the electorate! You have failed to do this as clearly the claims of your party demonstrate that you have not changed, for example claiming for cleaning moats. I think you and all parties should say sorry and that it was your fault not the rules!
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do any of the civil servants in whitehall get simalar expences claims as the politicians if so who govens or is looking at them
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Ref 3. asm495
Who wants a General Election now? Not me. I don't want to be forced to choose the next Government in this turmoil. The full expenses issues needs publishing and a solution implemented. An election next year is the best option. It gives a year to sort the mess out.
Calling an election now is like your fiance asking you to book the wedding to make everything alright, after she's just been caught cheating.
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So now Mr. Cameron is full of righteous indignation and accepting responsibility - but not blame - for his colleagues' impropriety. This man helped write Michael Howard's manifesto for the last election - a right-wing manifesto, then, on assuming the leadership tries to out-Blair Blair with "hug a hoodie", sacking Patrick Mercer for "racism", calls the UKIP a "bunch of crackpots and closet racists" positively discriminates for candidates on grounds of gender and ethnicity - just to mention a few items.
Now he's taking a tougher stance, because it's panders to public and media opinion. Hey - Patrick Mercer's been re-hired ! Please ask him if he still holds with his description of UKIP voters. Will he sack Michael Gove & Alan Duncan? It all depends on how loud the people/media shout. We don't need Cameron - his principals are constantly subject to change.
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I am still unconvinced that politicians are taking the electorate seriously. I still hear a patronising theme that if only they are contrite enough things will go back to 'normal' and it will be business as usual. I think the current crisis is the combined result of a number of things. The Iraq war, hitching our waggon th the US and linking us forever with Bush, the banking crisis and the attendant unfairness in terms of bankers bonusses, the reduction of interest in savings and now the blatant milking of the taxpayer for MPs personal gain. I fear they don't grasp that democracy only works if the people have trust in the system. Too many hands have been helping themselves to the contents of our back pockets for too long. Whether the speaker stays or goes, whether MPs are prosecuted doesn't really matter, I will not be appeased. Someone has to think several steps further down the line from that, forget party politics and start to respect me
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Nothing wrong with Cameron's claims.
NC made comment that he is a wealthy man therefore why should he need to claim.
That is not the point. If the claim is justified then it should be claimed, otherwise we will get to the stage where only the wealthy can stand for Parliament.
We do need to be reflective because we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Last weeks Question Time was a case in point where the audience was hostile to everybody - including the guy from the Daily Telegraph who exposed the expenses. Then on the phone in the first caller was very hostile to Cameron for things done by Labour members - seemingly failing to understand the difference.
The real problem is that the whole establishment has been brought into disrepute and it is going to take an awful lot of mending.
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David,
I'll stand as an MP for the Conservatives in Wansdyke - I'm not a member of the party, but by god I've got some ethical and moral high ground to present to Parliament! It starts it seems with local councils and councillors - are you going to clean up these people too? Conservative councillor for Keynsham Charles Gerrish is milking the expenses for all they are worth. It is disgusting.
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did the speaker of the house make the decision to try and block the revelations of mps expences on his own or did he take advice from other politicians if so dose who advised him to try and leagally block them
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We keep hearing that David Cameron's actions on the expenses debacle are superior to Gordon Brown's. When are people going to remember that Gordon Brown has other pressing matters that need his attention on a daily basis, like the economy, foreign affairs, climate change, etc. Who do people want to lead this country, a show pony, tossing his plumes, and prancing from studio to studio, or a shire horse who will do the job without the PR showmanship. Has anybody had time to take a look at the improvements in the economy, the markets, sterling's daily rise against the euro and the $. Economists' views that UK is better placed to emerge from the recession before other G20 countries. How we are performing better than Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, US and Japan. Don't get carried away by all this froth and flummery from multi-millionaire Cameron. When he tells me that I, as a pensioner, will no longer have to pay for his ASA of £87k p.a. on his second home in Whitney, I might begin to take him seriously. Till then, he can clip clop from photo opportunity to photo opportunity. Eventually he will step in his own manure.
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#gary4julie
In 2007, David Maclean, Conservative Chief Whip, introduced a Private Members Bill to make MPs expenses exempt from the Freedom of Information Bill. The motion was lost because the government majority voted it down. He must have had the nod from the Conservative leadership to table the Bill. So, despite all their protestations of innocence, and their fallacious blaming of the Speaker, the Conservative involvement is no less than that of any other party. The Speaker is there to represent the wishes of the MPs, not the other way round.
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It is just amazing that David Cameron can sit there on Radio 5 live talking about how he is taking action to stop the rot...for goodness sake the fact that he is saying this is scandalous, it is actually an admission that his party is reeking of MPs who are in need of clearing out and rotten
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A couple of points
Some mp,s are wanting the speaker to stand down and if he does not- they want a no confidence vote against him.-- Well thats rich coming from a house that the public have no confidence in-- Whats your view.
If the torie party get elected by a mainly english vote. Do you think it will be the first step to an independent Scotland. We know you have no standing in Scotland.
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David cameron is taking advantage of the situation to call for a general election and I personally think this is irresponsible. He has not put forward any cogent solution to the issue other than a political one. The right wing Daily Telegraph, although right to bring this issue to the public but has been protecting David Cameron. They are not making fuss of him claming fo light buld and caming thousands of pounds for second house allowance.
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David Cameron just said he was obeying the rules as well!
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Is is me or is Cameron very lightweight?
He seems to me to jump on any media bandwagon on a daily basis.
Ask yourself the question of where we and the world economy be if the Government had listened to him and Osborne, and refused to bale out the banks.
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Why is Cameron calling for a general election when in fact the problem is not actually the government's but that of MPs and the system that's been in place for a long time.
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David Cameron = political weathercock, as someone more incisive than me once said.
God help us if he becomes PM.
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A general election at this point would be completely ludicrous. People would be voting for the wrong reasons and based on the wrong issues.
This is a storm in a tea cup. The media-hyped over-reaction to this story frightens me. When you accept a job, you accept the terms of employment. If the expenses system is loose, it's not really the fault of the employee if the claims are approved.
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Calling an election now is like your fiance asking you to book the wedding to make everything alright, after she's just been caught cheating.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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Why should there not be a police investigation into ALL the MP's that have been named and shamed by the Telegraph?
The idea behind the allowance system is to assist an MP conduct his/her job at Parliament ie. "wholly and exsclusively".
Just because the rules were so badly written with huge loop holes in them, does not mean that an MP has to jump through those holes. They all new what the payments were intended for, and that wasn't to make profit or life of luxuary at the tax payers expense. To repeat, they did not have to jump through the loopholes in the rules just because they were there, they have broken the spirit of the rules and claimed for items that can not be justified. It is OUR money, we should have it back and they ALL need to be investigated. It is a "flipping" disgrace what has happened. They should stop all payments to ALL now, check back over the last 5 years and suspend from office all those currently named in the newspaper, after all if they can not keep themselves honest the what gives them the right to govern us?
Investigate ALL those named, They are ther in parliament to serve us and not be self serving. If we, the public, had done what they had at our place of work, bank etc then we would have been sacked and or arrested. I call for them to ALL be investigated, what do you think?
(sorry for any spelling mistakes, if any)
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The speaker must go he has also had his nose in the trough.
Who in there right mind believes that the person who knocks on your door asking for your vote would actually have your interests at heart.
Just check the background of these power hungry members of our human race.
Remember the next time they come knocking that good old motto god helps those who helps themselves and now proved.
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The (de) Lay Of Cameronkinen - allegedly
Frosty, the son of wicked party,
Hero-son of evil manners,
Hastens off to freeze the Speaker,
Goes to fasten down the flood-gates of opprobrium
Goes to still the currents of bad publicity.
As he hastens on his journey,
Takes leaves from all his senses,
Strips the media of their verdure,
Robs the daffy Jills of their colors.
When his journey he had ended,
Gained the border of the front benches,
Gained the not so sure curved and friendless,
On the first night of his visage,
Freezes he other fakes and divers,
Freezes too the not so sure devoted,
Freezes not the ocean of ill owers,
Does not check the current account contents.
On the sea a Peter finch is resting,
Bird of song upon the waters,
But his feet are not yet frozen,
Neither is his head endangered.
When the second night Frosty lingered,
He began to grow important,
He became a fierce intruder,
Fearless grew in his invasions,
Freezes everything before him;
Sends the fiercest cold of Northland,
Turns to ice the boundless waters.
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker,
Grew the ice on sea and ocean,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
Fell the snow on field and forest,
Froze the hero's ship of beauty,
Cold and lifeless bark of Party;
Sought to freeze wild Lemon shy-en,
Freeze him lifeless as his vessel,
Asked the minstrel for his life-blood,
For his ears, and feet, and fingers.
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I believe there is a long way to go before we have a general election to quicken the process up I would like an amnesty given to all mps who stand down at the next election those who are going to face legal action should do so The three leaders should step down before the next election they are all to blame as well as Mr. Martin all mps who are going to stand at the next election should have their expenses published and scrutinised by the electorate
At the moment I would not have a clue who to vote for All the leaders are running around saying what they are doing to say who will stand or not but it is the electorate that will decide not them
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Wasn't impressed with NC's interview technique today. Hint: It's not all about you, Nicky Campbell.
Some callers def. not informed correctly and NC did nothing to correct them.
So - when will your phone-in with Gordon Brown take place?
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How sure David Cameron could handle such? People can never be fooled by making this political move.
tax liens
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Away from the expenses issue, why wasn't Mr Cameron asked the simple question by any of the 'carefully selected' callers who were put on air: 'what is the difference between your Tory Party and New Labour?
Maybe if Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg (or whoever the party leaders are at the time throughout Parliaments} were made by law to appear regularly together on air where they can interview each other as to their policy differences and to answer ad lib unmoderated questions from the public, it would cause the biggest political crisis in history yet alone outweighing anything this expense saga throws up!
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