David Cameron's spectacular error of judgment (Updated)

The Tory accusation that has the greatest potential to hurt David Cameron and George Osborne is flippancy. Some have levelled this charge against them over Northern Rock. Today's events suggest that they urgently need to take this on board and better read the public mood.

Labour issued a list yesterday of 50 achievements since coming to power. To trump them, the Conservatives have released 26 "gimmicks" today (clearly they couldn't reach a round number, never mind 50).

Number 4 on the list is "Trips to Auschwitz". This has the makings of an almightily political storm.

The Holocaust has never, for obvious reasons, been a party political subject***. The trips are organised by the well-respected Holocaust Education Trust. Government funding was introduced in 2005, and renewed in February. Several Tory MPs, including Jeremy Hunt, Julie Kirkbride and Grant Shapps have been on them, and Francis Maude and Sayeeda Warsi are due to go.

Denis MacShane, the Labour MP who chaired an inquiry into anti-Semitism, has already reacted: "This is a sad, bad day for British politics. Mr Cameron should go away and reflect on the lessons of
European history." There will be others. 

PS Almost unbelievably, as at 2.40pm, the Tories are trying to defend its inclusion. They say the funding announcement does not add up and they were not trying to say that the trips themselves were gimmicks, just the government spin. Doesn't matter: they put "Visits to Auschwitz" under a list of "gimmicks" (itself a gimmick). They should have seen the politics of this. Is Coulson away? Coulson is around.

*** PPS Labour has, perhaps unwisely, just issued a lengthy press release condemning the move from Jim Knight and Ed Balls ("Cameron lacks a basic sense of decency" and, brazenly, saying he is "trying to make this issue into a matter of party politics") and a long list of editors' notes. So perhaps that statement isn't strictly accurate.

PPPS A Tory spokesman has explained what they meant to say. "The Government was trying to suggest in a press release earlier this month they were going to fund two children from every school. The problem is they said they would pay for it in full but, when you look at the analysis, the schools have to pay £1.9 million. So what exactly is the Government paying for?” They therefore argue that its inclusion was correct, but concede that others may see "presentational" issues.

And my conclusion from today's events? The charge of Tory flipancy and judgment error certainly still stands, but perhaps Labour, suddenly emboldened by recent polls, charged in too hard and have done enough politicking with the issue to muddy the waters and lessen the impact.

Comments

[DK]

It is a gimmick. If Labour were serious about sending kids to Auschwitz they would fully fund it to make sure not a single kid loses out on this experience. I suppose the families who can't afford £100 don't deserve to learn first hand about the Holocaust.

Cameron's commitment to fully fund these trips shows how serious he takes it and that every single kid should benefit from this opportunity.

[Sam]

If Ed Balls and Denis MacShane, two of New Labour's oiliest ministers, are criticizing Cameron, he must be doing something right! And he is, though he's not going far enough: he should call for the "guilt trips" to end altogether. They are indeed a gimmick, designed to instil guilt and push an politically correct, anti-white agenda. Stop trying to brainwash British children using the crimes committed by an enemy nation more than sixty years ago!

[Ellesmere Dragge]

Nobody, but nobody who has experienced Auschwitz or (even more poignant) Birkenau could relate that to a "gimmick".

Implying there would somehow be a means-test for students (not that condescending "kids", please) participating shows how little understanding the blinkered commentator has of the regulations under which schools work. Then again, it's two students at £100 each, when secondary schools have budgets well into seven figures.

Arguably the Minister was wrong to rebut the Tory statement through a Labour Party press release. Since it was a party political issue, he could not readily and properly have done so through the Department's press officers. Should he have let it go without comment?

Now we have the Conservative apologists drawing distinctions between CCHQ statements and those of the Party leader. Seems a thin defence to me.

That's the third bad mistake this week, after Osborne's whining response to the Ministerial statement on Monday and "Dave" fouling up in PMQs.

Not the way to rally the troops. Not the way to address the wider public.

[Dr Stuart Russell]

Why are children not sent to see Stalin's Gulags or the site of Pol Pot's atrocities? Are some people's sufferings more important than others? Also, could it be that "The Holocaust" is a very handy tool for bludgeoning children into accepting multiculturalism and other damaging forms of "diversity" without a whimper? Go away, Janner.

[Eddie]

The original press release can be viewed at

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0024

"Two pupils from every sixth form and college in the country will be able to visit Auschwitz and learn about the Holocaust thanks to £4.65m of funding to the Holocaust Educational Trust announced by Schools Minister Jim Knight today."

No mention in the press release that schools will be left funding a third of the cost from their existing budget, all credit taken by the Government.

This Government is renowned for re-announcing old spending commitments as if they are new money, here they announce spending commitments of somebody else's money - that is a gimmick.

[Robin Bather]

How about if the 30% funding that schools will be obliged to cough up for trips to Auschwitz be paid for by the Israeli government.

[David Conway]

Ah, a brilliant comment from Mr. Bather above: the relatives of those tortured and incinerated at Auschwitz should have to fork out so that trainee English yobs and yobettes can moon around what has become a Holocaust Disney Park. Frankly as a Jew I am fed up with my people being held up to others as an example of what can be massacred. Jews have an extensive history and culture, of which the events of 1933-45 form a very small part. Rather than wasting money on inculcating this lachrymose view of Jewish history and heritage, why doesn't the Government insist on giving pupils proper education on British and European history as a whole? Pupils might then learn that Jews made other contributions to history than being victims.

[Dr Denis Matyjaszek]

It is a gimmick - just like 90% of the government's 'announcements'.

[Silent Hunter]

New Tory gimmick? or New Labour gimmick?.

Coke?.............or.............Pepsi?.

What's the bloody difference?

They're all just a bunch of self serving bastards!

.....And the irony of Dennis McShane, of all people, commenting about probity when he is one of the biggest snouts in the Westminster trough, beggars belief.

[Anne Murphy]

This is a classic media/westminster village non story, driven by trumped up pseudo outrage. No one in the real world cares a jot about it.

[Jan Jansen]

" A trick or device intended to attract attention rather than fulfill a useful purpose".
(Compact OED)

Education is stated as the purpose of the trip so perhaps they can explain how the number of victims has changed from four million to just over one million as depicted on the memorial plaque at the site.

[Andy]

Of course it is a gimmick. Cameron is merely pointing out the blindingly obvious. Useless sending 2 pupils from every sixth form, and in any case the teaching of history is now so dreadful their knowledge of the Second World War is bound to be limited if not non-existent.

[M A Swann]

For all the shouting and hyperbole it would still take a minor miracle of engineering to get a cigarette paper between the policies of the two parties.
We are still left with a one-party oligarchy, whatever they may choose to bicker about.
More dog treats.....

[Simon G]

Anyone who is in any doubt as to how some very powerful people have been using the Holocaust as an ideological weapon and a method of blackmailing the non Jewish world should read Norman Finkelstein's book 'The Holocaust industry' His own parents went through the period and he has had the courage to put his head above the parapet.

[K. Hill]

Lord Janner stated that his entire family on the Continent was murdered in concentration camps and mass graves. I would like to point out to Lord Janner that millions of people lost entire families and buried in mass graves during the Second World War - a holocaust in itself.
What about funding trips to other concentration camps, such as those run by the Russians and Japanese?
What about sharing out to other concentration camp victims the billions of dollars that was payed to various Jewish organizations in compensation for their suffering in the camps, which was no worse than those run by the Japanese or Russians?
What about the equal suffering that was endured on all the battle fields of WW2?
Above all, all races have suffered terribly over the centuries, but, unlike a lot ot Jewish people, they just don't keep going on about it.