Prime Minister David Cameron has now finished putting together his Cabinet of all the talents (well, the ones available to him from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party). Which means that several politicians who only days ago were slagging each other off on the campaign trail are now sitting together around the Cabinet table. Just in case their memories should be playing tricks, these are some of the things they said before the two parties decided to climb into bed together and form Britain's first coalition government since World War Two... CLEGG ON CAMERON - 'NEVER' CAMERON ON CLEGG - 'A JOKE' CABLE ON OSBORNE - 'CALLOW' HUHNE ON CAMERON - 'CUDDLES' HUHNE ON HAGUE - 'SKINHEAD' PICKLES ON HUHNE - 'SMEARS' GOVE ON CLEGG – 'ECCENTRIC' LAWS ON DUNCAN SMITH - 'CARING?' CLEGG ON CAMERON - 'GOOD PR'What the Cabinet used to think of each other
In the spirit of bloody awkwardness, The First Post goes digging in the archives...
Friday, 14 May 2010
LAST UPDATED 7:46 AM, MAY 14, 2010
At the Lib Dems' 2008 spring conference, Nick Clegg said: "The day before I was elected leader, Mr Cameron suggested we join them. He talked about a 'progressive alliance'. This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn't it? Everyone wants to be in our gang. So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government? No." Nick Clegg is now deputy to Prime Minister David Cameron.
Asked during the campaign what his favourite joke was, David Cameron replied: "Nick Clegg".
Back in September, well before Gordon Brown finally called the election, the Lib Dems' popular Treasury spokesman described the Tory front bench as "callow and pitifully ill-equipped" to deal with the downturn and added that George Osborne's business experience was limited to running the "Bullingdon Club bar account". Cable is now Business Secretary, Osborne is Chancellor, and they are already squabbling over who is in charge of banking reform.
In September 2009, the Lib Dems' then shadow foreign secretary Chris Huhne attacked Cameron for "jumping into bed with the wackos and weirdos" of eastern Europe following Cameron's controversial order that the Tories in Europe should team up with a new right-wing bloc in the EU parliament. It meant the Tories would be voting with such parties as the ultra-right Latvian National Independence Movement. Huhne said of Cameron: "He says he cares about human rights, but then cuddles up to a Latvian party that celebrates Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS." Huhne is now Energy Secretary.
In the same speech about the Tories' new right-wing alliance in Europe (see above), Chris Huhne left out a remark he had prepared about the Conservatives' foreign affairs spokesman, William Hague. But it was leaked anyway. "Skinhead Hague," Huhne wrote but didn't say, "has toured the beer cellars of central Europe, and has come up with the dregs." Hague is now Foreign Secretary.
In the light of the 'Skinhead Hague' controversy (see above), Tory party chairman Eric Pickles accused Chris Huhne of recycling "old Soviet smears against the Latvians". Pickles said marches by Latvian National Independence Movement did not commemorate the Nazis but conscripts who died during the war. Pickles is now Communities Secretary.
Following the first televised leaders' debate on April 15, Tory education spokesman Michael Gove described as "eccentric" Nick Clegg's policies on joining the euro, scrapping Trident and offering an amnesty to illegal immigrants. "While Nick Clegg is a very attractive individual in many ways," said Gove, "the policies of his party are outside the mainstream and a little bit eccentric – not necessarily what you would want at a time of crisis and difficulty." Gove is now Education Secretary.
At the Lib Dems' 2007 party conference, their then education spokesman David Laws ridiculed the Conservatives' line on 'Broken Britain'. Said Laws: "Have they really forgotten that, in the 1980s and 1990s, it was they who were in 10 Downing Street, breaking Britain down? But David Cameron did set up a Commission! He looked around for someone to chair it - a "caring", "compassionate" Conservative. And who did he chose? - Iain Duncan Smith!" David Laws is now Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Iain Duncan Smith is Work and Pensions Secretary.
At the Lib Dems' party conference in 2009, Nick Clegg said of David Cameron: "The PR might be good, but what’s behind it? It’s like my grandmother would have said. There’s less to him than meets the eye."
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