Copyright – The Week
By Peter Dunne
As Dr Eoin Clarke has documented, Cameron has publicly bullied and insulted fellow MPs on many different occasions, usually as a defensive tactic during Prime Minister Questions. His insults and put-downs can be seen as harsh and hurtful and usually have nothing to do with the debate or question which has been put to him.
For example, veteran Labour MP, Dennis Skinner argued during a PMQ session in April that Jeremy Hunt was kept in his job, and in the firing line, to prevent “bullets” hitting the prime minister over allegations about Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp. Cameron responded by not acknowledging the accusation or the topic but instead told Skinner, aged 80, to go and draw out his pension. Two months earlier in a similar situation, Cameron branded Skinner a dinosaur because of his age.
Cameron has insulted members of the Labour party but also has attacked his own MPs, including Nadine Dorries, who he described as being “frustrated.”
Labour MP, Karl Turner, told the BBC today that he witnessed Cameron attacking backbench Tory MP, Jesse Norman. He had voted against a mainly elected House of Lords in the vote on Lords’ reform on Tuesday. Turner says that he saw Cameron acting very aggressively towards Norman, and saw the prime minister pointing in “a very aggressive manner”. If this account by Turner is accurate then it is another example of Cameron losing his cool and becoming very angry when he doesn’t get his own way.
Cameron has been accused of bullying and insulting others and acting in a snobbish and condescending manner. Many of the incidents which have got him into trouble have been caught on camera; which begs the question, how does he behave when the cameras aren’t rolling and he is speaking to people in private?
He has a history of making sexist and ageist remarks and also has made comments regarding the physical appearance, accent and social background of some of his colleagues. The way he has spoken to some of his colleagues has shown how out of touch he really is.
If Cameron was a normal person, in a normal job, and he acted in this way while in the workplace he would surely have been heavily disciplined or even dismissed. This behaviour is another example of how he thinks he is above the people, when in fact it is his job to represent them.
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