Cameron: Being Less Than Candid

Witterings from Witney back in June requested a meeting with his MP - David Cameron - in order to try to take him to task on being less than candid on matters EU.

Yesterday WfW had such a meeting with his MP. Time constraints meant, due to the involved subject matter, a verbal meeting would be inadequate to cover the issues sufficiently, so instead a dossier was handed over to Cameron in person to reply to in writing.

The contents of the full dossier submitted to Cameron can be found on WfW's blog, where, in themes familiar to us, questions have been asked about the "veto that never was", the "European budget cut that never was" and that "Norway is not governed by fax".

Interestingly WfW notes (my emphasis):

I only spent just over 5 minutes with David Cameron as I did not wish to give him the opportunity of providing a short verbal response, wishing him to commit himself to a written response. Skimming through, he repeated that he had vetoed a treaty and cut the budget; although he made no mention of negating any bailout. The section on Norway appeared to ‘stop him in his tracks’...

A couple of interesting points emerge here. Cameron is happy to reiterate inaccurately to a constituent that he vetoed a "non-existent" treaty yet at the time in 2011 he could not make the same commitment to the House of Commons.

On a slightly more optimistic note, having spoken to WfW last night, it appears that the arguments against the "Norway governed by fax" may have come as something of a surprise to Mr Cameron. It leaves us wondering whether he has been poorly briefed on this matter.

Sometimes it shouldn't be underestimated how ignorant most MPs are about the EU and how much they are susceptible to a meme that is well established and doing the rounds by those with prestige.

The view that ignorance not conspiracy is often the cause is understandable particularly when we consider that the eurosceptic movement is not immune to this either, as illustrated by the continuing nonsense over November the 1st.  The below graphic is doing the rounds on Facebook:

Thus if Cameron has been poorly briefed he might subsequently have a "Pauline Conversion". We suspect not of course and his written responses will be interesting. But one thing remains true - thanks to WfW Mr Cameron can no longer deny he wasn't told...