His weakness is not his loyalty to his friends. His weakness is the type of person he is and therefore the type of friends he attracts and cultivates. The consequence being he has friends that most of the rest of us would be circumspect about getting to know well and this says a lot about who he is.

@1 You can make that case, certainly. But whether his friends are, say, despicable and corrupt pieces of shit (for example) is a subjective judgement. Whereas, Cameron’s inability to distance himself for his friends is something that’s clearly going to cause him problems, whatever you think of the friends he’s chosen.

The way that Cameron puts his loyalty to his friends above everything, regardless of the political costs, can clearly be seen by his treatment of Hugo Swire.

but how obliged is Cameron to represent the interests of those who’ve bank-rolled the Conservative Party?
This may affect his choices, the nearer we get to an Election.

This is politics, if you want a friend get a dog. Which is what Cameron has done in making the dumbest man in parliament Chancellor. The only conceivable reason Cameron could have for making Osborne Chancellor is that he knows he won’t have to worry about a Brown type plot, unless Osborne has photos of Cameron in a pink tutu French-kissing Arthur Scargill.The only reason I can think of why anyone would regard someone as ugly, stupid and charmless as Osborne as a friend is if they needed someone to look good in comparison to. I don’t know if Cameron regards Osborne as his dearest friend in the whole wide world but I have no doubt that when the time comes for a sacrifice he’ll plunge the knife into Osborne without a second’s hesitation (the reverse also applies, though Osborne would never find the cutlery unassisted and would need someone to tell him which was the correct knife for the occasion). Not that the consequences are of any real importance to either of them, to their class politics is a matter of their birthright and something to do till daddy snuffs it leaving them even richer.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down a friend’s life to save his own”

Cameron’s friends? http://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cameroneton2_468x420.jpg

No surprise this view comes from those who think it natural to hold knives to the political throats of their ‘comrades’

“Cameron’s greatest weakness is his loyalty to friends”

Sounds a bit like what the Emperor said to Luke in Return of the Jedi – well done (?) for making Cameron into a Luke Bloody Skywalker figure.

He can’t help being an Old Etonian. But as such, many of his friends are also Old Etonians. Some more, such as Osbourne, from the Bullingdon club. Then theres people who live nearby in rural Oxfordshire like Rebekah Brooks.

Loyalty to friends wouldn’t be such a problem if he had a better selection of friends. Even his attempt at befriending a ‘man of the people’ backfired when Coulson turned out to be a crook.

Loyalty to friends is never a weakness. Cameron’s weakness is that when he is told that a friend is useless at his job or that a friend should not be given a job or that a friend is about to become a political liability, he ignores the advice. It is his inability to heed wise words that will be his downfall, not his choice of friends or loyalty to them.

Cute.

It never hurt Blair…….made him rich in fact

Do you think it’s personal weakness or political weakness? Osborne is much stronger with the Tory right than Cameron is. I suspect Cameron knows the logical thing would be to replace Osborne with a Chancellor who actually got us out of a recession once before with a little sneaky Keynesian stimulus.
Unfortunately Chancellor Ken would drive the remaining Tory press mental and further undermine Cameron with the right. They already blame Cameron for costing the Conservative Party outright victory last year, little realising that it was actually the Conservative Party which denied Cameron his majority. Cameron’s strength is also his weakness. He is more popular than his own party – but he can’t point that out without attracting attention to the lingering toxicity of the Tory brand.

Cameron’s weakness is that when he is told that a friend is useless at his job or that a friend should not be given a job or that a friend is about to become a political liability, he ignores the advice

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/07/only-two-people-sacked-from-shadow.html

It’s a nice idea this: that Cameron will cling to useless incompetent people solely on the basis that they are friends, but it doesn’t quite square with the facts. It might be true that he gives more of the benefit of the doubt to people that he likes (though I imagine he’s hardly unique in that) but this piece rests on the idea that the only reason he hasn’t fired Osborne is because he likes him.

That’s something that only an opponent of the Government could believe.

@Tim J: Not quite. I don’t think Osborne’s done anything even remotely constituting a sackable offence; and I think continuity and stability is important to keep the bond markets calm.

What I’m saying is, if things don’t improve, there may well come a time when the easiest way for Cameron to save his own skin would be to cast Osborne aside. I don’t think he’d do that. I think they’ll go down together.

The Hugo Swire thing is an interesting point – one, I’ll admit, I was unaware of – but he was never part of the inner circle like Coulson or Osborne.

there may well come a time when the easiest way for Cameron to save his own skin would be to cast Osborne aside. I don’t think he’d do that. I think they’ll go down together.

Maybe, although Cameron has said the opposite before now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7430231/David-Cameron-Id-sack-George-Osborne-if-I-had-to.html

Most people in power like to be surrounded by friends.
Sorry Corleone family
Keep your enemy nearer than you friends is of course bollocks.
A new headteacher will bring in their old deputy.
A football manager will bring in his own coaching staff.
A CEO will poach from his old company for his top staff.
Nothing wrong with that ?
But it is bringing in the right friends.
You know the type, you can have a drink with them , have a laugh with them, but you couldn’t trust them to sit on the right side of a lavatory seat.
You know, Andy Coulson.
It’s Dave’s judgement that is in question not loyalty

@Tim J
Cameron also said he would sack Coulson if there was any indication he’d done anything wrong. In the event, he clearly found that incredibly difficult, was defending Coulson long after it became clear he was a liability, and took a political hit from that decision.

He may say he could sack Osborne. I don’t believe it.

He may say he could sack Osborne. I don’t believe it.

We’ll see. He certainly won’t want to sack him, as the history of Prime Ministers falling out with Chancellors is not a happy one. But the Prime Minister that Cameron most resembles, deliberately I suspect, is Harold Macmillan, and there’s historical precedence there.

The only truly unsackable Chancellor of recent years was Gordon Brown, and that was more a function of the psychological weakness of Tony Blair than anything else.