Matthew Norman, David Brenteron and the end of the compassionate Conservative

Until now I haven’t seen Matthew Norman as a radical figure in British journalism. But his column in the Independent this week was a genuine anti-establishment rant in the best tradition. The headline was a corker: ‘Cameron is the David Brent of welfare reform’ – clear, to-the-point and expressive of the fury of the piece to come (he later describes the man he dubs ‘David Brenteron’ as a ‘galaxy-class hypocrite’ for his government’s betrayal of the disabled in its welfare reforms). It is difficult to choose a single passage from the article as every single sentence drips with delicious anger, but the final paragraph is worth reading in full:

‘Whatever damage peers inflict on this snarling Pitbull of a Bill, however many of its teeth they remove, its advancement has taught us something chilling about the Prime Minister. For all his personal experience, expressions of paternal goodwill towards the disabled and fraternal concern for their carers, at the first clanging of the alarm bells his instinct was to scarper, and leave them in the stairwell to burn.’