Ivan Cameron: I Spy Disabled People, MPs Yellow Ribbons And The Public Spectacle
IVAN Cameron has died. David Cameron’s son has died. A moment of personal grief. But can it made into a public spectacle? No Prime Minister’s Questions Time yesterday.
The House of Commons looks inwards, dealing with it own issues in mawkish fashion before the work of running the country and announcing the dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
After the MPs have performed “Ivan Cameron and Me”, the hacks get to work making sense a child’s death:
Western Mail: “Lowri Turner opens up over disabled sister after Ivan Cameron’s death.”
Death brings a column.
As the Cameron family mourn the loss of their severely disabled son Ivan, our columnist Lowri Turner reveals in her own heartrending words the complete joy and sorrow of having a disabled sister and the pressures of being a mother today. Her words will strike a chord with parents everywhere.
Just for a change. Lowri Turner will write about her family and being a mum.
The picture of the Camerons, returning home from St Mary’s hospital without their son, Samantha’s head bowed, her face puffy and her eyelids red with crying, while David, his own brow furrowed, rests a gentle hand on her shoulder, said everything about the shock and devastation they are feeling now.
Everything said. So we’ll stop there…
David, so adept at the TV soundbite, didn’t need to utter a word. His face and that of his wife were utterly, terribly transparent.
Not to mention red with crying. Transparent and red…
I once met a woman whose teenage son suffered from autism. Every night he got up and walked about the house.
Lowri knows…
I know other parents of disabled children whose courage is humbling; one family I used to know had not one but two children with autism.
Anyone else?
I should betray an interest here. I have a disabled sister. She is one of the few things I don’t normally write about.
And now..?
For the record, the reason that I rarely write about my sister is that I feel that she has the right to speak for herself. She is not a child.
David Cameron is aged 3.
Secondly, I do not want to be glib myself. My feelings about my sister are complex and deeply personal.
Glib? Not in this world! Go on…
Still, reading a little vignette of the Cameron family reminded me of my own childhood… When I was a child, my sister went away to school. To say she was “sent away” sounds harsh… Having a disabled child in the family teaches everyone life lessons, both at the time and in retrospect.
Anyone else met a disabled person?
I have a girlfriend with a son with Down’s syndrome.
Anyone else?
Going anywhere with a disabled child is, frankly, a hassle.
Better to just write about them…
The Sun: “Camerons ‘will pull through’”
DAVID and Samantha Cameron are “very brave people who will pull through” following their son’s death, a leading doctor said last night.
Brave.
The Independent: “Terence Blacker: Public service comes before public grief”
There was, of course, a far more newsworthy death to report and to analyse in detail. The life of a severely handicapped child had ended. It was known that Ivan Cameron would not live long but, because he was the son of the leader of the Opposition, an increasingly familiar mood of group emotion took hold. MPs gathered in the Commons, their number and sombre mood indicating a tragedy of national proportions. There were moving statements from the Prime Minister and others. Parliament was then suspended. If those apparently lesser deaths (of the four soldiers) were mentioned, it was done in a dutiful sentence later on.
Of course, the death of this little boy was an unspeakable family tragedy for the Camerons, but there was something faintly suspect about this open emoting in the mother of parliaments. The repeated clichés about how we are all brought together by a sense of shared humanity, how differences are set aside, somehow felt self-congratulatory. Look at us, the MPs and ministers were saying, we are just as human as anyone else; we can be really sad, too.
Daily Express: “’EXTRAORDINARY SUPPORT’ AS THE CAMERONS PLAN IVAN’S FUNERAL”
The Tory leader and his wife Samantha received more than 2,000 emails and hand-delivered letters and cards from well-wishers on the day the severely disabled six-year-old died.
Daily Mail: “One day the pain goes - but the love never does, ANNE DIAMOND reveals how she coped after the death of her child”
Anne Diamond.
It will be many months before David and Samantha Cameron emerge from the depths of grief which enveloped them after the death of their six-year-old son, Ivan, this week. As Gordon Brown said in the Commons: ‘The death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure.’ It’s a sorrow all too familiar to TV presenter ANNE DIAMOND, whose son Sebastian died from cot death in 1991. In the weeks afterwards, Anne received endless letters of support from other bereaved parents. Here, she shares their sentiments, which should give solace to every parent who has lost a child.
Daily Telegraph: “Indiscipline, chaos and decay: this is how governments die Telegraph View: He is preparing to address Congress in Washington next week, but at home, Gordon Brown’s government is disintegrating, says Iain Martin.”
Ivan Cameron:
The PM is not entirely alone in his bunker. Impressed by his fortitude, there are still loyal friends and advisers hoping that something, anything, will turn up. Said one earlier this week, before the death of Ivan Cameron stilled life at Westminster: “We’re still at 30 points in the polls. Thirty points! After everything that’s happened.”
What significance the death of Ivan Cameron to opinion polls? Do we really believe our politicians are that cycnical?
And last night the Royal Mail was arranging to deliver several further sackloads of post to the couple.
LIBBY PURVES: A lesson for us all in a short life, well-lived (The Times)
MATTHEW D’ANCONA: A son who inspired only goodness and love (Spectator)
ANDREW GRICE: How Cameron the politician was changed by his son (Independent)
JENNI RUSSELL: The love that shaped a leader (Guardian)
IAN BIRRELL: Iona and Ivan - a tale of two children and two families (Independent)
MATTHEW PARRIS: Sadly, the House got it wrong about Ivan Cameron (The Times)
Posted: 27th, February 2009 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (37) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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February 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I’m rather glad to see the human side of Parliament, and its possible PMQ was dropped as the leader of the Opposition wasn’t available. He may have submitted a question.
So family funerals only then? for all or just politicians?
Gordo spoke out to admire JG the other day, should he have?
People like to pay their respects, but I feel it should be dignified and as they used to say’ proper and fitting’ but all this celeb death and the worship of the dying and the shenanigans of Dianas demise, which did almost bring the country to its knees, in worship and time off work to weep,has left this legacy.
And some very handsome profits for florists
However on the day of her funeral our dog charity held an Exemption show, and we were well attended by several hundred dry eyed entries and made a stonking amount of money
February 27th, 2009 at 11:45 am
there may be 646 MPs but only 1 PM and only 1 leader of the opposition - as such, he is a public figure and matter of interest to some, who may wish to sympathise.
others do not and that is their choice.
surely it is the media who should be questioned over this as it is they who are highlighting the situation - the Cameron family themselves, I am sure, would rather that was not the case…
February 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am
There are 646 Members of Parliament. Most have spouses or partners. Many still have parents, and many have children.
The Parliamentary ‘family’ must therefore number many thousands, of whom some will fall off the perch each week.
Is there a protocol about which are allowed to interfere with the governance of the country, or are we still in this ridiculous stage where each Member called to speak has to outdo the previous one in their expressions of sympathy for someone killed or injured or missing.
To me this particular loss was a totally private matter, and should have been of no interest to anyone outside the immediate family.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Innocent Tragedy
Dignity, Heroism, Beauty
Ending, Beginning, Returning
Existing, Eternally, Spiritually
Inspiring, Imagining
Peaceful Poetry
Ivan’s story truly touched me
Peace & Light
Percy
February 27th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Anorka
Had the dead serviceman been Cameron’s son they would probably also have suspended it, since it would be remarkably unusual for any five year old to be fighting in Afghanistan. On our side, at any rate…
February 26th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Goody leaves me cold; Richards made me laugh (RU Being served and the Likely Lads) some politicians are ok most are crap and the moronic f*ckwit who agreed to the Iraqi invasion should be strung up along with his US mate. I did protest a lot
Would you want to be treated by someone in the grip of grief? It was only PMQ which is a fairly recent invention and it was delayed only by 30 mins, and is hardly urgent business. Your comparison with a hospital is interesting, don’t you think much of them ? Schools stop work if a pupil dies, should they ignore it?
February 26th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
[...] reader writes on Ivan Cameron: Many mums and dads are seeing their children come home in boxes from Afghanistan and Iraq, before [...]
February 26th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Goody = heroic, Richards = heroic, politicians = heroic, squaddies = cannon fodder?
You wouldn’t expect a hospital to shut for a few hours coz one of the doctors had a bereavement, would you?
February 26th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Doesn’t everyone get compassionate leave from work on the death of a close family member, and condolences from colleagues?
February 26th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
oh no, that would be terrible.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Our Ivan?
February 26th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
It is true what has already been said, this is a very private matter which should not have halted the governance of this country.
Many mums and dads are seeing their children come home in boxes from Afghanistan and Iraq, before then it was Ireland. The governance of the country doesn’t stop then. Children have died, not because their illness dictated it at that point, but because of lack of government funding necessitating them being hauled in ambulances from one hospital to another at a time when they really didn’t need it. The governance of the country didn’t stop then either. No one cared and no one does, except those directly involved.
This was and is a private matter for the Cameron’s.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Suspend PMs Q for one man’s loss? Do they do that for dead servicemen, too?
February 26th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Lets put that in its right order: NuLab first and foremost.
And Mrs Cameron, is she guilty of manslaughter by association? her other children?
Perhaps a thought provoking conscription might be the answer, I just wonder had Teflon been quite so keen if his own son was signed up? Might have tempered the abject grovelling that went on ? explaining to his wife why he was risking her son’s life?
February 26th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
The liblabcons have experience of sending young British folk to their deaths over in foreign dustbins like Iraq and Afghanistan, why should we afford them our sympathy when they have their own personal grief?
They’re all guilty of manslaughter!
February 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Peter Mac
Possibly because all we wish for our children is a healthy and happy life, and things can and do go wrong for any child , no matter their parents social status or political view, and the heartstrings feel a strong pull for the affected family
February 26th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/4808611/David-Camerons-son-Ivan-dies-A-doctor-writes.html
February 26th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
The death of a severely disabled child makes me uneasy. I want to be rational and to argue about natural selection, survival of the fittest to survive, and so on, but I also find that I am saddened.
I don’t know why I should be. Particularly when it is a person I have never met, did not know, and had no interest in.
Perhaps under those circumstances it was truly a private and family matter, and should always have been left as such.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Black Bob
With reference to the soldiers killed yesterday
http://www.anorak.co.uk/forums/topic.php?id=2917
February 26th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Had a look at the Beeb’s website , it seems the PM dropping PMQT was the problem and upset some posters
February 25th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
More British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, more grieving families.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
be my guest
February 25th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I don’t know I just read the comments made by the posters whilst they were there and they were saying that. I didn’t see the actual comment itself but they all said that’s what happened. Wish I’d managed to see the comment or whatever it was.
I do think the BBC are politically bias towards Labour though in lots of ways. Strange and clever little ways at that too…
Moderator - Please stick to reporting what you do see, I shall edit your earlier post
February 25th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I can see a lot of comments have been pulled, but do you really believe that anything in Nick Robinson’s comments on Ivan’s death is political point scoring?
Or are you claiming that Nick Robinson wrote something which has now been pulled?
It is a very unpleasant accusation to make…
February 25th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
He has just made a statement about the posts being pulled because they were untrue but i think there must have been somethign in it. Typical of the BBC to pukll anything that THEY deem isn’t right and we bloody pay for the service. I got pulled loads just for telling it like it is on Robert Pestons blog (no swear words or anything) and became famous overnight!!! Post 62 was all over the BBC and people were begging for it to be reinstated!
Moderator- We do all pay a licence fee to view tv ,not the BBC’s website
February 25th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
There’s comments about it in the comments section on the previous blog but it’s been taken down apparently, posts being pulled and mederated all over the place!
February 25th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Well, I’ve just read Nick Robinson’s blog and I cannot find any point-scoring for Labour in it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/
Where did you read the claim, FSBFP?
February 25th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
[...] More [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
well thats down and dirty and foolish if true
February 25th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’ve just read some hearsay that Nick Robinson was reported as trying to score political points for labour on his blog over Ivan’s death!!! How low can you get?!
February 25th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Cheryl
I imagine they do have security people who will keep the media at bay, he’s the leader of the Opposition, not a private individual or ‘celeb’