Cameron: ‘What you need is thoughtful radicalism’

Wednesday, 30th September 2009

The Tory leader talks to Fraser Nelson about Afghanistan, art and why he is taking his time in forging a new Tory revolution. He will not make the mistakes of either Blair or Heath

Lord Mandelson is outside David Cameron’s office when I go in for my interview. Not in person, alas, but boxed in a small television set giving his speech to the Labour party conference, to heckling from those gathered around it. A few days ago, the noble lord had suggested he would serve in a Tory government, and Mr Cameron has already thought of a role. ‘He can chair a truth and reconciliation commission on New Labour,’ he says, laughing. ‘I think that would be a very good opening job. Perhaps when he has done that and atoned for all his past sins, we could find him another.’

If Mr Cameron wins the election, he will have no shortage of very bad jobs to offer. His government will have a simple agenda: to enact the sharpest spending cuts attempted in modern British history. His mission at the Tory conference in Manchester next week is to be as honest as he can be about the pain in prospect, while — as he puts it — ‘saying much more than the government about dealing with the deficit, turning around our schools and how you reform welfare’. It will be a conference, he says, that will leave no one in any doubt about what he stands for.

Such doubts have, of course, been the main area of concern for the Conservatives. Gordon Brown’s phenomenal unpopularity will perhaps win them the election. But I ask Mr Cameron whether he thinks wavering voters know what they will get, should they vote Tory. ‘Not enough,’ he admits straight away. ‘I hope they will after this conference.’ His aim, he adds, is to convey a sense of mission, of purpose. ‘I don’t actually believe — particularly in the crisis that we face today — that you win people over by trying to design some specific retail offer to sell to each person on the doorstep.’ He will instead seek to persuade them that his party has ‘the grit and determination to turn the whole country around’.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next page

More articles from: Fraser Nelson | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (4)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Fatbloke on tour

October 1st, 2009 9:13am Report this comment

Trevor

Your background is coming to the fore.

Your interview is straight out of the Chairman Dave and the Laptop Loyal school of journalism. If only you had taken more time to learn from Glenn Gibbons and less time being Andrew Neil's latest party boy find from the GUU gene pool.

Prepared Radicalism = Compassionate Conservatism = Cheap words to try and make the self interest more acceptable.

Interesting list of priorities, nothing about growth / jobs / progress just a need to cut the deficit.

This isn't neo conservative economics this is straight orthodoxy missing out the 80 years experience that proved it to be wrong.

Welcome to Dave's World, where Nigel Lawson is king and the UK will be first into a recession and last out.

And this is progress.

DavidDP

October 1st, 2009 9:25am Report this comment

"tax that will, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, lose the Exchequer about £800 million a year "

Garbage in, garbage out. Change the assumptions, you'll change the result. Next.

Simon Stephenson

October 1st, 2009 11:56am Report this comment

DavidDP : 9.25am

To write as you do you've obviously got the definitive valuations of all the consequences of bringing in the 50p tax rate. Care to share them with us?

Stuart Bertram

October 2nd, 2009 4:52pm Report this comment

What people like Fatbloke (is that really you Mr Prescott?) fail to appreciate is that growth, jobs and progress will never come, at least not sustainably, through government spending - that will only ever be achieved through a low tax economy free from government interference.
The root of all the problems created by GB and, with the exception of Afghanistan, the common link among the issues being prioritised by DC, is our addiction to government and complete abdication of individual responsibility. GB's stealth taxes allowed him to preted that we lived in a low tax economy while overseeing a massive growth in public spending (with seemingly proportionately inverse benefit for the taxpayer) - and aren't we paying for it now. One in five of the workforce is on the government payroll, or more accurately on the payroll of the other four. Forty three per cent of the UK's GDP is government spending. So half the output of the real economy is used to support the other half. That is no way to create wealth, jobs and progress.
Apart from the unsustainable economics what this does is create a complete barrier to reform. While 20% of the working population (and all of the non-working) are dependent on the state there will always be a vested interest for both electorate and elected in maintaining large government and no politician is going to advocate the real change we need - how many turkeys ask their fellow turkeys to vote for Christmas?
While I take DC's point that if you try to do too much too soon you can end up doing nothing I do hope that at heart he realises that to fix our broken economy, broken government and broken society we need a fundamental evaluation of what our government does for us and what we as individuals should do for ourselves, not the Morton's Fork currently offered to the electorate - I'm afraid that 10% just doesn't cut it.

Post comment