It’s that time of year again: Conservative Party conference. And with it comes
wall-to-wall David Cameron. Our PM has a couple
of interviews in the newspapers today and, to accompany them, he slotted in an appearance on
the Marr show earlier. In all three, he hops neatly across the all same lily pads – spending cuts, IDS’s historic benefit reforms and the defence budget – making the points and
arguments you might expect. Yet two snippets stand out, and are worth pasting into the scrapbook.
First, Cameron’s claim on Marr that, “We have got to ask, are there some areas of universal benefits that are no longer affordable?” It may not be surprising that he’s prodding this question into the open – after all, the story that the coalition will restrict universal benefits has been whirling around for a few months now – but it’s still the closest that Cameron has come to admitting that his government will do just that.
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