Mr Cameron calls trade union financing “a hangover from the corporatist past” and says that slashing their donations to a token £50,000-a-year is his bottom line if Mr Blair wants cross-party agreement on more state funding.
In a wideranging interview with The Times on the eve of the Conservatives’ spring conference in Manchester, Mr Cameron rejects accusations that the party’s recovery has run into the sand just four months after he took over as leader.
He acknowledges that the party’s ratings have slipped recently but is relaxed about the polls, saying that the task he set of convincing the public that the party had genuinely changed would take “months and years”.
He also discloses that he will soon unveil the party’s own version of the controversial climate change levy on industry to tackle carbon emissions, an attempt to head off accusations that he is “all talk and no action” on the environment.
It has been a heady four months for Mr Cameron since he won a resounding victory in the leadership contest. He has shaken up the selection of candidates, demoted tax cuts as a policy priority and backed Mr Blair on school reforms. Many of the key decisions have been taken after sleepless nights following the birth of his third child, Arthur, seven weeks ago. He reveals proudly that he did the 4.30am feed the previous night “and I’m feeling pretty righteous about it”.
The first formal meeting with Mr Blair to discuss party funding was on Tuesday evening, with the Prime Minister keen to reach cross-party consensus on more state funding.
Speaking to The Times at his Commons office after the talks, the Tory leader gave Mr Blair little comfort that a deal is within his grasp, setting out tough conditions for agreement, in particular breaking the 100- year-old funding link between Labour and the unions. That has no place in modern political system, he said.
“We used to have a corporatist system in this country. The Conservatives got money from big business and Labour got money from unions. Companies have gone because of shareholder activism, and that’s quite right. Trade union funding is a hangover from the corporatist past. It’s profoundly unhealthy and I’m offering a solution to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown,” he said.
“Here is a solution: a cap on donations applying to everybody and modest state funding that can help you break that unhealthy link with unions and help you to be a genuinely socially democratic party. I’m up for it, are you?” In an attempt to preserve the funding link with the unions, who gave Labour £10.8 million before the last election, Labour has put forward a compromise under which trade unions escape the funding cap because they are mass membership organisations.
Mr Cameron rejects this, calling the proposal rubbish. Any move to exempt unions from the cap or give them a higher limit would be “completely one-sided”. Labour has tried to argue companies too could be considered membership organisations with a higher donation limit to balance out its union backers. But that cuts no ice with Mr Cameron.
“It’s just rubbish. Big institutional backing of parties is unhealthy. Donations have to be an individual thing.”
Although supporters of Mr Blair say that he is attracted to loosening ties with the unions further, he will face opposition from many senior party figures, including Mr Brown, if he tries to break the financial link by adopting a donations cap as low as Mr Cameron proposes.
Mr Cameron’s intervention today is unlikely to help Mr Blair to convince his party that it is the solution. But he argues that it is in keeping with the “constructive opposition” whereby Tory MPs backed Mr Blair’s education reforms last month. The strategy is not universally popular in the party but the Tory leader is unrepentant, saying that under his leadership the Conservatives will behave “like an alternative government, not an angry newspaper columnist”.
“Being in opposition is a pretty miserable existence. All you can do is try and behave in the way you would if you were in government.”
Labour ministers are privately astonished that Mr Cameron has not capitalised on their problems, such as the sharp rise in gas prices. “I do not want the sort of politics that says, ‘Gas prices have gone up na-na-na, what are you going to do about it’? The responsible thing to do is take take long-term decisions about security of supply and building import terminals.”
He has moved swiftly to make the environment a key issue for the party, although yesterday he was criticised by one of his own MEPs, Caroline Jackson, for being “all talk and no action”.
Mr Blair has said the same and used his opposition to Labour’s climate change levy as proof that he is not serious about tackling global warning.
Mr Cameron says that he will not be bounced into supporting it but will unveil plans for a Tory version. “The climate change levy is just a tax on energy. It’s not a charge on carbon. We’ll be setting out exactly how we would change it soon.”
Colleagues working on the plans say that the Tory version of the levy would target heavy users of fossil fuels, but with incentives to encourage efforts to reduce energy use. Heavy users who diversify their supply to renewables would be rewarded.
Saving the planet might top Mr Cameron’s long-term agenda, but last night he was trying to prevent his first speech as leader to activists in England from being overshadowed by remarks by his party chairman.
Francis Maude said yesterday that while voters may have warmed to Mr Cameron they were less convinced that the party as a whole had moved on. Mr Maude went so far as to say that the Conservatives may not win the next election, and claimed that the the party had been in decline since the mid-Eighties — an era seen by many as its Thatcherite heyday.
“We are trying to reverse what are actually 20 years of decline and paralysis,” he said. “It’s not being defeatist to say we may not win the next election. People think the best of David Cameron but don’t think enough of the rest of the party has caught up with him.”
Mr Cameron is aware that support for the Conservatives has dipped in the run-up to the Manchester conference, but he remains unruffled.
“You don’t change people’s views overnight,” he said. “All politicians look at the polls. They’re dishonest if they say they don’t. But what really matters is what lies underneath. People want to know if we share their values, understand what their needs are. Do we understand what is wrong with the country and how we’ll put it right. It’s only when you change perceptions about those things that you really shift in the polls.”
CONSERVATIVE SPRING FORUM 2006
TODAY
9.30am Francis Maude opens Spring Forum 2006
10.30am Shadow Cabinet ministers discuss issues facing Britain’s cities
11.15am David Cameron hosts discussion with community leaders entitled Changing Our Cities
12.15pm George Osborne speaks on how a strong and stable economy is essential for vibrant communities
3.30pm William Hague and Lord Heseltine speak on City Revival. The former Deputy Prime Minister is to call for rejuvenation of the cities and elected council leaders
4pm Delegates and Shadow Cabinet members, including Mr Cameron, depart to help out at community projects. Mr Maude leads conference attenders into key wards to campaign for Conservative candidates standing in the local elections
TOMORROW
9.30am Mr Maude opens second day of conference
9.35am New members and new candidates presented to conference
10am Panel discussion hosted by Oliver Letwin on party statement of aims and values
11am Financial appeal
11.20am Keynote speech by Mr Cameron
Noon Conference ends
