In his room at the Commons, David Cameron prepared to face a merciless
grilling. No quarter would be given; no subject left untouched.
Around the table last Monday were key advisers, including shadow cabinet
ministers William Hague, David Davies and George Osborne, as well as Andy
Coulson, Cameron’s communications chief, and George Eustace, his press
secretary. For an hour they probed and tested their leader on policies and
positions. The next morning they met again, bombarding Cameron with more
questions for another hour.
“People joined and left the meetings,” said one who was present. “By the end
we were satisfied that we hadn’t missed anything.”
The inquisition was not a sign of party rebellion, even though some in the
Tory ranks are disillusioned with Cameron for his poor showing in recent
polls. Instead it was all part of Cameron’s fight back against Gordon Brown,
who has enjoyed a surprising “bounce” in popularity since becoming prime
minister on June 27.
After weeks of negotiation, Cameron had agreed to be interviewed on BBC
Newsnight - and he had to be ready for all questions thrown his way. On the
day of the interview he ran late after attending the unveiling of a statue
of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square. It did not fluster Cameron as he
travelled to the television studios via Notting Hill, west London, where he
lives.
“He was totally relaxed,” said one adviser, “but he took personal charge of
navigation. He pointed out the best short cuts. It’s his manor.”
Cameron’s poise showed: he came across as calm and thoughtful. And at last he
spoke in concrete terms on key policies, even confronting the sensitive
issue of immigration.
“There are benefits from immigration and I want Britain to capture the
benefits,” he said. “But I think the levels of migration we have seen . . .
have put too great a burden on public services. It needs to be better
controlled.”
Confronted by Stephanie Flanders, the unmarried, cohabiting economics editor
of Newsnight, Cameron defended plans to encourage marriage and support
families and he promised tough action on crime. Opponents and certain
sections of the media portrayed Cameron as “lurching to the right” in a
desperate attempt to shore up his appeal to traditional Tories. But his
supporters say it is nothing of the kind: it is part of a strategy to take
the initiative as long-awaited policy reviews come to fruition.
Cameron is expected to make a big speech every week until the party conference
in Blackpool gets under way at the end of this month At the conference
advisers claim there will be “a pledge a day”.
This week education and public services are going to be a key battleground. On
Tuesday Stephen Dorrell, the former cabinet minister, will present a paper
called Restoring Pride in our Public Services. It is expected to attack
Brown for allowing bureaucracy to run out of control.
A Tory insider said: “We want to let teachers teach and doctors get on with
treating. Yes, Brown has spent and spent on public services, but he’s tied
our professionals up with red tape.”
The Tories are expected to unveil proposals that could form part of a
“genuine” schools’ revolution. Under the proposals head teachers could get
up to £6,000 for every child they admit from disadvantaged backgrounds and
individual state schools would be allowed to pay teachers what they want.
Poor performing pupils would also be forced to resit their entire final year
at primary school.
The Tories will be encouraged by schools secretary Ed Balls admitting there
was “still some way to go to deliver a world class education”. Cameron will
hope he can start making inroads in an area thought to be natural Labour
territory.
The plan is that initiatives such as this will persuade the electorate the
Tories are serious about their policy discussions and have forged a new
“brand”. A close aide of Cameron said: “We can now afford to start
mentioning issues like immigration and really ramp up the campaign to get
Brown to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. That’s because David has
spent so much time broadening the base of the party. We now get to appeal to
old and new Conservatives.”
Ruth Lea, of the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies, agreed. “We’ve
always believed that at heart David Cameron is a Conservative,” she said.
“What he has been doing is rebranding the party so that when he talks about
crime, immigration and the family he can be listened to by the left/ liberal
establishment who otherwise would dismiss the Conservative party out of
hand.”
Is it enough to dent Brown’s lead?
CAMERON’S fiercest critics have still to be persuaded. Lord Kalms, the former
Tory party treasurer and donor, made a blistering attack in July saying he
was “disillusioned” with Cameron’s leadership.
This weekend he was only marginally more comforting: “After my earlier
comments I thought I’d give him a break. But there is so much policy out
there from all these [review] groups it’s going to be difficult to clarify.
We could do with a greater lead from the leader. I am now awaiting events.”
Others in the party say this is the wrong time to focus on immigration, even
though surveys show it is an issue of concern to many voters. One senior
strategist said: “Immigration is not going to win you an election. It didn’t
last time, although it is a huge problem.
“There are so many immigrants here that they won’t vote for it and, second,
people are ashamed to admit it as they think that being antiimmigration is
the same as being racist, even though it isn’t.”
On the other hand, some believe it is time Cameron was more plain speaking.
“Cameron has realised that many in the party can’t spell words like social
cohesion - but they can spell short words like tax,” said Edwina Currie, the
former health minister.
“His subjects are sound. He is asking why are there gangs in our cities, why
is there gun crime and recognising that the victims are other young people
and that most of the initiatives that government has come up with in the
last 10 years have been a complete waste of time.”
Hints of a more aggressive approach have appeared since Coulson, a former
editor of the News of the World, began working for Cameron. His influence
may have been behind a document detailing policies on crime, which was
called A Time to Fight Back, and in Cameron referring to “anarchy in the UK”
when talking about a recent murder.
Insiders say Coulson gets along well enough with Steve Hilton, Cameron’s
election strategist, although they sometimes differ on tactics. More
problematical may be the influence of Lord Ashcroft, the party
vice-chairman. Ashcroft and Hilton are said to clash.
Some internal tensions are inevitable, however, and insiders claim that Team
Cameron is working, despite the polls. A recent YouGov survey put Labour on
41% and the Tories on 33% - a slight narrowing of the gap, although still a
landslide lead for Labour. But the Tories claim their more recent private
polling puts Labour on 37% and them on 36%.
Ben Page, managing director of Ipsos Mori, says Cameron’s problem has been not
so much that his reputation has fallen but that Brown’s has done
unexpectedly well: “Brown’s doing things that have confounded those who said
he’s a control freak.”
However, all honeymoons end and Brown is facing mounting uncertainty in the
area where he made his reputation for competence: the economy.
OUT of the blue, members of the Prison Officers’ Association staged a strike
last week over pay. After a splurge of public spending, money is now tight.
Millions of public sector workers face modest pay rises and discontent is
likely to grow. At the same time, turmoil in the financial markets threatens
the City largesse that has rippled out through the economy.
Some Tories think it spells the end of the “Brown bounce”. One veteran said:
“What I would be doing if I were him [Cameron] would be setting up the
suggestion that there is a terrible problem lurking, ‘an iceberg of debt’
waiting to come to the surface and that Brown is completely unprepared for.”
A former party chairman said: “We expected that Brown would dominate the
airwaves at first. But at the end people vote on their broad memories of
what’s happened. When they reflect, they will realise he is part of the
problem and not part of the solution.”
Both parties are weighing up the prospects of an early election. Brown, who is
set to make a speech on constitutional issues tomorrow, may be tempted to
risk a poll to capital-ise on his lead. The view inside Downing Street,
claims one senior figure, is simple: “Gordon is not worried about David
Cameron. He is happy that man is leading the opposition and, what’s more, we
believe he has further to fall.”
The Tories would prefer more time to consolidate and present their policies,
but are preparing for a snap election.
“Of course if Brown called an early election, all of this [policy reviews and
announcements] could be rapidly speeded up,” said an insider at Conservative
Central Office.
The party is looking for a new advertising agency and is reviewing Margaret
Thatcher’s approach in the 1970s. “Then the party produced its commitments
in a document called The Right Approach,” said a Cameron aide. “We’re trying
to think of a title for ours. But in the meantime it could be The
Centre-Right Approach.”
Additional reporting: Emily Gosden
