Newsnight

You can watch David Cameron’s Newsnight interview here.

David’s Newsnight interview was, on the whole, seriously impressive. He looked Prime Ministerial (stage 3 of the change process). He dealt calmly with some pretty aggressive questioning. He got his points across and as usual the editors could take plenty of nice clips for news bulletins.

The main points of the interview were:

Gordon Brown’s record

The pensions crisis, high taxes and the relative fall in disposable income, hospitals closing, failures in schools – all these can be laid right at the door of Gordon Brown while he was Chancellor. “We need real and substantial change”.

Comment: This is exactly what we have argued for. Don’t personalise the attack – we all know Brown is not a smooth, actorly politician. Attack his record.

What the big question is for the next general election

Fundamentally, elections pivot on one overarching narrative. The big question for the next one is what to do about our broken society.

Comment: This is what Oliver Letwin argued in his much derided (but, once you’ve figured it out, really good) socio-centric speech. I completely agree when David says we haven’t had the progress we should have done in the last ten years.

Blair had enormous goodwill, a huge majority and one of the highest levels of trust in any Prime Minister but because Labour’s main motivation is beating the Tories to win elections, and not governing the country in the best way they can, all that was wasted, and it’s coming home to roost.

Crime and our broken society

Instead of centralising everything in big government as Labour has done, we should trust people – empower local government, give control back to schools etc. This would be the underlying principle of a Conservative government.

Comment: This is exactly what we should be arguing for. But I worry (as Dan does below) that when it comes to the crunch, this won’t happen. Why haven’t we stood up and said to Camila Batmanghelidjhthat the sort of work she does (and which is proven to work) is exactly what we mean by social responsibility and yes we would fund her? We should.

Once someone breaks the law then the full force of the criminal justice system should come down on them. But before they do, society has the chance to take responsibility and intervene where someone looks like they are at risk of becoming a criminal. Just punishing people isn’t enough.

Comment: Exactly. But I’d liked to have seen more exploration of this ‘punishment alone isn’t enough’ theme. As Dan argues below, the proportion of people in prison isn’t a guide to how safe a country is. As Graeme argued last week, a criminal justice system has to be fair. And for us to claim we are a civilised society, it HAS to do more than punish; it should rehabilitate as well. Taking people off the streets addresses the short-term problem of the crimes they would have committed while they are in jail, but it doesn’t solve society’s problem in the long-term.

On tax-breaks for marriage: David said he was ‘unashamedly pro-family’ and that supporting marriage through the tax system would send out a strong cultural signal. But that he wasn’t moralising. He gave some very strong statistics from IDS’ Breakthrough Britain report but acknowledged that supporting marriage with a just small tax break isn’t enough – there needs to be a cultural change (and the government needs to take a long-term view) so that for example flexible working is more wide-spread and there’s more support for parenting and marriage counselling.

Comment: As Benet argued in our first ever post, we’re sceptical about the point of a small tax break for married people. Will it really make the difference – actually I would hope that people would consider their happiness and that of their children before £20 a week…

However, the important thing about sending this signal on supporting marriage is that it MUST be connected to the family in its widest sense. Supporting the marriage of two only-child, childless orphans (I exaggerate, but you get the picture) does not add as much value to society as supporting the sustained co-habitation of an unmarried couple with elderly parents and young children, who need that sort of extra support at times.

World affairs including ‘exporting democracy’, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan

Democracy IS good for the world. The post-9/11 mantra of exporting democracy was and is too simplistic. We need a much greater emphasis on soft power and statecraft. On Iran – we need consistency in the world’s message.

Comment: This was a really good section. He showed real understanding of the pressures of international diplomacy, resisted the temptation to score cheap and easy points against Brown and Blair on Iraq, and gave a real idea of the shape of a Cameron government’s international presence. Understanding that there are sticks and carrots in foreign affairs is crucial.

Immigration

The level of immigration in the last decade or so has made people angry. There has been no proper planning for the number of people coming here, and it’s the pressure on services that is causing resentment. “Immigration has been too high”; Labour talked tough and did nothing, Conservatives will enact a fair, sensibly managed immigration policy that would still probably result in net immigration.  Future entrants to the EU should have transitional immigration arrangements applied.

Comment: I was really concerned that we were having a dog-whistle moment when I heard the reports of this exchange yesterday afternoon. In fact, David frames this very carefully. The pressure on services IS what causes resentment and the management of those services by Labour has not been good enough. I’m also glad he kept underlining the benefits of immigration.

The EU

“We should be in the EU, there are changes I’d like to make” for example on social policy. Being in the EU eases our trade, our travel and allows us to settle abroad. Those are all good things. But the Government has been fundamentally dishonest on the EU Consti-Treaty and has been fundamentally weak on standing up for what’s best for Britain.

Comment: This was all good. I’d like to see more argument in favour of the MER and specifically what the EU SHOULD do more of, as opposed to what it should do less of. But it was a short section, and there’s only so much detail he can go into.

Taxes and social mobility

Increases in green taxes (which will happen) will be matched by a reduction in family taxes.

Comment: Good. This is honest, up front and underlines our twin commitment to the environment and to society.

Inheritance tax is about to hit 25 or 30 per cent of estates, not just 6 per cent as now. We need to represent the country as a whole. It’s not about soaking the rich. The real problem is the differences between the poorest and the mainstream in our society.

Sharing the proceeds of growth means a stronger, stable economy, better mobility, a fairer and more aspirational society.

Comment: I remain to be convinced by this IHT argument. There are better places to start when we first become able to reduce taxes. It’s not good enough to leave such an obviously open goal for our opponents.

The Shadow Cabinet

I pick the Shadow Cabinet on merit. They are a strong team, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be there. “It’s a fair point” that the front bench have too many outside interests. The Ministerial Code should be strengthened.

Comment: This outside interests argument is becoming a bigger deal than it needs to be. The frontbench (and indeed the whole party) should be fully committed to winning the next election, whenever it is. There is a point at which there is too much time spent on outside interests, but I do think it’s for each member of the Shadow Cabinet to decide where that is. I’d quite like them to be more than directors of banks etc – for example, David Davies (the one from Wales) is a Special Constable in his spare time.

If…

“I’m only focused on winning. You don’t get anywhere in politics by not having that clear focus. I am totally focused on putting together the right team, putting together the right policies but above all demonstrating our values and convictions about the big change that needs to take place in this country.

“Instead of top-down state control where the government tries to do everything, actually trusting people, trusting professionals in our health service, in our schools, trusting local government, devolving power.

“This is a great country with incredibly talented people. But they are led by a government with the wrong values.”

Comment: THIS is the 30 second doorstep pitch.

And finally

Having read some of the overnight commentary, two things stand out for me.

The first is that a lot of people think that this is some sort of lurch/shift to the right. I don’t think so. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work on the policy groups, firming up the ideas that David has talked about since before the leadership campaign into practical policies. It’s not a sudden revelation, for example, that he wants to see less tax, more marriage and different relations with the EU. It’s taken time to sink in, and underlines why I said last week that we must repeat ourselves till we’re blue in the face because only then will our views have started to sink into normal voters’ minds. I also think that David’s lucky streak is returning – there has been a bit of a perfect storm over the last ten days or so, and he, like any good politician should, is using it to underline his case.

The second is the extraordinary amount of whingeing about BBC bias. The job of those 4 Newsnight journalists WAS to give David a hard time. (They should do the same to Brown. Whether they will or not is another matter). I WANT to see him tested and pushed and forced to make his case. I think it’s good for him and good for his future Prime Ministership.

So, Conservative activists out there – stop complaining about the BBC. If you are that bothered, make a formal complaint. Find a BBC journalist and argue with them about why we’re right. Go out and make your case to anyone you can find who watches the BBC. But don’t sit at home and complain on blogs. That’s not exactly taking responsibility – that’s waiting for someone else to step in and do it for you, which is not very Conservative.

updated Thursday lunchtime by Fiona Melville

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