Confident Cameron makes the case for a Conservative majority

IF the Prime Minister was rattled by the raft of policy announcements which emerged from the Labour Party this week, he certainly is not showing it.
David CameronDavid Cameron
David Cameron

By most accounts, both Labour and the Lib Dems have had pretty positive conferences overall – Nick Clegg tightening his grip on his party while positioning himself for a second coalition; Ed Miliband eventually overshadowing the daily revelations from ex-spin doctor Damian McBride with a series of eye-catching policies.

But David Cameron appears supremely relaxed as he holds forth dressed in shirtsleeves around the Cabinet table at Downing Street – dismissive of his opponents, confident of the message he will be selling to his party when the Conservatives’ own annual conference gets underway in Manchester this weekend.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I think we have the advantage,” he insists. “I felt Labour and the Lib Dems were very much talking to themselves. We have the opportunity to talk to the country.”

With the election just 18 months away, Mr Cameron’s sights are trained on delivering what he failed to secure in 2010 – a Tory majority. He rebuffs Mr Clegg’s notion that coalition can offer a superior form of government.

“I think we have the opportunity to start building the argument for a Conservative majority Government,” Mr Cameron says. “That if you want a strong Government, with a clear mandate, that is clearly accountable for what it promises and what it does.”

The message is simple. Coalition has delivered, but single-party rule would be better still.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We are doing good things under this Government,” he says. “We are turning the country around and dealing with problems like welfare, immigration, improving standards in our schools.

“We are turning the tide on the deficit and the rest of it – but we can do even, even better in a Conservative majority Government. Those are the sorts of messages we will be putting out.”

Mr Cameron is dismissive of Mr Miliband’s proposal to freeze energy prices until 2017, suggesting it is not a serious response to needs of the country.

“I think it’s unravelling,” he says. “You don’t have to take that from me – just a few hours after the announcement he had to admit there were some circumstances in which it might not happen.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“What we need in our country is low and competitive energy prices – not for 20 months, but for 20 years.”

So-called ‘unconventional gas’ – such as shale – is clearly central to his response to soaring fuel bills.

“We need to do the things that create a competitive energy market,” he says. “We need to access the new technologies like unconventional gas that will help keep prices down, rather than policies thought up that then so swiftly unravel.”

Nonetheless, there is a danger Labour could succeed in painting the Tories into a corner, forced to defend the big energy firms as people’s bills continue to rise.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

So does the Prime Minister agree that the energy companies are overcharging?

“I think we need a competitive market, we need a tough regulator, we need to make sure they are permanently under the spotlight,” he responds, neatly avoiding the question. “We need to do things like I’ve done, and say ‘Let’s automatically put people on the lowest tariff’. So this Government is very tough on those things.”

A clear line of attack for the Conservatives next week will be on Labour’s own record on energy while in Government – and particular that of its last Energy Secretary, one Ed Miliband.

“We’ve scrapped some crazy policies we’ve inherited,” Mr Cameron says. “Ed Miliband, when he was Energy Secretary, had a proposal that would have put £179 on everybody’s bill, in order to pay for his renewable heat initiative. We got rid of that.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He insists he is not complacent about energy prices, however, accepting: “There’s always more to do.”

Mr Cameron speaks passionately in defence of high-speed rail, and sets out the powerful arguments for pushing ahead with the project – the urgent need for extra North-South capacity; the faster connections between our cities; the positive effects along the rest of the rail network.

“This is important for the north of England,” he says. “Listen to the business leaders in Manchester and Leeds; listen to the chambers of commerce; listen to the CBI. And listen to the council leaders in our great Northern cities. They care about this, and so do I.

“We will be making the case very strongly for it. The rest of the world is adopting high-speed rail. We should be doing the same.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Prime Minister appears to think the question marks raised over HS2 by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls this week were little more than politicking. “I don’t believe Labour, in the end, will go wobbly on it, because they would be completely turning their backs on the north of England,” he says. “They would be betraying people in Yorkshire; they would be letting down people in Manchester.

“They would be cementing a position as the party for the past, and not for the future. So I don’t believe they’ll do it. But be in no doubt, my enthusiasm is not dented in any way.”

Such is Mr Cameron’s mood, he is even happy to laugh off Mr Balls’s jibes about the photographs taken of him looking a little heavier than usual while on a Cornish beach over the summer.

“Well, I’ve got a little extra on,” he says, looking down. “Who cares? It will give me some good joke material, anyway.”