A day in the life of David Cameron

Samuel Coates: I'm spending the day with David Cameron as he campaigns for the local elections in St Albans and makes a speech about poverty, and will update this post at a few points during the trip. Hopefully you'll get an insight into what a day in his life is like in the run up to an election campaign.

9.30am: Cameron's already had a busy day which started at 6am, bran flakes at 6.15am, GMTV interview at 7.10am and then five GNS regional radio interviews. We're on the train to St Albans now (finally, "the shortest journeys always seem to have the longest delays") to do a bit of campaigning with Anne Main MP. I'm pretty sure Brown isn't on the same one.

10.45am: Whistle-stop trip to St Albans, heading back to London now. Cameron had a private meeting with the local council candidates before popping into some shops. The big issue for them is that they need CCTV to cover the front of the shops as virtually all of them have experienced theft and anti-social behaviour.

A number of the shopkeepers come out to meet him at the door and pedestrians try to shake hands and get pictures on their phones. He has a strong understanding of most issues so is good at asking pertinent questions of shopkeepers and discussing relevant issues with local people. Everyone he meets his very friendly and positive - especially train station workers for some reason!

11am: Cameron usually tries to have some time to relax in the weekends - Sundays in particular tend to be ring-fenced for family time - but with the election coming up the last one involved quite a bit of campaigning and yesterday his wife Sam gave a rare public speech in aid of Great Ormond Street Childrens' Hospital.

When out campaigning his aides - Caroline Preston, Gabby Bertin, Catherine Fall, Liz Sugg et al - sort out everything on a practical level. His own mobile phone is only really used by Sam during the day as he's always accompanied by one of them. He also uses one to keep tabs on ConservativeHome and other blogs and news sites.

We're heading to a community project in Islington now so he needs to swot up on his poverty speech.

11.15am: Being on the move with constant demands on your time can be quite hectic, forcing Cameron to grab a quick blueberry muffin to keep himself going, to find a toilet at the train station etc. George Jones and a young PA camerawoman came along for the journey to get some on-the-record comments about national issues. She asked him to do some hand expressions and to jab the table to make filler shots for the camera, as he obliges he recalls a friend breaking a finger when making a point rather too energetically!

12pm: At the Prospex community drop-in centre in Islington before heading off to make a speech on Labour's failure to tackle poverty. This bit's been "op-noted" so there's a bunch of photographers hanging around. Cameron's having a detailed conversation with some of the workers there and a young post-GCSE girl who they've helped to find work for.

It must be fascinating visiting all of these social projects that are working at the coalface, learning lessons from how they do what they do and seeing what they need to do it better. The Centre for Social Justice has a good list of them.

12.30pm: Been walking around the local council estate with the Prospex guys. As with so many "social entrepreneurs" the guy who started it (pictured) is a local churchgoer who wanted to make a difference to the community. These walks are usually planned in advance but inevitably go off-route, causing some anxiety amongst Cameron's aides.

We ended up going up a rather dingy staircase to walk around the flats. It's known as a no-go area locally and two police officers were never far behind - apparently they like to be notified of visits like this.

1pm: Drove past St Pancras - where we left on the train for St Albans four hours ago - to get to Somers Town Community Centre where Cameron is about to speak alongside MPs Greg Clark, Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling. His speech prep has had to consist of squeezing in a bit of underlining key phrases on the train and giving it a last skim-through on the way here.

It takes real confidence to be able to do that. Fortunately the speech looks like pretty standard fare, the subheadings and phrases appear to be taken right out of Breakthrough Britain. I'll upload the poverty report to this post once/if I get an electronic copy. It's good stuff.

1.15pm: Chris Grayling does a presentation on poverty figures. He makes New Labour's rhetoric on alleviating poverty look very empty by examining the huge discrepancies between their child and pensioner poverty targets and the actual progress made.

1.30pm: Greg Clark goes into the figures in a little more detail using some nifty graphs. He talks about the concept of "severe poverty" as opposed to the relative poverty of those who have less than 60% of average. The former now accounts for 40% of the latter, up from 18%. He also spoke about "underlying poverty" which is those in poverty plus those who would be in poverty without benefits.

2.15pm: Iain Duncan Smith spoke about Labour's narrow money-oriented approach to tackling poverty that doesn't sufficiently factor in the lives that people lead - for example, you can give state money to a drug-addict that puts him above the poverty line on paper but he (and his family) will still live in poverty. An approach he said has led to the government spending more and achieving less, when what is needed is a "cultural revolution".

It seems the government has lost its moral compass to the extent that it sticks with what it must know are failed long-term approaches for the sake of short-term statistics. The case against the government on all this is clear and this was reflected in the positive feedback that Cameron got from charity spokesmen afterwards.

3.15pm: In the run-up to an election Cameron believes that normal business has to be put on hold to some extent. This week's Shadow Cabinet meeting has been cancelled so they can get out there and campaign, and I understand Caroline Spelman has had a cunning plan to break up today's Party Board meeting to take its members for an impromptu spot of campaigning. Hopefully they'll return to discussions soon after the election.

3.30pm: It's got to be hard keeping on top of the news when you've got a family to look after and an election to fight. The Today programme is one thing Cameron will try to catch each day - he's going to appear on it tomorrow.

4pm: Cameron has various meetings throughout the afternoon including prep for a speech he's giving to the Institute of Directors later this week, a bit of PMQs prep, some constituency work and then an appearance on BBC London in the evening. It's been interesting spending time with him as he gets out and about. He's good company and I'm impressed that he manages to stay on the ball all day in dealing with such a variety of situations.

Comments

[Walaa Idris]

Great idea and perfect timing in true Comhome style, welldone Sam.

[Tom Hunt]

Not sure if they have enough bods at CCHQ to help out with the security at the front of those shops :). Good work and have fun with IDS.

[Roger Kingston]

Does Dave really understand the pensions crisis? I am a small business and self employed - I have very little chance of being able to live on my pension. What can the Tories do to help me and the millions of others whose pensions have been destroyed by the monster McBrown?

[Editor]

Thanks Tom. The CCHQ has now been changed to CCTV!!

[Deputy Editor]

Blogging on the hoof isn't easy!

[bluepatriot]

Sam: How much does DC travel by train, bike and car?

[Tony Makara]

"Not sure if they have enough bods at CCHQ to help out with the security"

With this sort of operation you only really need a couple of fronters who look the part and draw the public's attention and a couple of blenders who don't look the part but can watch for anything dodgy and respond if they have to. Four is more than enough for any unannounced visit.

[Teri]

Very interesting behind the scenes look. Please do more of this.

[Margaret Hemmings]

I'm not sure about all this poverty talk!

I mean the only way to alleviate poverty is ti redistribute poverty is to redistribute wealth. A Conservative Government will redistribute my wealth over my dead body.

I have worked hard for it and will not allow it to be given back to some chav single mother on a council slum.

If you make their lives comfortable you will make them lazy.

I didn't get to where I am now by being lazy.

Stop this hug a hoodie twaddle now and return to a tx cutting and tough love agena NOW!

[Kate Bollinger]

Good idea! It's easy to knock politicians but you have to give Cameron credit, he works hard.

[Nick Gulliford]

"Fortunately the speech looks like pretty standard fare, the subheadings and phrases appear to be taken right out of Breakthrough Britain". What about "Relationship and parenting education programmes to be rolled-out nationally by the voluntary sector"? Which Conservative controlled local authorities have made a start on this?

[David (One of many)]

Margaret Hemmings, I do hope you're being satirical. If you'd read anything Cameron, IDS or a number of other Conservatives have said about 'broken Britain' you couldn't possibly think wealth redistribution was on the agenda.

[woodentop]

David (One of many) - I wouldn't worry, I think Margaret Hemmings is having a little joke with us as she (or he?) likes to do on so many occasions.

[Peter Harrison]

Margaret - did you read what IDS said? There are many ways of relieving poverty that don't involve redistributing wealth. Creating wealth, for example.

[Pisaboy]

I agree Kate. Not many people could do what DC does. When he's being asked every question under the sun all day then frankly im amazed he doesn't make many gaffes.

[Tony Makara]

I'm so pleased to see the poverty theme because Labour are always trying to pass themselves off as the champions of the poor. The Labour government has hit the poorest sections of our society hard and the politically contrived tax-credits system has trapped many low-earners into a half work/half benefit scenario. How can people live independently of the state when they are looking to government for a top-up? The 10p tax-debate ought to be used as an opportunity to find ways of lifting the lowest earners out of the tax regime altogether.

[Deputy Editor]

bluepatriot, he gets the train for most journeys out of London and tries to cycle a few times a week.

[MilitaryMusicFan]

"Stop this hug a hoodie twaddle now and return to a tx cutting and tough love agena NOW!"

Ooh Margaret, can I have some tough love too?

[Geoff]

These are the types of articles that CH do so incredibly well. Tim, Sam - keep this sort of stuff flowing please.

Imagine what you could do when the General Election comes around! Get a UK-wide regional team established who are involved with their local MPs or PPCs guest-blogging these types of articles and this site will be overwhelmed by hits.

[Matt Kellett]

Can you do more of these things? I found the anecdotes about Dave very interesting if not so much the bits about the speeches.

[Ay Up]

Thanks Sam that was more interesting than the 'day with' features by sneering msm journalists after a soundbite.

[Anthony Broderick]

Nice report. Heard him on r4 this morning- nice to see him get the better of Humphrys.

[Mike Hartley]

Funny, I live down the road from the shops mentioned- there has been CCTV in place since at least 1/4/08...