'Cameron on Cameron' highlights: Colleagues and opponents

Dylan Jones' new book Cameron on Cameron is a series of interviews with the Conservative leader. Yesterday we focused on highlights discussing the economy and taxation. Below are some highlights of Cameron's responses relating to other politicians.

George Osborne: “If you look at the two of us, I think I probably have a more rural outlook on life, having been brought up in the country, and George is more metropolitan. But the differences are differences of emphasis. We have a genuinely shared view of what was wrong with the Conservative Party and what is wrong with the country and what we’d like to put right.”

Boris Johnson: “I knew him at school, so I remember this dishevelled, large, beefy rugby player… The fact that he speaks freely and openly is a great thing, because we’ve all got too controlled by fear of saying something politically incorrect, or whatever. And Boris has no fear about that.”

Past Conservative Prime Ministers: “The Conservative Party’s brilliance over centuries has been to change to reflect society. Disraeli understood the conservatism of the suburbs, Peel understand that there was a growing urban population and we had to repeal the corn laws, Salisbury understood the importance of patriotism, Churchill understood the importance of home ownership, Mrs Thatcher understood the importance of giving trade unions back to their members. It’s always been about change.”

Margaret Thatcher: “If you grew up under Thatcher, you either thought she was doing the wrong thing or she was doing the right thing and I thought she was doing the right thing… Just as Thatcher said own your council house, so we should be saying have more choice over the school your kids go to or the hospital you get treated at, or own shares in the firm you work for… I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now.”

Iain Duncan Smith: “I voted for him in the membership ballot, although Samantha favoured Clarke. No one really knew much about him really, and, as you say, it wasn’t a very happy period, we weren’t making any headway. However, Iain was making very strong points about social breakdown, which is something he’s been working on every since and is doing work on that now for us – it’s right at the heart of our plans.”

Tony Blair: “Tony Blair was a great campaigner, he was a great party leader, but he didn’t really know what he wanted to change in health, in education, in crime, in policing, when he first came in. By the end he was beginning to get an idea, but when he first came in I don’t think he had a clue… What matters is that the things you do in the short term don’t undermine what you have planned for the long term. And I think that was Blair’s great failing.”

George W. Bush: “He has thought about some of the most important issues of our time and has a very intelligent and conviction-driven view of them… I think if you look at what he’s done in terms of AIDS in Africa it is truly remarkable… I remember going to an AIDS clinic where every last drug had been paid for by the US because of Bush’s initiative… Bush has been a disaster on the environment.”

John McCain: “I’m a huge fan of John McCain and think he would make a great President…”

Barack Obama: “[T]here is a lot more substance in what he says, in the answers he gives to questions, than perhaps the media give him credit for… I thought it was a terrific speech [denouncing Rev. Wright], but I suppose he didn’t do enough, with respect to the pastor, to distance himself.”

Comments

[Ulster Tory]

Just out of interest, would the editor recommend purchasing this book?

[Edison Smith]

I have the book, Ulster Tory.

It's okay, but even I found it a bit to sycophantic at times - and I'm a fully paid up member of the Cameroon Club.

It would have made a better book if its author wasn't quite so blatantly biased and had more distance.

If I was Dylan Jones' wife, I'd be worried!

Still, some interesting snapshots though, and worth a look.

[Edison Smith]

Ps, A highlight for me is when DC, whilst touring the offices of a Midlands newspaper, sees a picture of himself campaigning in Wolverhampton in the mid 1990s.

"Look," he said, "It's Alan B'Stard"!

[Londoner]

Interesting that he voted for IDS in the 2001 membership ballot. He not only got a thumping majority himself from the members, but was in step with us at the earlier ballot too. Doesn't make him look like this lefty closet Eurofederalist that some of his enemies claim he is does it?

And I write as a Boris "society is not broken" conservative. Boris supported Clarke.

[Peter Cuthbertson]

UlsterTory, depends what you want out of it. I saw it for £11 in Borders and thought it would provide enough material for a week of features on this blog, so that's why I picked it up. If you want to see a whole range of issues tackled, and prefer the straight "Q. etc etc" "A. etc etc" interview format to that with loads of commentary from the interviewer, I'd pick it up. I agree with Edison Smith on its general leanings - but that may not be a bad thing in the sense that Cameron is certainly allowed to speak and to develop his thoughts in full.

[Rooster Cogburn]

Yeah, his 2001 vote for IDS in the membership ballot (certain winner: IDS) was truly brave and principled by Dave, if he actually did it. Unlike, er, his refusal to vote for IDS at *any* stage of the parliamentary ballot.

[Peter Cuthbertson]

UlsterTory, worth adding also that one can get a sense of the man's priorities from the book. Again and again, he comes back to his goal of combating social breakdown and his desire to be as radical a Prime Minister on social issues as Thatcher was on economics. He is plainly very committed to this goal, and clear-sighted about social problems in Britain, in a way most of the coverage of him doesn't really reflect. For example, I didn't realise until I read the book that when Cameron talks about himself as a 'liberal conservative', he basically means a One Nation Conservative, or even just a plain social conservative. But that's how he goes on to define the phrase time and again.

[Dave B]

"Blair .... didn't know what he wanted to do"

I'm not sure I agree with that. I'd say that from the get-go Blair put the interests of the Labour party ahead of the interests of the country.

[Londoner]

Rooster @ 20.07 yesterday: his "refusal" to vote for IDS in the parliamentary ballots would presumably have been because, like many of us, he was supporting Portillo. That is also a plus point because, whatever you may think of what Portillo has done since, the choice between IDS and Clarke put to us as members was the wrong choice. And one many of us found quite uncomfortable until we eventually decided that our conservative and eurosceptic instincts would not allow us to support Clarke. Instincts which DC seems to have shared.