Cameron: Practically a Conservative. Elliott Francis Perry

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СКАЧАТЬ that voters were still suspicious of Labour, it could do little to stop the festering rebellion among Tory MPs, an increasing number of whom were determined to rid themselves of their leader. Change was in the air and Heseltine, the dashing ‘king over the water’ who had garnered credit with every government difficulty, was the pundits’ bet to succeed Thatcher at Number 10. Here it seems Cameron may himself have played a dangerous game. For although the CRD was generally regarded as an ultra-loyal Thatcherite outpost, he was not above pushing Heseltine’s cause on occasion. Bray recalls that when she was stuck for a frontbencher to put up for BBC1’s Question Time, the head of the Political Section casually suggested she ask Heseltine to step in. ‘I said, “Well I’m sure they [Question Time] would love it but officially we’re not supposed to be fielding Michael Heseltine.” But Dave said Michael did these things very well. Funnily enough Dave was always a great fan.’ Bray said that she was impressed that Cameron was ‘thinking outside the box’.

      His defiance of orthodoxy was less favourably received in an embattled Number 10 where his insouciant recommendation of ‘Tarzan’ marked him out – to some at least – as a Heseltine supporter. It seemed that he had borne out a suspicion harboured among some of Thatcher’s most loyal aides that he was not ‘one of us’. Such apparent disloyalty could have cost the aspiring politician dear had the events of November 1990 fallen differently. Shortly after 9.30 a.m. on 22 November a messenger wordlessly placed a piece of paper on every desk in the CRD. On it was the Press Association ‘snap’ report that Margaret Thatcher had told the Cabinet she was resigning. Cameron watched the unfolding drama of her departure from the press office. Lansley sent a message of condolence from the Research Department (and remarkably received a handwritten note in reply that afternoon).

      Cameron has said that he was ‘very sad’ that day. But what are we to make of his relations with the Tories’ greatest leader since Winston Churchill? Their meetings have been fleeting and mostly embarrassing. His first encounter with her was at Central Office and might have ended his political career. ‘I was the Trade researcher and she asked me what the trade deficit was. I didn’t know,’ he said. On the second occasion, at a lunch, she commiserated with him for the fact that Labour had stolen Tory language, but said that they would never understand the importance of individual liberty under the law. ‘It’s an old tune but a good one,’ Cameron wrote later. So that Lady Thatcher could give some sort of benediction to young Cameron after he became leader, a ‘casual’ meeting at a party was arranged between the two in early 2006. Cameron, dressed in a jacket and crisp white opennecked shirt, was duly brought before Baroness Thatcher, by now in her eighties and no longer at her physical and mental peak. The young man displayed appropriate deference and thoughtfulness, impressing the elderly former PM and prompting her to inquire for which seat this youthful political aspirant was hoping to stand at the next election. Lady Thatcher, when gently informed of her mistake, is said to have remarked that she could not believe that anyone not wearing a tie could possibly be a Conservative leader. Cameron’s office lost little time in briefing a rather more positive version of the meeting. Lady Thatcher, his press officer said, had told the new leader to make sure he got enough sleep.

      Although it may appear trivial, Cameron’s relations with Thatcher go to the heart of the dilemma he faces in positioning at the political centre of a modernised party. He recognises that for many former Tory voters she represents almost all that they grew to dislike about the Conservatives. Yet he was, as university friends confirm, a dyed-in-the-wool Thatcherite himself, and his own parents, especially his father, idolised her. He dare not disown her completely for fear of enraging those that remain her admirers. Her good opinion – and that of those who speak for her – still matters more than Cameron and his supporters like to admit.

      In the winter of 1990 it was her successor John Major’s good opinion that mattered most, however. Just as it was important to make a good impression on the new regime, Cameron earned his first press notice – for an embarrassing blunder that earned a rebuke from the Speaker himself. In truth the matter was a minor administrative cockup. Cameron had gone to sit in on a Commons debate on Labour policy one day in January 1991. But instead of taking his place in the seats set aside for party officials in an upper gallery, he had sat in the chamber itself in a box reserved for civil servants. Labour members, spotting the error, let out a howl of indignation and wrote to the then Speaker alleging a ‘potential breach of security’ and demanding that he investigate. A short article in the Guardian, Cameron’s first mention in a national newspaper, records that Speaker Weatherill said: ‘I have received a letter of apology from the Chancellor of the Duchy [of Lancaster, Chris Patten’s job-title in the Cabinet], who accepts personal responsibility that an official of the Conservative party was on the list for the civil servants’ box and was admitted to that box.’ There was no breach of security and the matter was closed.

      At first Major left the CRD as it was. It had proved itself effective over the summer. But Cameron must have felt a little vulnerable when Kenneth Baker – with whom he got on very well – was moved to make way for a new party Chairman, Chris Patten. Patten liked Cameron well enough, however. He certainly shared his and Lansley’s analysis that Labour was weak on the issue of trust. It had already been decided as early as the summer of 1990 (nearly two years before the poll as it turned out) that the next election would be fought on the proposition that, if the voters were asked whether they could really place their faith in Labour, sufficient numbers would balk to allow the Tories back in. But when to put it to the test? When should a new PM go to the polls? Immediately on succession, riding a wave of goodwill in order to secure his own mandate? Or after a steadying period of calm in which the new premier has demonstrated his fitness for office? Unsurprisingly Major wanted both options, long and short, kept open, so Central Office was secretly set to work preparing for the possibility of an election that autumn. For Cameron this meant the daunting task of preparing the official ‘campaign guide’ – a vast document that laid out every Tory policy in clear and simple language, as well as explaining ‘attack lines’ against each Labour and Liberal Democrat alternative.

      It was at this point that Cameron and Hilton began to forge their working partnership as message-crafters. The Tories had rehired Saatchi & Saatchi as their advertising agency, but Lansley says the admen struggled to understand the nuances of Smith Square’s new messages. The solution was to second Hilton to the agency to provide a link that chained the admen to the politicians. Cameron was to be the second such link. Cameron and Hilton worked on the political messages emanating from Smith Square and then communicated them to the Saatchi brothers and their lieutenants, carrying their resulting ideas back to Central Office. The two had also become personally close, spending a summer holiday that year together in Italy, the first of a number of shared vacations in the years to come. It was a process that consolidated Cameron’s power, according to his friend Angie Bray. ‘Where Dave really came into his own was taking on the whole Labour threat in the build-up to the 1992 election campaign. That was really when Dave was at his most powerful at Central Office.’

      And then in early summer the call came from Number 10. Could Mr Cameron please help the Prime Minister prepare for Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs)? This was to be his first close-up insight into how government works. PMQs – then a twice-weekly affair – became the highlights of his working week. Every Tuesday and Thursday the twenty-five-year-old would get up very early to read all the newspapers in Number 10. Also present was a new-intake backbencher, David Davis, who was given the task of distributing to loyal MPs friendly questions that give the PM some respite from the Question Time onslaught.

      At 9 a.m. Cameron (but not Davis) was called up to the room directly beneath the Number 10 flat for the key meeting with Major. Here the Prime Minister would decide which issues he would attack on and which he needed to be prepared to defend. Not only did those meetings educate Cameron about Major’s view of the full range of subjects, domestic and international, he also witnessed key decisions being taken – often in anticipation of a СКАЧАТЬ