Thursday, August 30, 2007

Cameron on Newsnight

I've just finished watching David Cameron's 45 minute interview on Newsnight. He was grilled by no fewer than four Newsnight journalists, which I thought was a little OTT, but how refreshing to find such a long interview on the BBC. I thought Cameron gave a stormer of a performance - calm, collected, lucid and statesmanlike. I rather agree with Ben Brogan's assessment.

David Cameron needs to do a lot more of these interviews as well as the softer type. I heard him on Steve Wright on Radio 2 last week and he was in his element. Conservatives should be encouraged that he can handle both sorts of interview well.

Watch the Newsnight interview HERE. I recommend it. Listen to the Steve Wright interview HERE. Click on Thursday and then skim forward into the last hour of the show. The interview will only be there until 5pm today, when it will be replaced by today's show.

53 comments:

Manfarang said...

Singing the favorite tunes-'too many immigrants.'
The private opinion polls that bad!
Fact
Immigration from outside the EU is heavily restricted.The children of marriages between foreigners and British citizens, who themselves were born outside the UK, do not get British citizenship.
Thus some 'true blues'who were born
overseas while their parents were working for the Empire find themselves in difficulty if they have fallen for a foreign beauty.

strapworld said...

David Cameron has discovered he IS a tory and is comfortable with it.

When Brown, predictably, will call it a return to the right.. (or in Brown speak, Lurch!) AGREE! saying that only fools continue along paths the people do not like!

Cameron has, over the past two weeks, transformed the fortune of the Conservative Party because he has woken up to the fact that it IS, by and large, a RIGHT leaning party.

I have never believed opinion polls. They are, in my view, biased and politically driven!Isn't You Gov poll run by the husband of a Labour Minister? Surely that is a conflict!

I have never, and none of my family or friends have ever, been asked to participate in any opinion poll! It is a question I ask of people and the answer is always NO!

The fact that the labour party are constantly watching this and other blogs shows that they are worried!

Cameron is on the RIGHT path. He will win if he keeps to it.

Mind you, a promise to hold a referendum on EU membership when elected will guarantee a landslide! It would give him a tremendous negotiating position with the EU Soviet Politburo.

Well done Cameron. More of the same.

Devil's Kitchen said...

Hmmm. More along the lines of "big government is bad, but we, in government, have a solution."

But, yes, he is at least vaguely consistent.

DK

Anonymous said...

Give up. Macaroon is just another useless new Labour politico. Would he be any different from Blair-Brown? Hardly.

Anonymous said...

When Cameron stops his whineing and handwringing tone and starts to speak with moral conviction and firm authority he becomes a potential leader!
His biggest error was to listen to the media types who urged him to come across all cuddly and green and soft to appeal to leftist voters! I hope he now realises that leftist voters would rather stick rusty forks in their eyes than EVER vote Tory! The NuLabour commisars have made such a mess of the UK that all Cameron has to do is ATTACK the NULAB regime like his life depends on it! His mantra and that of the party should be ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK! Expose these NULAB commisars for the self seving liars they are and people will flock to the blue flag!

PS
A good start would be to get rid of the idiotic scribble of an emblem and return to the torch!

Anonymous said...

How would he fare with a tough guy asking the questions.None of the four had long enough to get at him.Nice idea.Does anyone really beleive his new and sudden stance on immigration? Your left with the thought that there might be a party conference or general election around the corner.

Roger Thornhill said...

I agree with you, Iain, though I only caught the last 10 minutes - if Cameron was facing that for a full 45 and I saw only the last 10, he seemed very cool even as I stepped in. This says to me that Cameron did an even better job than I first thought he did - which was good already (entering a discussion like this 3/4 of the way in is like walking into a Newyear's party at 00:15 to drive someone home).

I saw the lady asking preposterous logical inversions and trying to get Cameron to agree to her hat-stand distortions and extrapolations in regard to IHT. I cannot quite recall the words as I was almost deafened by the sound of straws being grabbed.

nadds said...

Pretty good. Both crick and steph came across as a bit shrill.

DC was very good on Talksport on Friday with John Gaunt as well, with Jack Straw failing to appear after DC's strong performance - Gaunt will continually remind his audience of this fact.

Looks like Coulsden is earning his corn, with a very solid run of positive messages since he started.

Oh and where's Brown been recently?

Chris Paul said...

Not rewound and seen it all yet. But only a bit woolly?

Anonymous said...

All I saw was Blair 2.I prefer Brown.Your man is just too greasy.All waffle and smiles,he's a loser,get rid.Ask friends what the guy said that they remember,it will be nil,zero,zilch.

Anonymous said...

The interviewers were well prepared and came over well. Cameron was clearly told to come over as more forceful and serious but everything had the air of the right thing to say to appeal to voters rather than of a well researched, "what works" approach to government. Rather crafted.

His statement about green taxes just proves that they are eyeing aviation as a cash cow to fund other popular policy pledges. Green taxes are only "green" if they promote greener performance, and, as your other contributors have pointed out, Cameron has not shown that taxing aviation will make any difference to emissions.

Jim said...

Anarchy in the UK. ( Isnt that one of his favorite Albums )

All Social ills caused by the unmarried

More tax on aviation

Eeerrrrrrr that’s it !!!!!!!.

As normal “Camera On” spoke reams, encyclopedic volumes of vacuous dross.

He spoke solid for nearly 45 minutes and still I have no idea what he stands for or what polices he would implement if god forbid he became PM.

Expect the next 100 comments to be all about BBC Bias. ……Yawn

Newmania said...

Cameron has always been a superb performer and is a better leader than the Party deserves . I heard Tim Montgomery on R4 this morning saying Conservatives care about immigration crime and so on and I thought Tim ( as if we were mates ...which we are not )..I know you mean this in a balanced context ( he was at pains to say so) but you do not understand the way the media works . You have to think in terms of finite resources and areas of gravity. His remarks will be damaging.

Cameron has re- presented Conservatism and now he can return to the legitimate shared concerns of the country and get a hearing . This progress must not be undermined The man is a close to a greenius as we are going to get and prejudice aside the sheer quality of his mind towers over his well meaning but feeble predecessors .
You Ian Dale have boxed clever on Cameron (as you have on Boris despite being out of tune with 70% of London Conservatives .)
We may soon have an election and I think its time you dropped this critical support nonsense and started saying everything Cameron says is brilliant whether it is or not. There is no place for independent thinking in the Party and no place for disloyalty however sympathetically expressed .LOYALTY is all . Look at Chris Paul he would congratulate the Labour party on its novel energy policy if it burnt the country to the ground , he would call the mass repatriation of blacks " sensitive to working-class concerns " he will say literally anything and you should follow suit Your credibility is a small price to pay for the return of a Conservatives Government as I am sure you would agree


:)

Anonymous said...

Yes I thought he was pretty good; some tough talk and consistent critique of the government. Shame about the diluted stance he took on the EU though.

I thought the Economics interviewer was rather grating - she just kept trying to show somehow that DC is only really interested in helping the super-rich, and was clearly only interested in the bits of IDS's paper that were the least impressive to her.

Unknown said...

Cam is the man!

Good performance!


Also immigration is a MUCH bigger issue in the north of England so he is right to go on about it.

strapworld said...

English Democrat said:-
PS
A good start would be to get rid of the idiotic scribble of an emblem and return to the torch!

August 30, 2007 7:30 AM

Why not a BLUE FIST?

strapworld said...

Nadds said:-
Oh and where's Brown been recently?

August 30, 2007 8:36 AM

Why. In Bunker 1 of course!

Anonymous said...

I also heard Tim M on Today this morning and my heart sank yet again. Saying that the true concerns of tories are tax cuts (for the rich), longer prison sentences (for black, poor and poorly-educated people), reduced immigration and "Europe" (i.e. no more wogs or frogs thank you) is painful stuff for those of us who hope that the party has genuinely moved forward and is prepared to reach out to those who've felt fairly comfortable with NuLab's big tent. TM sounds eerily like some early '80s TUC leader telling us that his members won't accept anything less than closed shops, wealth taxes, the abolition of independent schools and nuclear disarmament.

But there has to be some serious meat behind "mending our broken society" ad I didn't see it last night. Nor did I see much fire on Europe, which is the one of those core concerns where I think there's genuine traction available to anyone brave enough to take it on.

strapworld said...

Iain,

I see the Labour HQ children are late for work this morning. Only coming on at 9.13 / 9.30 and 9.32! Shows they are rattled!

Anonymous said...

Why not a BLUE FIST?

August 30, 2007 10:21 AM


They could have a RIGHT TURN sign!

Ralph said...

Cameron did well in a real interview not the usual 'Do tell us how wonderful you are PM' type that Brown gets.

What matters though is how the media spin the story.

Anonymous said...

I think it time we started pushing Brown to become more accountable and take part in interviews such as this. Cameron and the Party need to do this more but we should also press the face that Gordon hasn't faced a serious interview either during the period of his coup or since he became PM.
If there is going to be a general election in October we should once again start rattling cages with the talk of a series of public debates between the leaders. Brown shouldn't be allowed to slip away from this like Blair did.

Or why doesn't Cameron just challenge Brown to a few debates outside of the election period in the name of promoting open democracy and public participation. That would get him on the back foot.

BJ said...

I presume Newsnight went for the "panel approach" to the interview because they did the same thing to Gordon Brown shortly before he was crowned prime minister. Although the panel was different.

Anonymous said...

The boy dun well!
It was interesting that I was totally relaxed from the outset.(I'm usually sick with anxiety, thinking the Tory being interviewed is going to found out in some way).
So, our man has that quality that great stage performers have; he's confident, in charge and we can all sit back and enjoy the show.

BTW, I enjoyed the harder edge; if he carries on like this, Brown's going to bounce out of the window.

Anonymous said...

Focusing on 'family' is fine. But there is a clear line not to be crossed. It's not the job of a politician to moralise or lecture. Cameron shouldn't being passing judgement on people's lives when he does not know the private circumstances.

Cameron's proposed 'tax break' for married couples is direct discrimination. He should be redressing the balance and going for neutral policies.

The 'back to basics - family values' approach is dangerous territory. I am married and I think marriage is a good thing - but I don't want a tax break because of it. What does Cameron say to the widow or the abandoned partner? Is that their fault? Is that fair? No.

PS> Does the gay community exist in Tory world?!
Cameron's talk of 'artistic censorship' worries me as well. Creepy words.

Anonymous said...

strapworld said...

Iain,

I see the Labour HQ children are late for work this morning. Only coming on at 9.13 / 9.30 and 9.32! Shows they are rattled!

9.13 that was me,chuffed you read it.Ten years in power and we are rattled,don't be silly.

Anonymous said...

bebopper said...So, our man has that quality that great stage performers have.

He can act ? That's what we need now a bloody actor. We've only just got rid of one for Gods sake.

Newmania said...

I presume Newsnight went for the "panel approach" to the interview because they did the same thing to Gordon Brown shortly before he was crowned prime minister. Although the panel was different

BJ I trust you have seen the Private Eye destruction of Helen Boadens claim that the BBC were reasonable and impartial about the Redwood`s Competitiveness review.
I wouldn`t want to say I told you say but

I TOLD YOU SO

Newmania said...

Or why doesn't Cameron just challenge Brown to a few debates outside of the election period in the name of promoting open democracy and public participation. That would get him on the back foot.

He has done but there is a snowball`s chance in hell of Brown getting caught in the open having to think on his feet. He would have to admit he is lying in Europe , he has lied on the Academy prgramme ( more things called academies that are not academies), obviously he lied on tax and his own flag ship , tax credits has been catastrophically delivered..( although it is not an entirely bad idea)

One lie after another ..cool to the US but lets themn set up in Yorkshire , wearing the Union Jack having been instrumental in desmantling the Union.
He is going to try the same trick by encouraging Holyrood to use existing powers so as to widen its influence without being seen to con the English , again. More lies
He cannot stand a candle let alone a searchlight . Will somone explain to me what sort of mass amnesia it was that ever created the Brown bounce ? Thanks god its is now over which unlike Iain I think is more liely to panic Brown into a quick election than his evaporated 10% lead. He was never going to act from boldness only fear

Its always the same with him Hiding , creeping around in the dark changing the figures. Asking him to sit in open debate with David Cameron is like asking bacteria to go swimming with Domestos..

He`s frightened now he sees it all slipping away . Could be Autumn, could well be

Newmania said...

I gather Scottish socialist Andrew Marr is doing a series for radio 4 abotu the soul of the English...that should be really really good. Jeremy Paxman hurriedly repositioning himself as a Royalist and anti BBC complainer.

Why isn`t Iain Dale doing a history of the English not a friend of Polly Toynbee and sprig of the Scots aristocracy..what could he possibly have to add

Newmania said...

Oh Devil`s Kitchen ...in the light of the average age of UKIP members being over 50 do you not feel your language is somewhat out of step with the subject matter.

Annabelle Fuller has recently been making much play of the geriatric quality of the Ukipper brigade including promising that mushy food for the toothless will be laid on at the Troxy Conference Centre for their okey kokey. Most members , she says are " Grade Two Listed". Jars that are easy to open ...NICE BIG WRITING...and a PA system that repeats itself automatically ...eh ? ...eh?


Very edgey I must say

Anonymous said...

One thing that struck me was the lighting.

Who put a down light on Cameron so that the shadow of his nose formed a Hitler moustache on his top lip and made his eyes look sunken? The Newsnight four were not lit like that.

Did Newsnight do it on purpose? Didn’t Cameron’s minders notice?

Anonymous said...

Newmania...

What would this blog be without Newmania.

Answer.. interesting.

Anonymous said...

I only caught a bit of the interview but was completely distracted by the terrible lighting which made DC's nose cast a weird shadow over his face, so in parts it looked like he had a Hitler 'tash.... more evidence of BBC bias perhaps??

Anonymous said...

Would DC commit to a referendum on the EU reconstituted consititution?

Also, would he scrap IHT, stamp duty, TV licences, council tax and make people work (sweeping the roads if necessary) while drawing their Jobseekers allowance.

I like the idea of a commitment to marriage, but I think he will get a lot of flak from the left about it using single parents as ammo. He will need to prepare well for this argument.

I am almost of the opinion that the Tories would be better off losing the next election and leaving McCavity to sort out his own mess, but the thought of another five year of this mob is just unbearable.

strapworld said...

Comfy Socks said:-
9.13 that was me,chuffed you read it.Ten years in power and we are rattled,don't be silly.
=======

Who said In power but not in control? Sums this lot up!

Anonymous said...

What about 45mins. face to face live with just Crick?
For that one you could sell tickets!
Has anyonone any idea about how much of an edit was carried out?

Anonymous said...

Cameron should consider using the slogan

24 HOURS TO SAVE ENGLAND!

for the election.

Anonymous said...

Brown was grilled by four people too remember.

Newmania said...

Browns headline interview was a tummy tickle from Scottish sociolaist Andrew Marr

Mulligan said...

Anonymous said...

"Brown was grilled by four people too remember."

Blimey "grilled" indeed.. I bet you believe the question setting in eggheads is all fair and above board as well.

Anonymous said...

I won't be watching it because Cameron is a flim-flam man, and an ignorant one at that.

He honest-to-God seems to think voters give a monkey crap about so-called pretend "green issues" and "saving the planet through extra taxes". I hate the man.

Also, if we are talking about Pakistani immigrants, how can such talk be racist as the Pakistanis are Indo-Aryan. Almost the same race as the Iranians (Iranian is their word for Aryan), who are the same race as us. And islam is not a race. And David Cameron is poncy copy of tony blair but without the sibilance.

David Lindsay said...

To no one's surprise (least of all mine, although I have had emails from BBC staff...), not one of the issues that I listed on my blog was mentioned much, if at all, during Newsnight's fawning "interview" with the BBC's preferred candidate for Prime Minister.

Indeed, almost nothing was. It was like being back in the early days of Tony Blair.

That this 50-minute Party Political Broadcast was ever made is perfectly scandalous. But the Beeb's man has been shown over this summer to be, as if anyone hadn't already known him to be, a vacuous, lightweight figure, and one, moreover, without a conservative bone in his body.

So Auntie dutifully came to what she clearly thought was the rescue of her new favourite nephew.

Of course, because she only knows Eurofederalists, she doubtless thought that she was doing him a favour by allowing him to demonstrate (not that it is in any way news) just how rabid a Eurofederalist he is.

But there was no mention of Cameron's membership of a criminal conspiracy, complete with membership lists, officers, a uniform, the lot, specifically for the purpose of smashing up pubs, not to mention of assaulting publicans and their staff.

Nor of the Tories' plan to hand over control over great swathes of life in designated ghettoes to wholly self-appointed local Muslim, Hindu and Sikh leaders in return for getting out the vote for the Bullingdon Boys.

Nor of the fact that the oppression of the black and white English-speaking working class that this will entail is already being experienced in Wales, and is being seriously mooted both in Northern Ireland and in the North of Scotland.

Nor of whether or not Cameron, with his Scots background and his house on the Isle of Jura, would use the power of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to enact legislation in all policy areas applicable in all parts of this Kingdom.

Nor of just how few members the Conservative Party (like the others) now has, and just how old most of them now are (again, like the others).

Nor of how many people are now determined not to vote.

Nor of the fact that the specific Tories who have done well in Local Elections are as un-Cameroon as anyone could possibly be, these being manifestly the sort of Tories for whom people will vote if they are ever going to vote Tory at all.

Among many, many, many other things...

Anonymous said...

So,David Lindsay - how did you like the programme?

Anonymous said...

I have never believed opinion polls. They are, in my view, biased and politically driven!Isn't You Gov poll run by the husband of a Labour Minister? Surely that is a conflict!

I have never, and none of my family or friends have ever, been asked to participate in any opinion poll! It is a question I ask of people and the answer is always NO!


Well with YouGov specifically they only use a panel of volunteers, you volunteer by setting up an account on their website. So you can get involved in you want. Of course, they have many more younger, internet savvy people (for instance) on their panel compared to the population at large, but then they correct for that by not sending them as many surveys.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that surveys are indeed biased and politically driven. But that's not because of the company doing the polling, it's because of the people who commission the survey and the way they word their question.

Generally you'll find that the actual question that has been asked either isn't the same as the headline given, or has only been asked after a series of other questions designed to plant a specific point in people's minds.

Anonymous said...

The interview reminded me of some soviet style grilling - blind assumptions pulsed through the veins of the interviewers.

"Do you think that not taxing the rich is penalising the poor?"

"Do you think it is right that people are successful when some people fail?"

"How many small babies have you killed by not having a 90% tax threshold at £100K?"

And so it went on, and on ... the poor presenters swimming in a sea of social justice - all being paid for by yours truely, whilst billions and billions of pounds in Mr Brown's unregulated credit derivatives unwind around them.

Newmania said...

David your Bullingdon boy nonsense is an appeall to class envy some forty years out of date . David Cameron is relatively priveliged yes . No more than Tony Blair and we do not believe his good fortune makes ours worse as you do. Honestly move along ..move along .
He is English by the way as i have preeviously explained . burt more to the point

"Nor of the Tories' plan to hand over control over great swathes of life in designated ghettoes to wholly self-appointed local Muslim, Hindu and Sikh leaders in return for getting out the vote"

What are youi talking about evidence please !

Anonymous said...

Oh come on! The interviewers were poor, but there are some pretty rosey-tinted lenses being worn on here when it comes to Cameron's performance. It was largely the usual evasive, woolly stuff. Delivered calmly certainly but with barely a sausage of actual meaty content.

I don't know, the guy stops acting like an incompetent Blair-worshipping buffoon for five seconds and now he's the new True Blue messiah. As if.

David Lindsay said...

Newmania, Cameron is a LOT more privileged than Blair, whom it is interesting to see that you are defending.

Far from being 40 years out of date, (tax-paying) middle and working class resentment against the (largely tax-exempt) super-rich is the coming force in British politics. It might well be the big issue by the time of the nerxt Election, and it certainly will be by the time of the one after that.

The Bullingdon Club is a criminal conspiracy, and would be prosecuted as such in any other class (including the upper middle class), or even at almost all other universities. It exists specifically to commit criminal damage and even assault. Members of such an organisation are unfit for public office.

The strange alliance between the neocons and the Bush Dynasty (even posher than Cameron) actively cultivated Hispanics even though it involved turning a blind eye to practically limitless immigration (supported by neocons anyway, because unbridled capitalism cannot function without it and because it destroys the traditional working class), and even though it effectivley involved declaring much of the US bilingual in English and Spanish (if not monolingually Spnaish-speaking, and again to the significant detriment of the traditional working class). Quite where that cultivation ended up has been all over the news this week.

But the Cameroons want to do the same with the Asians. Tory loudpspeakers during the Ealing Southall byelection announced in several Asian languages that Muslim, Hindu and Sikh festivals would be made public holidays by the Tories. And, lo and behold, they now intend to allow "local communities" to set three additional public holidays.

That certainly won't mean local councils, which the Cameroons loathe even more than do national politicians generally (and that is quite a feat), not least because so amny are now run by exactly the sort of Tories against whom they define themselves, but who are manifestly the only Tories capable of winning elections in today's Britain. Rather, it will mean self-appointed "community leaders" operating political machines.

And where will this stop, in the age of "the new localism"? So long as they keep geeting the vote out for the organised criminals of the Buller, these "community leaders" will be able to set up and run localised Caliphate, Hindutva or Khalistan to their hearts' content (not least at various forms of public expense), entirely regradless of the fact that there is no Muslim, Hindu or Sikh majority anywhere in Britain (although there might well be, if enough of them move to these ghettoes, not necessarily from within Britain), nor would even most British Muslims, British Hindus or British Sikhs wish to live in any such environment.

Anonymous said...

So this constituted a "stormer of a performance".

Hmmm...if you say so...

Anonymous said...

It was a superb performance.

Two extremely nasty socialists lined up to ask the old class-orientated questions Margaret used to get asked (and which she swatted with derision).

As for the b***h in the red dress, I can see why she's a single mother, what man could possibly live with an acid-drop like that ?

Did Blair ever get a grilling like this ?

Anonymous said...

"As for the b***h in the red dress,... what man could possibly live with an acid-drop like that ?"

If she agreed to send the kid into care, I'd jump at the chance. Steph's sex on legs...economists do it with Slutsky matrices..

Anonymous said...

All those slagging off Steph, should read this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2368572.ece

Entirely sensible argument.