On Thursday I am doing one of my IN CONVERSATION interviews for the next issue of Total Politics with David Cameron.I fully realise I am in a lose-lose situation with this interview because whatever I ask him I'll be accused of throwing him softballs. Anyway, I intend it to be conducted in exactly the same way as I've done the recent interviews with Tony Benn, Hazel Blears and Nigel Farage.
But there'll be one slight difference. As usual, I'm going to ask you for question ideas - what would you be asking him if you were me - but this time I'm going to pick three of them and then print the answers here on this blog as well as in the final magazine article.
82 comments:
Ask him what he thinks of Guido.
That should put the cat amongst the pidgeons.
How can you convince me that in office you will be conservative PM leading a conservative government rather than a Blair-like social democrat leading through focus groups, PR, deceit and fluff?
Before you begin to question, I suggest a change of pic here. Cameron looks like a teenager, about fourteen, twenty at most, given our current Botox-devoted years, etc. He needs credibility. And not the L'Oreal mantra.
I'd suggest; "will you ensure that professional services are left to get on with their jobs without state interference. For example by abolishing targets in the NHS, schools and police and by severing the instructions of the state to the judicary"
IMO this state-set target culture is the number one reason for poor public service performance. If you're in business, setting targets to improve bottom-line perfortmance is fine. It makes no sense if you're trying to run a service for the public. These targets exist simply to allow politicians to state they've hit them.
Mr Cameron: Can you please explain to me how you can justify calling the party with its current policies Conservative?
* I want to know why David Cameron insists on banging on about 'rewarding married couples with tax breaks'? This is so obviously blatant discrimination. Not all families are 'married couples'> a man and a woman with 2.5 children dressed in Boden. If DC gives you his usual reply which is "Labour rewards single parents and that is wrong" then ask him why everyone is not entitled to an equal tax break - Not based on their marital status. His proposal is divisive and alienating. Social engineering at its best.
* I want you to ask DC why he continues to bang on about Britain's 'broken society' all the time? Battered this and broken that. It's not exactly positive or uplifting. I do not believe Britain is any more broken than it was 50, 100 or 500 years ago. Technology means bad news spreads faster - there has always been bad news just like there always will be bad news. I want to hear a politician being hopeful and positive - not negative and pessimistic.
* I want to know why DC destroyed Webcameron by moving it to the propaganda site conservatives.com. Why didn't he have the good grace to say good-bye and thank you to his web community before he did that? If DC says Webcameron still exists it's a nonsense. Technically maybe - but in spirit no way. That was bad form.
Please will he save us from The EU dictatorship, trade goods, not the Nation!
Will he re-instate pension dividend relief and make sure it goes to pensioners not fat cat insurers? Self-funding from a rise in Stock market value.
I would like you to ask him what he thinks of Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell's book, 'Twelve Months to Renew Britain' and if he plans to adopt their plan as Conservative Party policy?
I would ask him what he plans to cut from the future investment Labour would put in.
canvas said...
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2368572.ece
Are you Stephanie Flanders? Copy and paste the link, answers your question, if you are not!
I'd like to know what reassurances the voters get that he will not abandon every promise he makes just as NuLabour have.
I'd like to know if he will give Landlords the democratic choice as to whether they will be a smoking or non smoking pub.
I would like to know if the Politically Correct Nannying and Spying is going to stop!
I would like to know if he is going deport every migrant or immigrant who breaks the law in the UK regardless of human rights.
I would like to know if he is going to renegotiate our terms of membership with the EU and give us a vote in what happens.
I would like him to give me one good reason to return to the UK!
I think the ideal question would be: boxers, or briefs...? ;)
ask him whether he thinks his "A" list has quote proved to be the holy grail of great candidates he thought it would be
perhaps his genuine feelings as well when he gets the black wednesday Lamont insults thrown at him when he talsk about the economy. Exactly HOW involved was he on that day.
Okey Dokey. Here's my question for David Cameron:
Sir, Yesterday I read a wonderful extract from the online historical Hansard record. It is from the 27th of January 1806 and the matter under discussion in the House of Commons was the voting of funeral honours to The Rt Hon. William Pitt.
At the end of his testimony Mr Wilberforce said the following:
'To whatever regarded his own interest, he was perfectly indifferent. Indeed this distinguished man was always forgetting himself, but ever remembering his country.'
Is this not a maxim that today's MPs should live by? Not least for those who sit on the opposition frontbench and God willing will sit with your good self on the Treasury bench.
Oldrightie - I am simply canvas, me myself and I. I am not the only person to feel this way. Stephanie Flanders is obviously a fair minded person. And I would like David Cameron to be a fair minded person too.
;)
How can he be so confident of being able to implement tough discipline in schools, especially with regard to expulsion at the sole discretion of head teachers? That is, will a British Bill of Rights be supreme to the ECHR, or would a conservative government simply ignore ECJ rulings?
Does he like the Website Nick Clegg = Neil Kinnock?
Additional Question is he looking forward to the LD's Yellow Taxi Time at the next election as I certainly am!
I would like David Cameron to get Carol Vordermann or Jeremy Clarkson to stand in Sheffield Hallam! No candidate has been selected yet and it is not the long-shot the LD's claim it to be!
LD LD LD - Out Out Out!
Miller 2.0 what would you borrow extra money to do over and above David Cameron's proposed governmental spending increase?
Is the following argument complete rubbish?:
'The Tories might not do some stuff that Labour might not do.'
Do you think Labour have underestimated the impact of immigration on local communities since coming to power?
I forget to say - I have done an article on the LD's having their fortune told:
http://nickcleggneilkinnock.blogspot.com/
The Conservative Democracy Task Force has gone far further than the Government in proposing a rebalancing of power and a curbing of party controls on parliamentary scrutiny. It says little, however, about the power of Ministers and nothing about tackling the cynicism-inducing Punch and Judy politicking of which he is as guilty as any of his counterparts. What further proposals will the Conservatives produce to persuade disenchanted voters that they put the public and national interest first, well ahead of getting into and staying in power?
David,
After watching you enjoy the snow today with Carol Vorderman, I have a related question to ask:
You may be aware that there is a strong Man Made Climate Change sceptical streak running through the party. Do you give any credit to this scepticism, or is your mind made up.
I would like to think that you would give both sides of the argument serious consideration before rushing headlong into what could be an expensive waste of our money.
When will he a) call a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, b) remove Conservative MEPs from the EPP group, c) renegotiate and succeed in obtaining a reduction of UK's financial commitments to the EU, and d) retrieve British sovereignty over all matters British?
1) Are you going to draw a line between giving and taking offence - and defend the right of speech for those who don't give offence. Importantly make it an offence in public office to interfere with the public when no offence is given - for example politicially correct actions to snuff out christmas etc.
2) Are you going to encourage personalised medicine - that is drugs that are tailored to an individual genetics. That is does a person have rights to take some risks with their own health if a drug is tailored to them as individuals - without running 10 years of clinical trials.
3) Are you going to get family courts to publish the summaries of financial (not sensitive family data) outcomes of divorces. That is judges will start to be responsible for the decisions that they made.
- The UK public sector has a chronic lack of individual responsibility, whether it's the public and local councils, drug regulators and patients, divorceees and judges etc, etc. The whole public sector bears very little responsibilty or is willing to administer it. Government should set an exmaple. This should be a thread running through Government.
Can Britain afford its public sector any more?
Mr Cameron, what are you going to do that's actually different to the current government? To me, the Tories under you seem far too similar to New Labour for my liking. Where are all the radical ideas and calls for change that this country so desperately needs?
Alternatively, you could just mention the name "Peter Hitchens" and, for our entertainment, post the foul-mouthed rant that Cameron will probably make about him afterwards...
I would ask him when he gets in at the next election will he see justice done for his country and people and see this man goes here and stays there for a very long time for his crimes that have ruined this country.
Mr Cameron is on record as saying that he does not want to be Prime Minister of England only and has described those who complain about the West Lothian Question and the Barnett Formula as "sour little Englanders".
Given his undisguised contempt for the English, why should anyone who regards themselves as such vote for him?
David Cameron, do you think it is a conflict of interest to align yourself with Carol Vorderman who after all made a lot of money from "FirstPlus" - the company that specialised in bad credit loans, secured loans , second mortgages?? Hypocritical? Yes or No?
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"FirstPlus, a controversial loans business owned by Barclays, will close to new business and sack 300 staff.
FirstPlus, which was promoted in adverts by TV presenter Carol Vorderman, made loans to those with less-than-perfect credit histories secured on their homes. "
Why not ask him this.
"The Democrats won the US presidential election partly because of disillusionment with George Bush but also because many believed that Obama would bring real change to the country. What would he say to convince people that a vote for the Conservative Party is not just a vote against Gordon Brown but a vote for a better place for them to live"
Mind you, as the question is so long, there might not be time left for his reply.
Thought Daily Referendum's Q was nicely posed.
I'd ask: Has the party successfully shed it's nasty tag?
BTW, memo to Sue: we don't want you back.
Is the Cameron Conservative party now the true inheritor of the great Liberal tradition in this country, and if so why not be more explicit about it? And if not, why not?
The Question you SHOULD ask:
Will you reduce the size of Government? It is enormous and 60,000,000 people have had enough of being told to eat more vegetables by 646 imbeciles. Look what happened to East Germany and Romania. AND their leaders.
The Question you WILL ask
Can I see your underpants and where do you get your hair done, it's lovely!!?
Democracy in this country is in tatters:
1. The Lords is unreformed
2. We have ceded many powers to Brussels.
3. The West Lothian question
How is Cameron going to restore fair and effective democratic government to the UK?
Mr Cameron,
With all three political parties facing the same way on the EU. What can the Conservative Party offer those, who want to support the Conservatives in the EU elections, but are drawn to UKIP?
What are you going to do for the English?
To do you agree, with the Welsh Assembly, that the Welsh language should be of equal standing as English?
Mr Cameron, as you know I was the campaign manager for David Davis. Why are you not welcoming him back into the shadow cabinet?
Mr Cameron will you make Trafalgar Day a Bank Holiday for the Nation?
I would ask him:
"I know you had a 'normal university experience', so do you think that others who also do that and e.g. smoke cannabis or take a small amount of cocaine when younger should be punished with jail sentences and get criminal records which could ruin their lives?"
javelin said...
1) Are you going to draw a line between giving and taking offence - and defend the right of speech for those who don't give offence.
Dear Mr Javelin,
You sound like a nice, reasonably educated, middle-class conservative.
So HOW, in GODS NAME, can you fail to understand that without the freedom to offend, there is no freedom of speech?
How did you arrive at this position of such complete ignorance about the very nature of one of our fundamentally important freedoms?
Just how is it that you are capable of such a mind-blowingly stupid statement as that contained in your question? And how can it possibly be that you are prepared, openly and knowingly, to compound and publicise your ignorance by suggesting putting such a question to David Cameron?
I would be sincerely grateful for your reply. I genuinely want to understand how we arrived at this lamentable state of affairs.
Ask him why in 2002 he co-authored a report which stated that we should consider legalising drugs, and what his position now is.
I think this would be an important question - because with the long recession ahead - the drugs problem and the crime associated with it will be greatly magnified.
"Mr Cameron, your recent comments that bankers should perform community service indicates a streak of bandwagon politics. Will your government be defined by such attitudes?"
With the Conservative Party potentially standing in all four constituent parts of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), what message does this send of conservative unionist values? What problems do you forsee, specifically in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
I can think of a few things I would ask.
1. If David Cameron were to become PM tomorrow, what is the very first law, iniative or policy that he would enact?
2. DC has previously said that if Ireland vote yes on Lisbon he "would not let the matter rest there"... Can he be a little more specific as to what he feels can be done?
3. How much is the current state pension?
4. Would David Cameron support a wholely elected upper chamber in Parliament?
5. Have you read "the Plan" by Daniel Hannan and Doug Carswell? Any feedback?
6. What is David Camerons favourite blog? Does he ever contribute under an assumed name or as Anonymous?
7. Is David Camerons Savings account still under a privately listed bank/ BS, or a state owned bank?
8. If DC had to describe Gordon Brown in one word, what word would he choose? (your choice if you want to clarify if that word need be clean or not)
9. Who will win the premier league this year?
10. Why should EU Sceptics that might have voted Tory, or have done in the past, vote Conservative at the upcoming EU election, and in the General Election?
11. Jack Bauer or James Bond?
I've often wanted to ask Mr Cameron:
When Gordon Brown refuses to answer your questions at PMQs and instead asks what the Tories would do, why don't you answer him instead of asking your next question? If Mr Speaker pulls you up and tells you to ask a question instead, surely this will demonstrate very clearly once and for all what the purpose of PMQs is and stop the Prime Minister trying to turn it into Leader of the Opposition's Question Time every week.
When you come to power, do you think the best thing to do would be to repeal every Act passed since 1997, and if not, why not?
MikeyP nails it...
Given David Cameron's Bullingdon Club habit of trashing eating establishments during his time as an inmate at Oxford Prison, does he agree with Christ Church steward John Harris's bullying tactics against "Sid's Kitchen"?
Mr Cameron, why on earth have you bought into the whole "green" nonsense - considering the truly catastrophic damage that it's attempted implementation will do to this country's economy for absolutely negligible global result?
AARGH!!! Feral apostrophe alert! :-(
David do you still plan to introduce a ‘citizen’s service’ for sixteen year olds? If so what is the point of it being voluntary like he proposed?
David do you believe that the FPTP voting system is the best system for the UK? What system would you like?
Please give me a list of laws introduced in the last 10 years that you will summarily abolish?
With the economy in freefall and social ills affecting us all, why are you talking about giving parliamentary time to hunting?
After all, 75% of the British public don't want to see a return to the cruelty of hunting, so aren't you just alienating millions of voters?
Hunting with hounds
During a putative Tory Government, will you ignore the baying of the right and not act to allow (highly unpopular) fox hunting to resume? Will you instead quietly sweep the matter under the carpet as Blair did for so long?
(And, yes I live in the countryside.)
Tory Eurosceptics
How will you ensure any putative Tory Government’s leadership is not derailed by the rabid Eurosceptics - as your predecessors as party leader have been?
Meeja stunts
Following on from the recent Carol Vorderman stunt, can we expect more of this sort of thing? Are you keen on getting luvvies publicly on board?
If there is room in the interview for an anoraks question…(and remembering I am a CF geek) then I would ask one of the following…
Do you think the Chairman of Conservative Future is correct to suggest that all fascist parties have left wing tendencies?
Why should the average 18 year old Conservative supporting individual bother to join the Conservative Party rather then just vote for it?
Do you believe more then 50% of those registered to vote will do so at the next general election?
The one question I would not ask him is…
Have you ever sampled a slippery nipple?
House of Lords
The House of Lords is still only partially reformed. Should we now have a fully elected second chamber and if not, why not?
Abortion
Noting how you voted in the very recent free vote on abortion, Do you think any parliamentary time should be given over to rehashing this issue yet again during the next parliament (as the repellant Nadine Dorries and her cohorts want)?
OK. Leave that last bit out. I must control myself.
Quangos
How many Quangos - or what percentage of existing Quangos would a future putative Tory government abolish?
A dog
Have you promised the Cameron children a dog (or other pet) if you are elected?
The Railways
Are we to get an apology for the mess made by the last Tory Government’s Rail privatisation and will it be reversed?
The Olympics
Its costs continue to spiral as the recession continues. What’s to be done about the London Olympics?
David Davis
OK, so he made a bit of a fool of himself and infuriated you, but isn’t it time to bring David Davis back on board?
Coalition
If you had to - would you be prepared to cut a deal with the Lib Dems to gain power - even if this meant electoral reform?
Foreign wars
Should the UK pull out of its war entanglements - embarked on by Blair? Or do you think the Afghanistan war is going to continue for the foreseeable future?
Are you a supporter of Philip Blond's Red Tories?
Here's my three'penneth:
1) What plans do you have to restore democratic, parliamentary government ?
2) What is your timetable for repeal of all illiberal legislation, introduced (falsely) under the banner of the 'war on terror', and for cancellation of all associated database development contracts ?
3) When do you plan to stand at PMQs and say: "I do not intend to question the PM, as his refusal to answer any question, but rather to repeat meaningless and non-constructive sound-bites, simply wastes the valuable time of the members of this house and brings disrespect on us all."
Mr Cameron,
Considering the recent revelations regarding the House of Lords and the Justice Secretary's proposed reforms of the Upper House, do you still maintain that Lord Ashcrofts tax status is a matter for him?
Dear Iain,
I don't doubt that 'climate change' will crop up in the conversation. I have one simple request that you ask David Cameron if the Shadow Environment Minister will attend the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, 8-10 March 2009, in New York. And if not, exactly why not.
More information: http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/newyork09.html
Thanks
David Cameron specifically listed English votes for English laws in his leadership literature. What will he do to make this a reality?
Whilst Parliament is sovereign from a constitutional point of view many would say that it has diminshed itself by allegations of sleaze around allowances, etc and by spending without control on itself. Shouldn't Parliament submit itself to limits on its own spending?
The interview with Benn was excellent, it wasn't just softballs but it encouraged an intelligent dialogue, which is in short supply these days.
I think I would ask David Cameron if can really sustain a balance between trying to recapture the center with a modern, friendly, eco-literate face and the eu-bashing xenophobic knee-jerk reactionaryism that makes up much of his party. A good pivot question for this is if he really intends to keep on fooling around with irrelevant and extreme parties in Europe or get serious and get together with the CDU, after all, he used to work with them quite happily.
A couple of others have asked, but it is a question I would like an answer to as well.
Has he read 'The Plan' by Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell and does he intend to follow most or all of it to give democracy back to the people?
Nurse Caroline Petrie
So that Community Nurse was suspended for unprofessionally imposing her own religion on a patient for the second time. Should she be fired?
Britain’s broken electoral system
The FPTP electoral system for the House of Commons is broken, bogus and undemocratic in the age of political parties. What should be done about it?
(Hell will freeze over...)
ID cards
The whole ghastly, expensive ID card thing. Any incoming Cameron administration would immediately scrap it, would it?
People say you have a nasty temper. Is it true?
Shoe throwing
It now seems an established and fashionable part of political protest to chuck shoes at politicians. How good are you at ducking?
David - Do you promise that, if you get into power this year or next, you won't spend the first two to five years moaning about all the problems the Labour government have left you to clear up, but will instead work on going forward and stress what *you* are doing? (Because you quite rightly called them to account when they tried to get away with this...)
What is he going to do to reverse the authoritarian legislation of the last ten years?
I would ask him what a Conservative government would do about Home Information Packs. I would ask him why people should pay £350.00 plus VAT for a HIP which housebuyers rarely ask to see. Any searches which are more than a few weeks out of date are worthless. With houses now taking months to sell they are penal piece of Labour ideology. Most buyers get their own searches done anyway.
Although he cannot look at the country's books, how would his government respond to the downturn, who would he bail out who would he let go bust, would tax cuts be the best stimulus package?
I'm a Blairite - liberal tory, lastly can I ask, 'David can you take a spare shoe to PMQs!'
Why do serving servicemen and women, living in barracks, have to pay for a TV License when serving prisoners do not.
John Hopkins
Consumer spending is key to stimulating the economy.
Australian citizens were given a$900 Federal Government stimulus payment, in 2009, which was intended to help businesses get back on their feet through consumer spending.
Will Mr Cameron give this idea a try?
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